Mitchell, Brown & Ives Join Mambo Kings Creative Team

The Mambo Kings is bringing in a new creative team. The show, which received mostly negative reviews out of town, originally featured direction by Arne Glimcher, music by Carlos Franzetti, lyrics by Glimcher and a book by Oscar Hijuelos and Glimcher, but now Broadway.com has learned that Jerry Mitchell is being brought on board to help direct. Jason Robert Brown will rewrite part of the score and David Ives will work on the book.

Mitchell, best known as a choreographer, recently won a Tony for his choreography of La Cage aux Folles. His work is also currently represented on Broadway by Hairspray and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Mitchell started out as a performer, making his Broadway debut in Brigadoon in 1980. One of his first choreography jobs was as an assistant to Jerome Robbins on Jerome Robbins' Broadway, which at one point featured The Mambo Kings choreographer Sergio Trujillo in its ensemble. In addition to those previously mentioned, Mitchell's Broadway choreography credits include You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, The Rocky Horror Show, Imaginary Friends, Gypsy for which he provided additional choreography and Never Gonna Dance. He has never before directed anything on the Great White Way something he shares with Glimcher, but is attached to direct and choreograph the upcoming stage musical version of Legally Blonde.

Brown won a Tony Award for his score for Parade and has also been represented on Broadway by Urban Cowboy, for which he wrote some new songs. His off-Broadway musicals include Songs for a New World and The Last Five Years for which he won 2002 Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics. He has also contributed original musical to numerous plays. His first solo album, Wearing Someone Else's Clothes, featuring his band the Caucasian Rhythm Kings, will be released on June 28 on Sh-K-Boom Records.

Ives is best known for his evenings of one-act comedies, All in the Timing and Time Flies. His other straight plays include Fine Very Live, Don Juan in Chicago, The Red Address, Mere Mortals and Others and Polish Joke. He wrote the book for Dance of the Vampires and adapted the books for over a dozen Encores! musical mountings, including Wonderful Town, which transferred to the Great White Way. Among his other notable credits is adapting the book for the Broadway production of David Copperfield: Dreams and Nightmares and writing the children's book Monsieur Eek.

Because of the creative switches, The Mambo Kings is not expected to start performances at the Broadway Theatre on July 20 as scheduled. Instead it is likely to begin a few weeks later, though an exact first performance date has not been announced.

A production spokesperson could not comment on the changes in the creative team.