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Send in the Clowns: Zeta-Jones makes Broadway bow

(Agencies)
2009-09-23 09:53

LOS ANGELES – Oscar-winning actress Catherine Zeta-Jones will make her Broadway debut in a revival of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," producers said on Tuesday.

The British actress, who won an Oscar for her supporting role in the 2006 screen adaptation of the musical "Chicago," will play Desiree Armfeldt, singer of the hit ballad "Send in the Clowns."

Fellow Briton Angela Lansbury, 83, will take the role of the terse Madame Armfeldt in the revival, which opens on December 13 at New York's Walter Kerr Theater.

Set in a Swedish country house at the turn of the century, "A Little Night Music" first opened on Broadway in 1973 and won six Tony awards.

The current revival is a transfer from British director Trevor Nunn's recent production in London.

"I'm honored that Trevor Nunn and Stephen Sondheim asked me to make my Broadway debut in this beautiful production," Zeta-Jones said in a statement. "I look forward to starting rehearsal with this extraordinary group of people and working with the incomparable Angela Lansbury, whose work I've long admired."

Zeta-Jones' film career has cooled in recent years with such efforts as "No Reservations" (2007) and "Intolerable Cruelty" (2003) failing to make much of an impression at the North American box office.