NewsPHOTO CALL: Samantha Barks, Ashlee Simpson, Stephen Moyer, Drew Carey and Lucy Lawless Star in Hollywood Bowl ChicagoThe starry Hollywood Bowl production of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Chicago, starring Samantha Barks, Ashlee Simpson and Stephen Moyer, began July 26 in Los Angeles under the direction of stage and screen star Brooke Shields.
By
Matthew Blank
July 27, 2013
Shields, who also appeared in the Broadway and London productions of Chicago, directs the award-winning musical that continues through July 28. Rob Fisher conducts the orchestra.
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Samantha Barks, Ashlee Simpson, Stephen Moyer, Drew Carey and Lucy Lawless Star in Hollywood Bowl Chicago
Samantha Barks, Ashlee Simpson, Stephen Moyer, Drew Carey and Lucy Lawless Star in Hollywood Bowl Chicago
The starry Hollywood Bowl production of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Chicago, starring Samantha Barks, Ashlee Simpson and Stephen Moyer, began July 26 in Los Angeles under the direction of stage and screen star Brooke Shields.
Barks ("Les Misérables") stars as Velma Kelly, opposite pop singer Simpson, who made her London and Broadway debuts as Roxie Hart in Chicago, and Moyer ("True Blood") as Billy Flynn.
The leading players also include Drew Carey ("The Price Is Right," "Whose Line Is It Anyway?") as Amos Hart and Lucy Lawless ("Xena: Warrior Princess," Grease) as Mama Morton.
The Broadway revival of Chicago began life as one of the three annual Encores! presentations offered by City Center. The musical opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in November 1996 where it remained through February 1997. The musical transferred to the Shubert Theatre on Feb. 11, 1997, and played that house through Jan. 26, 2003. The revival reopened at the Ambassador Theatre, its current home, on Jan. 29, 2003. Read more about the revival in the Playbill Vault.
Chicago won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical in 1997 as well as awards for actors Bebe Neuwirth and James Naughton, director Walter Bobbie, lighting designer Ken Billington and choreographer Ann Reinking. The original production was directed and choreographed by the late Bob Fosse. The modern classic has music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and book by Ebb and Fosse.
As a teacher, Mr. Waddell coached Brandon Victor Dixon, Jessica Vosk, Robert Fowler, Felicia P. Fields, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Angela Robinson, Soara-Joye Ross, and more.
Partially inspired by Sophocles' Antigone, the show is an intimate exploration of love that goes beyond faith between a queer Pakistani-American man and his deeply devout mother.
The work centers on a truck driver named Larry Walters, who uses a lawn chair and 42 helium-filled weather balloons to fly nearly 16,000 feet above Los Angeles.
