Full casting has been announced for the December Los Angeles tryout of the forthcoming new Broadway musical, Amélie. Among Broadway veterans who will be part of the production are Adam Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal) and Manoel Felciano (Disaster!).
They will join Phillipa Soo, who wowed audiences in the original Off-Broadway run of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and earned a Tony nomination as Best Actress in a Musical for her Broadway debut as Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton, in the title role.
The L.A. cast will also feature Emily Afton, Alyse Alan Louis, David Andino, Randy Blair, Heath Calvert, Alison Cimmet, Savvy Crawford, Harriett D. Foy, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Tony Sheldon, Jacob Keith Watson, and Paul Whitty.
The show is scheduled to open at a Broadway theatre to be announced in spring 2017, following a Los Angeles tryout at the Ahmanson Theatre December 4-January 15, 2017. Los Angeles opening night will be December 16. Broadway tickets are not yet on sale.
Amélie is based on the Academy Award-winning 2001 French film of the same name, with a story that follows the whimsical and charming existence of its title character, a lonely French waitress who decides to act as a secret wish-fulfiller to the people who live around her.
Soo played her final performance in Hamilton July 9, the same date as creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. She will also supply the voice for one of the characters in the forthcoming Miranda-scored Disney film Moana.
The stage musical Amélie is written by Craig Lucas (An American in Paris, Prelude to a Kiss) and features music by Daniel Messé with lyrics by Nathan Tysen (The Burnt Part Boys, Tuck Everlasting) and Messé.
Tony-winning director Pam MacKinnon, who directed the 2015 world-premiere production at Berkeley Repertory Theatre that starred Les Misérables film actress Samantha Barks as Amélie Poulain, will recreate her work on Broadway. Read reviews here. The show will have musical staging and choreography by Sam Pinkleton.
Phillipa Soo originated the role of Amélie in the workshop productions of Amélie, A New Musical. After graduating from The Juilliard School in 2012, Soo was cast as Natasha Rostova in the Ars Nova production of Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, based on Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace; the show went on to transfer Off-Broadway to Kazino. (The musical begins previews at the Imperial Theatre October 18 with Denée Benton in Soo's role.) Previously on the small screen, Soo appeared on the NBC television series Smash in the role of Lexi.
Amélie, A New Musical will have scenic and costume design by Tony Award winner David Zinn, co-lighting design by Tony Award nominee Jane Cox and Mark Barton, sound design by Tony Award nominee Kai Harada, projection design by Drama Desk Award winner Peter Nigrini, musical direction by Kimberly Grigsby, vocal arrangements by Kimberly Grigsby and Daniel Messé, and orchestrations by Tony Award winner Bruce Coughlin.
