Smash Star Megan Hilty to Headline Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at Encores!

Less than a week before Megan Hilty's debut as a Marilyn Monroe wannabe in TV’s Smash, the Broadway vet has been tapped to portray a second iconic blonde, diamond-lover Lorelei Lee, in an Encores! production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The show will have seven performances at New York City Center, May 9-13, directed by John Rando, with music direction by Rob Berman and choreography by Randy Skinner. No other casting has been announced.

Set in the Roaring Twenties, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes follows the madcap adventures of the original “dumb blonde,” Lorelei Lee, as she sets sail for Europe with her best friend Dorothy Shaw. Based on Anita Loos’ bestselling novel, the show has a book by Loos and Joseph Fields, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin. In addition to “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” the score includes like “Bye, Bye, Baby,” “A Little Girl from Little Rock” and “I Love What I’m Doing (When I’m Doing it for Love).”

The original production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 9, 1949, starring Carol Channing, and played 740 performances. Marilyn Monroe played Lorelei in a 1953 film adaptation. The show was revived by Tony Randall’s National Actors Theater in 1995 and ran for 24 performances, starring KT Sullivan as Lorelei.

Hilty is being touted as a breakout star of Smash, which debuts on NBC on February 6. (Click here for more on her character, Ivy Lynn.) After making her Broadway debut as Glinda in Wicked (a role she repeated on the national tour and in Los Angeles), she played Doralee in the Broadway production of 9 to 5 and starred in Two by Two in the Los Angeles Reprise series. Hilty is currently in production on the animated film Dorothy of Oz with Kelsey Grammer, Hugh Dancy and Lea Michele.