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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (2010) as Janet Weiss
Location: Wiltern Theatre
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 musical comedy horror film directed by Jim Sharman. The screenplay was written by Sharman and Richard O’Brien based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, music, book, and lyrics by O’Brien. The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through early 1970s. The film stars Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, O’Brien himself, and Barry Bostwick along with cast members from the original Royal Court Theatre, Roxy Theatre, and Belasco Theatre productions.
The story centres on a young engaged couple whose car breaks down in the rain near a castle where they seek a telephone to call for help. The castle is occupied by strangers in elaborate costumes celebrating an annual convention. They discover the head of the house is Frank N. Furter, an apparent mad scientist who actually is an alien transvestite who creates a living muscle man in his laboratory. The couple is seduced separately by the mad scientist and eventually released by the servants who take control.
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Les Misérables (2008) as Éponine Thénardier
Location: Hollywood Bowl
Les Misérables is a sung-through musical based on the novel Les Misérables by French poet and novelist Victor Hugo. Premiering in Paris in 1980, it has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and original French-language lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, alongside an English-language libretto with accompanying English-language lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. The London production has run continuously since October 1985 – the longest-running musical in the West End and the second longest-running musical in the world after The Fantasticks original Off-Broadway run.
Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him by a tremendous act of mercy, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade.
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Alive in the World (2008) as Phoebe
Location: The Zipper Factory
Alive in the World was seen at the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival, where it had a book and a cast of four. Composer/lyricist Paul Scott Goodman (Bright Lights, Big City) has since expanded the cast but stripped the show of dialogue, so it’s now a song cycle about living and loving in post-9/11 New York. Greg Naughton, the only holdover from the NYMF production, and Toby Lightman completed the cast for the benefit concerts.
The benefit performances were directed by Kurt Deutsch of Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, who told BroadwayWorld there may eventually be a recording of Alive in the World. Lighting was by Herrick Goldman and sound design by Danny Erdberg. Musical director Jim Abbott played keyboards and headed a band composed of Jon Herington on guitar, Bobby Baxmeyer on guitar and keyboards, bassist Gary Bristol and drummer Gary Seligson.
A shoeless Lea Michele portrayed a high school senior who seeks solace from the tragedy and her embattled parents by fooling around with boys.
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Spring Awakening (2006-2008) as Wendla Bergmann
Location: Eugene O’Neill Theatre
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Spring Awakening (2006) as Wendla Bergmann
Location: Atlantic Theatre Company
Spring Awakening is a rock musical with music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. It is based on the German play Spring Awakening (1891) by Frank Wedekind. Set in late-19th-century Germany, the musical tells the story of teenagers discovering the inner and outer tumult of teenage sexuality. In the musical, alternative rock is employed as part of the folk-infused rock score.
Following its conception in the late 1990s and various workshops, concerts, rewrites and its Off-Broadway debut, the original Broadway production of Spring Awakening opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on December 10, 2006. Its cast included Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, Skylar Astin, Carla Bianco and John Gallagher Jr. while its creative team comprised director Michael Mayer and choreographer Bill T. Jones. The original Broadway production won eight Tony Awards, including Tonys for Best Musical, Direction, Book, Score and Featured Actor. The production also garnered four Drama Desk Awards, while its original cast album received a Grammy Award. In addition, the show was revived in 2015 on Broadway and garnered three Tony Award nominations, among other honors.
The success of the Broadway production has spawned several other productions worldwide, including various US productions, a short West End production that won four Laurence Olivier Awards including Best Musical, and a series of international productions.
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Hot and Sweet (2006) as Naleen
Location: New York Musical Theatre Festival
Hot and Sweet, a new musical about an all-girl 1940’s big band to be produced at the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Hot and Sweet is not, as its author Barbara Schottenfeld might insist, a musical about an all-girl band heating up America while the boys are off fighting World War II. No, this show, which concludes its run today at the Theatre at St. Clement’s as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, is really a romance. Schottenfeld, you see, is hopelessly in love with subplots.
