Tony Winner Norbert Leo Butz to Headline New Musical Catch Me If You Can

Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz has been confirmed for the upcoming premiere of new musical Catch Me If You Can, based on the story of real life con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. and written by Tony Award winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. The tuner, directed by Shaiman and Wittman’s Hairspray collaborator Jack O’Brien, is set to premiere at Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theater on July 23 and play through August 14.

Inspired by the book and subsequent film of the same title starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken, Catch Me if You Can follows the rise and fall of Abagnale and the people whose lives intersect his own winding criminal career. The musical had a reading, also directed by O’Brien, in 2005, featuring Nathan Lane, Tom Wopat and Matthew Morrison, followed by additional readings in 2007 starring Nathan Lane and Christian Borle. Butz will play relentless FBI agent Carl Hanratty, who pursues Abagnale throughout his travels.

Butz’s Broadway credits include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, for which he earned the Tony Award for Best Actor, Is He Dead?, Wicked, Thou Shalt Not and Rent. Off-Broadway, he has been seen in Fifty Words, The Last Five Years, Saved and Juno and the Paycock. Butz most recently appeared on Broadway in the acclaimed revival of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, replacing the exiting Jeremy Piven for two weeks in anticipation of incoming star William H. Macy.

Also rumored for the forthcoming premiere is current Next to Normal's Aaron Tveit, who would play opposite Butz as globetrotting Abagnale, as well as Tony Award nominee Kerry Bulter as love interest Brenda, a role created on screen by Academy Award nominee Amy Adams.

Catch Me if You Can also features a book by Terrence McNally and choreography by Jerry Mitchell.