Sierra Boggess, Hugh Panaro, Carolee Carmello & More Set for Reading of Broadway-Bound Musical Rebecca

Musical stars Sierra Boggess (The Little Mermaid, Love Never Dies), Hugh Panaro (The Phantom of the Opera) and Carolee Carmello (The Addams Family) will headline a March 18 industry reading of the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca. The reading will be co-directed by Tony winner Michael Blakemore (Kiss Me, Kate; City of Angels) and Francesca Zambello (The Little Mermaid).

Boggess is set play a character dubbed “I,” the second wife of dashing Maxim de Winter, to be played by Panaro. Carmello has been cast as Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper who resents the arrival of young bride “I” to Manderley, the home in which she cared for the now-deceased first Mrs. deWinter (a.k.a. Rebecca). The cast for the reading will also include James Barbour, Anastacia Barzee, Don Stephenson, William Youmans and John Horton.

Rebecca features an original book and lyrics by Michael Kunze, music by Sylvester Levay, English book adaptation by two-time Tony Award winner Christopher Hampton (Sunset Boulevard) and English lyrics by Hampton and Kunze. The musical was first produced at the Raimund Theater in Vienna, Austria, in September 2006 and closed in December 2008, directed by Zambello. It has also been mounted in Japan, Finland and Hungary.

The producers of Rebecca are Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza for Global Broadway Productions and Norton Herrick for Herrick Entertainment. Sprecher and Forlenza produced two London workshops of the show and had been eyeing a 2011 West End production.