Kander & Ebb's Curtains Headed to Al Hirschfeld Theatre, Opening 3/22

As expected, the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical Curtains is headed to Broadway this season. The forthcoming New Year's Eve closing of The Wedding Singer opens up the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, which will become home to Curtains when previews begin on February 27, 2007, according to the Associated Press. Opening night will be March 22.

Curtains, directed by Scott Ellis, tried out last summer in Los Angeles at the Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre where it received encouraging reviews. The show stars David Hyde Pierce as a detective called in to investigate the murder of a Broadway star who dies during the curtain call of her new show on its opening night in Boston. The cast also includes Debra Monk as the show's producer, Karen Ziemba as its lyricist, Jason Danieley as the composer, Jill Paice as an ambitious understudy, Edward Hibbert as the director, John Bolton as theater critic Daryl Grady, Michael X. Martin as stage manager Johnny Harmon, Michael McCormick as nervous investor Oscar Shapiro, Noah Racey as lead dancer/choreographer Bobby Pepper, and Megan Sikora as aspiring dancer Bambi Bernstein. Additional members of the 28-person cast will be announced shortly.

The book is by Rupert Holmes, who wrote The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Holmes also wrote additional lyrics for Curtains, along with Kander, the show's composer. Ebb, the original lyricist and Kander's writing partner for some 40 years, died in 2004. The original book for the show was by Peter Stone, who died in 2003.