Among them: Honeytones lead singer and financial backer Blossom (Rebecca Eichenberger) is a former stripper who’s funded the band via a loan shark; the group’s surly manager, Lou (William Parry), is a failed trumpet player who wants the Honeytones to achieve the success he didn’t; brilliant saxophonist-singer Naleen (Lea Michele) falls for the group’s young arranger (Andy Sandberg), with catastrophic results; trombonist Lana (Elizabeth Inghram) has a son and a secret that could threaten the band’s bookings; trumpeter extraordinaire Beats (Jami Dauber) is too fat to fit into a group Lou wants to pack with lovelies.
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Fiddler on the Roof (2004-2005) as Shprintze
Location: Minskoff Theatre
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon the family’s lives. He must cope both with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters, who wish to marry for love – each one’s choice of a husband moves further away from the customs of his faith – and with the edict of the Tsar that evicts the Jews from their village.
The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, had the first musical theatre run in history to surpass 3,000 performances. Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run. It remains Broadway’s sixteenth longest-running show in history. The production was extraordinarily profitable and highly acclaimed. It won nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical, score, book, direction and choreography. It spawned five Broadway revivals and a highly successful 1971 film adaptation, and the show has enjoyed enduring international popularity. It is also a very popular choice for school and community productions.
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The Diary of Anne Frank (2004) as Anne Frank
Location: Round House Theatre
The Diary of Anne Frank is a stage adaptation of the book The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. It premiered at the Cort Theatre in 1955.
The play is a dramatization by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, and opened at the Cort Theatre on Broadway on October 5, 1955. The play was produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and directed by Garson Kanin, with scenic design by Boris Aronson and lighting design by Lee Watson. The cast was led by Joseph Schildkraut as Otto Frank, Susan Strasberg as Anne Frank, David Levin as Peter van Daan, Gusti Huber as Edith Frank, Jack Gilford as Mr. Dussel, Dennie Moore as Mrs. Van Daan, and Lou Jacobi as Mr. Van Daan. The play transferred to the Ambassador Theatre on February 1957, and closed there on June 22 of that year after 717 performances. The play then traveled the United States with the original cast, save for Millie Perkins playing Anne Frank.
The play opened simultaneously in seven German cities on October 1, 1956. Upon its opening in Amsterdam on November 27, 1956, Queen Juliana was in attendance.
The play received the Tony Award for Best Play and was also nominated for Best Actress (Susan Strasberg), Best Scenic Design (Boris Aronson), Best Costume Design (Helene Pons), Best Director (Garson Kanin). The play also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. Susan Strasberg won the 1956 Theatre World Award. The play also received the 1956 New York Drama Critics Circle award for best play.
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Ragtime (1998-1999) as The Little Girl
Location: Lyric Theatre
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Ragtime (1997) as The Little Girl
Location: Toronto Centre for the Arts
Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty. The music includes marches, cakewalks, gospel and ragtime.
Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in the United States in the early 20th century: African Americans, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; upper-class suburbanites, represented by Mother, the matriarch of a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York; and Eastern European immigrants, represented by Tateh, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia.
Historical figures including Harry Houdini, Evelyn Nesbit, Booker T. Washington, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Stanford White, Harry Kendall Thaw, Admiral Peary, Matthew Henson, and Emma Goldman are represented in the stories.
The musical had its world premiere in Toronto, where it opened at the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts (later renamed the Toronto Centre for the Arts) on December 8, 1996, the brainchild of Canadian impresario Garth Drabinsky and his Livent Inc., the Toronto-production company he headed. The US Premier was in Los Angeles in 1997 and ran one year before opening on Broadway on January 18, 1998 as the first production in the newly opened Ford Center for the Performing Arts. Directed by Frank Galati and choreographed by Graciela Daniele, Ragtime ran for two years, closing on January 16, 2000, after 834 performances and 27 previews. The original cast included Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie, Peter Friedman and Audra McDonald, who were all nominated for Tony Awards, and also included Judy Kaye, Mark Jacoby and Lea Michele. The production was conducted by David Loud.
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Les Misérables (1995-1996) as Young Cosette
Location: Imperial Theatre