Last year's Broadway revival directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford: Promises, Promises, a musical from the 1960s about the shenanigans in an office. This year's Broadway revival directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, a musical from the 1960s about the shenanigans in an office.
"I know they're going to be compared, but I think they're very different," says Cameron Adams, a cast member of both shows. "Promises, Promises doesn't take place that much in the office building, and it's about Chuck's relationship with his boss and with this woman he's in love with. The score is more pop music. With this, it [the score] feels much more like musical comedy. It takes place in the office building the entire time, and the whole thing is about him working his way up in the office. Even visually, compared to what Promises looked like, this show is like night and day."
Headlined by Daniel Radcliffe in his musical debut, the new How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying began previews last weekend and is scheduled to open March 27. This revival comes just 15 years after a revival that many still remember, which starred Matthew Broderick and a then unknown Megan Mullally and won Broderick the Best Actor in a Musical Tony. Some material that was cut from the original 1961 production for that revival has been restored for the new revival, including the Act 2 number "Cinderella, Darling," which is sung by Adams and the rest of the women's chorus.
How to Succeed is Adams' seventh Broadway show. All of them have been either revivals (Oklahoma and The Music Man along with Promises and How to Succeed) or stage adaptations of movies (Hairspray, Shrek, Cry-Baby). Adams has repeatedly found herself in musicals set in the 1950s and '60s: In addition to Hairspray, Cry-Baby and her last two Broadway shows, she was in a jukebox musical called The 60's Project at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House. She's also been in a number of musicals that take place in the heartland, among them The Music Man and Oklahoma. Another recurring theme: shows populated by storybook characters—which was the case not only with Shrek but also Hans Christian Andersen, which she did at Maine State Music Theater in 2003.
While these motifs have emerged in her work, Adams does not chafe at possible typecasting the way some performers do. "I've totally accepted the fact that as much as I would love to be in Rent or shows like that, I'm probably never going to," she states. "You've gotta be okay with the fact that you look a certain way. I have a round face and freckles, and I look Midwestern, I look 'all American.' I watch Rock of Ages and think, 'Oh, God, how fun to wear the crimped, crazy wig and sing all that '80s pop music! It would be such a fun departure.' But this is what I do. I sort of stick with the classics. I think everybody's got their type, and I'm okay with it. Maybe when I'm older, I'll be able to branch out a little more."
Rock of Ages comes to mind quickly because Adams' boyfriend, Jeremy Woodard, is in it (and has been since it originated off-Broadway in 2008). They started dating during the five weeks both were on the Hairspray tour in mid-2006, though they'd met about a year earlier through mutual friends. They would have worked together again in 2008 had Cry-Baby lasted longer, as Woodard was slated to join the cast as a replacement when the show posted its closing notice. Both hail from the Carolinas—Woodard from North, Adams from South.
She was a high school junior—and junior-class vice president—in Myrtle Beach, S.C., when she was cast in her first Broadway show, the 2000-01 revival of The Music Man directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman. "I was not trying to be a professional child actor," she says. "I grew up mostly dancing—singing and acting secondary." It was her participation in a dance scholarship program that led to the Music Man audition: Joe Lanteri, who runs the New York City Dance Alliance (in which Adams had been involved since she was 12), recommended her to Jay Binder Casting after they contacted Lanteri in their search for Middle American-looking youngsters for the play.
