Next Leg of Leggy Contact Tour Starts Nov. 5 in Toronto, Continues to April 2003 | Playbill

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News Next Leg of Leggy Contact Tour Starts Nov. 5 in Toronto, Continues to April 2003 The days may be numbered for the Broadway staging of Contact, set to close at the Vivian Beaumont Theater Aug. 31, but a new leg of the national tour kick high beginning Nov. 5 in Toronto.

The days may be numbered for the Broadway staging of Contact, set to close at the Vivian Beaumont Theater Aug. 31, but a new leg of the national tour kick high beginning Nov. 5 in Toronto.

The first national tour of the Tony Award-winning dance play by Susan Stroman ran May 2001 to June 2002, ending in Dallas. New dates for the next leg of the tour go through April 2003. No casting has been announced.

The ensemble show — the 2000 Best Musical Tony Award winner — originally offered standout roles for Karen Ziemba, who won the Tony for dancing a repressed wife's passions; Boyd Gaines, playing a desperate ad man trying to make contact at a dance club; and Deborah Yates as "the girl in the yellow dress," his object of desire. In essence, however, director-choreographer Stroman's imagination is the star of the piece.

Contact started in late 1999 at Lincoln Center Theater's Off-Broadway space, the Mitzi Newhouse, and was such a sensation it moved upstairs to the Broadway Beaumont. LCT's leaders essentially asked Stroman what she'd like to create, and she came up with Contact. The show, with recorded music, is broken into three sections: Swinging, in which lovers cavort on a Fragonard-inspired swing; Did You Move?, in which the housewife dances her fantasies, at an Italian restaurant; and Contact, set to the rhythm of Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistible."

A Sept. 1 Broadway performance of Contact will be broadcast live from Lincoln Center on PBS, offering the nation a taste of the show and tempting them to sample the coming tour. No public tickets are available for that performance. The show is advertised as closing Aug. 31. Daniel McDonald, Yates and Holly Cruikshank appeared in the 2001-2002 tour. The 2002-2003 Contact tour is expected to play the following dates:

 

  • Toronto's Canon Theatre Nov. 5-Dec. 15
  • Cincinnati's Aronoff Center Dec. 17-29
  • Louisville's Kentucky Center Dec. 31, 2002-Jan. 5, 2003.
  • Des Moines' Civic Center Jan. 14-19, 2003
  • Tucson's Centennial Hall Jan. 23-26, 2003
  • Costa Mesa's Orange County Performing Arts Center Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2003
  • San Francisco's Curran Theatre Feb 4-16, 2003
  • Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center Feb 15-March 3
  • Boston's Wang Center March 4-9, 2003
  • Jacksonville's Times Union Theatre March 11-16, 2003
  • Atlanta's Fox Theatre March 18-23, 2003.
  • Pittsburgh's Benedum Theatre March 25-30, 2003
  • Naples' Philharmonic Theatre April 1-6, 2003
  • West Palm Beach's Kravis Center April 8-13, 2003.
  • Ft. Lauderdale's Broward County Performing Arts Center April 15-27, 2003.  

Contact will make its long-awaited London debut Oct. 23. Michael White and Stage Holding will back the Lincoln Center Theater production, which will mark Stroman's West End directorial debut. Stroman, however, has choreographed London musicals, including the Royal National Theatre's revival of Oklahoma!, which recently made its Broadway bow.

 
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