Saturday Night Fever Star James Carpinello to Play Sonny in Xanadu

Saturday Night Fever lead James Carpinello will play Sonny in Xanadu, the first new musical of the 2007-08 Broadway season. The show, an adaptation of the mega-flop movie musical of the same name, will start performances at the Helen Hayes Theatre on May 23.

After a wide casting search, Carpinello was chosen to play Tony Manero in the 1999 musical version of Saturday Night Fever, which earned him an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination. Off-Broadway, he played a teen hunk in the comedy Stupid Kids at the WPA Theatre and the Century Center for the Performing Arts. Carpinello was cast—and started rehearsals—as Link Larkin in the original cast of Hairspray but dropped out of the project to take a role in the war film The Great Raid. He has also been seen in the film The Punisher and in the TV shows Felicity, So noTORIous and The Closer.

Producers also announced that Eric Stern will serve as musical director and David Zinn will design the costumes for Xanadu, joining creatives David Gallo sets and Howell Binkley lighting.

Xanadu also stars Kerry Butler as Kira, Tony Roberts as Danny and Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa as the evil Muses. It is scheduled to open on June 26.