Ellison & Danesh Return for Limited Chicago RunsDate: 8 June 2006
Jennifer Ellison (pictured) will return to Chicago to play Roxie Hart for the second time, following Bonnie Langford’s extended run to 8 July 2006. For her final weeks, Langford will star alongside Darius Danesh, who also returns to the show as Billy Flynn for a limited three-week run (from 17 June to 8 July 2006) before Ian Kelsey takes over the role of the sleazy lawyer alongside Ellison’s jazz slayer at the Cambridge Theatre.
Ellison is best known for her role in Brookside. She and Kelsey (Emmerdale, Casualty), who makes his debut in the show, will lead the cast for a five-week season from 10 July to 12 August 2006. Amra-Faye Wright and Victor Maguire will continue to star as Velma Kelly and Amos Hart, while The X Factor’s Brenda Edwards has extended her run as Mama Morton to 22 July 2006.
Ellison previously starred as Roxie in autumn 2004, while Danesh starred as Billy in autumn 2005. While best known for his television work, Kelsey has previously been on stage, starring as Danny in Grease in the West End and on tour.
Chicago won the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production as well as the 1998 Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical. The 1975 musical, about a wannabe jazz star turned murderess, is based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins and has a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.
The current stage revival is directed by Walter Bobbie and designed by John Lee Beatty, with costumes by William Ivey Long, lighting by Ken Billington and sound by Rick Clarke. Musical supervision is by Rob Fisher and musical direction by Corin Buckeridge. Choreography is by Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse.
It opened at the West End’s Cambridge Theatre (where the original London production of the Kander and Ebb musical opened in April 1979 and ran for 603 performances) on 28 April 2006, after a record-breaking nine-year run at the Adelphi Theatre, where it opened in November 1997.
- by Caroline Ansdell
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