Broadway's Woman in White to Shutter February 19 at Marquis

The Woman in White, which is based on Wilkie Collins' Victorian thriller of the same name, concerns how Walter Hartright's life is changed forever after a chance encounter with a mysterious woman, dressed in white, desperate to reveal her chilling secret. When he takes up his position as drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie and her half sister, Marian, he sees in Laura's face an eerie reflection of the forlorn creature he previously met. Walter and Laura's feelings for each other are thwarted by her engagement to the sinister Sir Percival Glyde. What is the connection between Laura, Sir Percival and the woman in white? Is Sir Percival's friend Count Fosco, with his unusual taste for white mice and poison, really as charming and well-meaning as he seems. Can true love prevail?

The Woman in White features music by Lloyd Webber, lyrics by David Zippel and a book by Charlotte Jones. The tuner, directed by Trevor Nunn, opened on Broadway to mixed reviews on November 17, 2005. In his Broadway.com Review of the tuner, Rob Kendt wrote: "There are times during The Woman in White, whose sets consist almost entirely of curved white walls upon which designer William Dudley projects a dizzying array of computer-animated backdrops, when an audience might wish they had a keypad or a joystick to speed things along, or choose to see one character more and others less. Instead this would-be Gothic mystery, based on Wilkie Collins' baroquely plotted Victorian page-turner, is planted firmly in a world with its own rules of tempo, mood and overheated narrative logic, a place somewhere between operetta and theme park.”

The Broadway cast features Maria Friedman as Marian Halcombe, Michael Ball as Count Fosco, Adam Brazier as Walter Hartright, Angela Christian as Anne Catherick, Ron Bohmer as Sir Percival Glyde, Jill Paice as Laura Fairlie and Walter Charles as Mr. Farlie. Although Friedman was expected to take medical leave on February 12, with Judy Kuhn filling in during her absence, that plan has now changed and Friedman will be with The Woman in White until it closes.

Interestingly, the Broadway production of The Woman in White will close the week before the West End mounting of the tuner. The premiered in London and has been playing there since August 18, 2004. It will finish at the Palace Theatre on February 25 prior to a UK tour.