In celebration of the highly anticipated BROADWAY BARES: STRIP-OPOLY on Sunday, June 20, series creator Jerry Mitchell was the featured guest on Seth's Broadway Chatterbox on Thursday, June 17th, at 6:00 PM.
While there, Mitchell talked about all of his current slate of projects. Among them, Mitchell has just redone the opening number of LOVE NEVER DIES, featuring bearded ladies and other 'freaks' with a new song while making other trims throughout the show.
The highly-anticipated CATCH ME IF YOU CAN will have a reading next week with 'amazing' new material and the same leads that played the show from Seattle (Kerry Butler, Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron Tveit and Tom Wopat). The chorus has been expanded from 4 girls to 10 amongst other changes. The show is prepping for January rehearsals for a Broadway bow.
Mitchell also just directed a reading of BALLROOM with Tyne Daly that he is directing and developing for a hopeful 2011 production.
Seth's Broadway Chatterbox is a one hour weekly talk show at Don't Tell Mama (343 West 46th Street), hosted by Seth Rudetsky. The show is taped in front of a live audience and airs on BroadwayWorld.com Radio Mondays at 7pm, Wednesdays at 10pm and Sundays at noon. To attend Chatterbox, there is a $10 donation and a two-drink minimum. The donation goes directly to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the nation's leading industry-based, not-for-profit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization.
Mitchell presents BROADWAY BARES XX: "STRIP-OPOLY" in association with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on Sunday, June 20 with two performances only (9:30 PM & Midnight) at Roseland Ballroom (239 West 52nd Street). BROADWAY BARES XX: "STRIP-OPOLY" is produced by and benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
Jerry Mitchell made his Broadway debut as Director with the hit musical, Legally Blonde, for which he also served as Choreographer and was nominated for both the Tony and Drama Desks Awards for his choreography and the Drama Desk Award for his direction. He received the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics' Circle Awards for his dazzling choreography created for the 2005 Tony Award-winning Best Revival of La Cage Aux Folles, having also been nominated for the Tony Award in the same category for the smash hit musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Previously, Jerry had received Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Astaire Award nominations for choreographing Broadway's Tony Award-winning Hairspray and Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations for choreographing The Full Monty, both shows having been directed by his cherished collaborator, Jack O'Brien.
Jerry began his choreographic career as associate choreographer to Michael Bennett on Scandal and Jerome Robbins on Jerome Robbins' Broadway. For Broadway, he also choreographed the hit revival of Gypsy, starring Bernadette Peters, which combined his own work with his recreation of Jerome Robbins' original, as well as Never Gonna Dance, the first and only Broadway musical based on an Astaire/Rogers film, making him one of the only choreographers to ever have three Broadway musicals running simultaneously (a distinction which occurred yet again for him in 2005 with the simultaneous runs of Hairspray; La Cage Aux Folles and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). Prior to those productions, Jerry choreographed the Broadway revivals of The Rocky Horror Show (Drama Desk nomination) and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (on stage and film), the national tour of Jekyll & Hyde and Paper Mill Playhouse’s critically acclaimed Follies, featuring Ann Miller.
Jerry's memorable film work includes In and Out, Camp, Drop Dead Gorgeous and Scent of a Woman. For television, Jerry was nominated for an Emmy Award for choreographing The Drew Carey Show. He was recently featured as host of Bravo's Step It Up and Dance and appeared in his role of Director/Choreographer of the Broadway production in MTV's reality show, Legally Blonde-The Search for Elle Woods.
In 1990, Jerry created the first Broadway Bares, a comedy burlesque performed for the benefit of the charity Broadway Cares, and has produced, directed and/or choreographed this landmark annual event 18 times thereafter (so far). He also conceived and authored the recently published book, Backstage Pass, a photo essay of the event's first 17 years, with all proceeds benefiting Broadway Cares.
Future projects include choreographing Love Never Dies (the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera) and Catch Me If You Can (both with Jack O'Brien as Director), as well as Broadway musicals based on the films, Mad Hot Ballroom and Kinky Boots and the play, Once in a Lifetime.
