The road company of The Scarlet Pimpernel will set up camp in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Jan 2-7, 2001. The Broadway musical hit stars Ron Bohmer as the swashbuckling Pimpernel who crusades for justice during the tumultuous French revolution. Bohmer played the role on tour. In New York, he starred as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard. Bohmer also appeared as The Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The other featured players in Pimpernel are Amy Bodnar (another Sunset Boulevard alum); and William Michals as Chauvelin.

Pimpernel has book and lyrics by Nan Knighton; music by Frank Wildhorn, who is also creative director of Atlantic Theatre/Atlantic Records and an associate artist of the Alley Theatre in Houston. Director/choreographer Robert Longbottom made his Broadway debut with the Tony Award-nominated musical Side Show. His other New York credits include direction and choreography for Off-Broadway's Pageant and Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular.

Pimpernel opened on Broadway on Nov. 9, 1997, garnering Tony Award nominations for Best Actor in a Musical (Douglas Sills), Best Musical and Best Book (Nan Knighton). In the fall of 1998, after the show was acquired from its original producers, Longbottom was brought in to re-direct and re-choreograph. The revised production re-opened Nov. 4, 1998 and played at the Minskoff Theatre through May 30, 1999. A tour of brief summer engagements ensued before the show returned to Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre on Sept. 10, 1999, where it ran through Jan. 2, 2000. Orange County Performing Arts Center is located at 600 Town Center Drive. For tickets and information call Ticketmaster at (714) 740-7878 or (213) 365-3500. The deaf community should dial the TTY number, (714) 556-2746.