TWITTER WATCH: DAMES AT SEA's Lesli Margherita, a Shipshape Showgirl Even As A Kid

After hit Off-Off Broadway and Off-Broadway productions nearly 50 years ago, and delighting regional audiences across the country ever since, Dames at Sea, a musical spoof of 1930s showgirls and sailors, now opens on Broadway at the Helen HayesTheater (240 W 44th Street), tonight, October 22, 2015, at 6:30pm.

It looks like Lesli Margherita, who first made an impression on Broadway audiences with her comic performance as Mrs. Wormwood in MATILDA, started rehearsing for this moment long ago. In DAMES AT SEA, she's the Broadway diva, Mona Kent, and an opening night tweet from her sister, Lynn Margherita, shows that even at age 8 or 9 she was a shipshape showgirl.

DAMES AT SEA stars John Bolton as The Captain/Hennesey, Mara Davi as Joan, Danny Gardner as Lucky, Eloise Kropp as Ruby,Laurence Olivier Award winner Lesli Margherita as Mona Kent, andCary Tedder as Dick. The original 1968 production of Dames at Sea launched the career of the young ingénue playing Ruby, Bernadette Peters. The Dames at Sea company includes Tessa Grady, Kristie Kerwin, Ian Knauer and Kevin Worley.

With a book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, music by Jim Wise, orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, and music supervision and vocal & dance arrangements by Emmy Award winnerRob Berman (Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Finian's Rainbow), Dames at Sea is directed and choreographed by three time Tony Award nominee Randy Skinner (42nd Street, Irving Berlin's White Christmas).