America Ferrera to Star in West End's Chicago and Broadway Revival of The Miss Firecracker Contest

America Ferrera, the Emmy-winning star of TV’s Ugly Betty, will make her London stage debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago beginning November 7, when the musical revival re-opens at the Garrick Theatre. Ferrera has signed on for an eight-week engagement in the show, which has been hiatus since closing at the Cambridge Theatre on August 27. She will be joined by current Broadway headliner Amra-Faye Wright as Velma Kelly; further casting will be announced shortly.

According to EW.com, Ferrera is also planning to make her Broadway debut in spring 2012 in a revival of Beth Henley’s 1984 comedy The Miss Firecracker Contest. The play, which was first produced by Manhattan Theatre Club in an off-Broadway production starring Holly Hunter, centers on Carnelle Scott, a Mississippi woman who enters a small-town beauty pageant. Hunter reprised her starring role in a 1989 film version of the play. EW is reporting that the Broadway production, to be helmed by Judith Ivey, will begin rehearsals in March; no details about a possible theater, producers or creative team members have been revealed.

Ferrera, best known for her award-winning run in the title role of the sitcom Ugly Betty, appeared off-Broadway in Dog Sees God. On the big screen, she has appeared in two Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films as well as Real Women Have Curves and voiced Astrid the Viking in the animated hit How to Train Your Dragon.