It took awhile to get her to Broadway, but now that she's here, Ruthie Henshall is making the most of it. Last summer, the London actress told Playbill On-Line she was expecting to join the Broadway cast of Chicago at the beginning of this year. It took until May for Henshall to arrive as Velma Kelly in the Tony-winning smash, but no sooner has she settled into the Kander & Ebb tuner than she's been announced for another show: Putting It Together, the Stephen Sondheim revue due at the Barrymore Theatre starting Saturday Oct. 30 and opening Nov. 21.
The show was to have started Oct. 9, but producer Cameron Mackintosh pushed the dates back to wait for Henshall, spokesperson Bob Fennell told Playbill On-Line. A Chicago spokesperson did not yet know when Henshall's last performance in that show would be, though he said she was contracted "into the fall."
Rehearsals for Together begin Sept. 27. Henshall takes the place of previously-announced Susan Egan, who's playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret until November.
An Olivier Award-winner for She Loves Me, Henshall played Roxie in the Chicago revival's London premiere, and also won acclaim for her work in Crazy For You and Miss Saigon.
The revue, devised by composer-lyricist Sondheim, stars Carol Burnett (Moon Over Buffalo), George Hearn (La Cage Aux Folles, Sunset Boulevard), John Barrowman (The Fix) and "Perfect Stranger" Bronson Pinchot. Burnett will play seven performances a week, with television personality Kathie Lee Gifford stepping into Tuesday night performances beginning Nov. 9.
The revamped version of the revue, produced by Mackintosh in association with CA's Mark Taper Forum, premiered in fall 1998 at the Taper. Director of that production Eric D. Schaffer will helm the Broadway bow.
Putting it Together contains 35 songs from Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, The Frogs, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, Assassins, the film "Dick Tracy" and Do I Hear a Waltz?.
Putting Together together are designers Bob Crowley (set) and Howard Harrison (lighting). A costumer has not yet been selected, though Bob Mackie is doing Burnett's dresses.
Sondheim veteran Jonathan Tunick will provide the orchestrations. Bob Avian will create the musical staging.
The original version of the revue played at NY's Manhattan Theatre Club in the mid 1990s and starred Julie Andrews and playwright Christopher Durang. Sondheim was very much involved in that process, as he was in reshaping it for the L.A. mounting. It's unclear how much, if any, further work he'll do on the New York staging.
While best known for her comedy/variety television program, "The Carol Burnett Show," Burnett is beloved by Broadway audiences for her starring roles in such musicals as Once Upon a Mattress and Fade Out - Fade In. Burnett received raves for her long-awaited Broadway return in 1995, when she appeared in the Ken Ludwig comedy, Moon Over Buffalo.
Tickets for Putting it Together go on sale July 26 via Telecharge (212) 239-6200.
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Here's the song-list used in the Los Angeles mounting of Putting It Together:
"Lovely," "I'm Calm" and "Impossible" (Forum)
"Do I Hear A Waltz?" (Do I Hear A Waltz
"Come Play Wiz Me," "There's Always A Woman" (Anyone Can Whistle
"Have I Got A Girl For You," "The Ladies Who Lunch," "Marry Me A Little," "Not Getting Married Today," "Being Alive" (Company)
"Ah, But Underneath," "Who's That Woman?", "Country House," "Could I Leave You," "The Road You Didn't Take," "Buddy's Blues" (Follies)
"My Husband The Pig," "Every Day A Little Death," "Bang!" (A Little Night Music)
"Invocation and the Instructions to the Audience" (The Frogs)
"Pretty Woman" (Sweeney Todd)
"Rich And Happy," "Merrily We Roll Along," "Good Thing Going," "Like It Was," "Old Friends" (Merrily We Roll Along)
"Putting It Together," "It's Hot Up Here" (Sunday in the Park with George)
"Hello, Little Girl" (Into The Woods)
"Sooner Or Later," "Back In Business," "More" ("Dick Tracy")
"Unworthy of Your Love" (Assassins)
