Xanadu Star James Carpinello Exits Roller-Skating Musical With Injured Foot

James Carpinello, who has been playing the leading role of Sonny in the Broadway musical Xanadu since previews began on May 23, has temporarily been forced to leave the production. The actor injured his foot while roller skating during a rehearsal on June 12 at the theater, a production spokesperson confirmed to Broadway.com. The June 26 opening of the show is expected to be delayed, but no new date has been announced yet.

Carpinello's understudy, Andre Ward, who usually plays muse Terpsicore among other roles in the show, performed the role for the June 12 evening performance of Xanadu and will continue in the part until further notice. Curtis Holbrook, who notably appeared in All Shook Up on Broadway, is another understudy for the part, but he also appears in the substantial dancing role of Young Danny in the show.

Carpinello is best known for originating the role of Tony Manero in the 1999 musical version of Saturday Night Fever, a performance which earned him an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination. Off-Broadway, he played a teen hunk in the comedy Stupid Kids at the WPA Theatre and the Century Center for the Performing Arts. Carpinello was cast—and started rehearsals—as Link Larkin in the original cast of Hairspray but dropped out of the project to take a role in the war film The Great Raid. He has also been seen in the film The Punisher and in the TV shows Felicity, So noTORIous and The Closer.

In Xanadu, based on the mega-flop movie musical of the same name, the nine muses from ancient Greece come to life on a Venice Beach wall mural. While roller skating on the beach, one of the daughters, Kira Kerry Butler, meets and falls for a frustrated record album cover artist named Sonny. Enter Danny McGuire Tony Roberts, an aging song and dance man who Kira inspired back when he owned a supper club in New York in the 40s. Together, with the magical help of Kira, Sonny and Danny team up to build and open a roller disco nightclub called Xanadu.