Roundabout to Produce Pal Joey on Broadway in Fall 2008

Roundabout Theatre Company has scheduled a new Broadway production of Pal Joey for the fall at Studio 54. Featuring a new book by Richard Greenberg based on the original by John O'Hara paired with the classic score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, the musical will begin previews on November 21 and open on December 11, directed by Joe Mantello. The production is being billed as a limited engagement.

According to Roundabout's news release, casting will be announced shortly. Christian Hoff, the Tony-winning star of Jersey Boys, has participated in readings of the show.

Pal Joey will feature music direction by Paul Gemignani and choreography by Graciela Daniele. The design team will include Scott Pask sets, William Ivey Long costumes, Peggy Eisenhauerand Jules Fisher lights, Tony Meola sound and Don Sebesky orchestrations. Roundabout is producing Pal Joey in association with Marc Platt, a producer of Wicked and the Broadway production of Greenberg's Three Days of Rain.

Set in Chicago in the late 1930s, Pal Joey is the story of Joey Evans, a brash, scheming song-and-dance man with dreams of owning his own nightclub. Joey abandons his wholesome girlfriend, Linda English, to charm a rich, married older woman, Vera Simpson, in the hope that she'll set him up in business. Rodgers & Hart's score includes such classic songs as "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," "I Could Write a Book," "You Mustn't Kick It Around," and "Zip," among others. The new production will also feature "I'm Talking to My Pal," a song that had been dropped from the score during its initial out-of-town tryout.

In 1939, author John O'Hara approached Rodgers & Hart to collaborate on a musical adaptation of his popular "Pal Joey" stories that had originally run in The New Yorker. The musical premiered on Broadway on December 25, 1940, in a production directed and produced by George Abbott, and starring Gene Kelly and Vivienne Segal. While considered a success in 1940, a hit 1952 Broadway revival revealed the show as a true landmark Broadway musical, winning three Tony Awards and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical. A 1957 film version starred Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, and Kim Novak. Bob Fosse received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in the 1963 production, and a 1976 production at Circle in the Square starred Christopher Chadman and Dixie Carter. The most recent mounting of Pal Joeywas a 1995 Encores! concert version starring Patti LuPone and Peter Gallagher.