Stockard Channing and Martha Plimpton in Richard Greenberg's PAL JOEY

 
By Kenneth Jones

Christian Hoff, the Tony Award winner for playing the charismatic and
tough Tommy DeVito in Jersey Boys, will be Pal Joey for Roundabout
Theatre Company this fall. He'll bewitch and bother Oscar nominee
Stockard Channing as cougar Vera Simpson in the revised version of the
groundbreaking 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical.

Tony Award nominee Martha Plimpton (Top Girls) will play Gladys Bumps, a
role that has been reinvented in a new script revision by Tony Award
winner Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain).

Performances under the direction of two-time Tony Award winner Joe
Mantello (Assassins, Take Me Out) begin Nov. 14 toward a Dec. 11 opening
at Studio 54.

A song for Joey that was cut from the show before Broadway, "I'm Talking
to My Pal," will be restored to the score for this new production.
Additionally, some songs from the score have been reassigned. Plimpton's
Gladys Bumps character is expected to sing the specialty song, "Zip."
Music direction is by Paul Gemignani; choreography is by Tony nominee
Graciela Daniele (Once on This Island, Ragtime). The Roundabout
production is presented in association with producer Marc Platt (Wicked,
Three Days of Rain).
The design team will include two-time Tony Award winner Scott Pask
(sets), five-time Tony Award winner William Ivey Long (costumes),
two-time Tony Award winner Peggy Eisenhauer and eight-time Tony Award
winner Jules Fisher (lights), Tony Meola (sound) and Don Sebesky
(orchestrator).

Channing won a Tony Award for her performance in Roundabout Theatre
Company's Joe Egg in 1985, and also received Tony nominations for her
acclaimed performances in The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of
Separation, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun and Roundabout Theatre
Company's The Lion in Winter. In 2002 she won two Emmy Awards, one for
her role as First Lady Abbey Bartlet in NBC's "The West Wing" and the
other for her performance as Judy Shepard in "The Matthew Shepard
Story." She was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe when she
re-created her role in the film "Six Degrees?" She was Rizzo in the
film "Grease."

Christian Hoff won a 2006 Best Featured Actor in a Musical Tony for his
portrayal of Tommy DeVito in Jersey Boys. He was also an original cast
member of The Who's Tommy.

Plimpton is a two-time Tony Award nominee for her recent performances in
Top Girls and The Coast of Utopia.

This is the first Broadway revival of Pal Joey in more than 30 years. A
1963 revival starred Bob Fosse, who was Tony-nominated for starring as
Joey. A 1976 Broadway staging starred Joan Copeland, Dixie Carter, and
Christopher Chadman.






























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