Ariana DeBose will star in an autumn workshop for a new production of the Neil Simon/Cy Coleman & Dorothy Fields classic stage musical Sweet Charity, producers announced today.
The workshop production will feature all-new direction and choreography by Tony Award nominees Jeff and Rick Kuperman, who choreographed Broadway‘s The Outsiders.
Producers ATG Theatricals, Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson, Bee Carrozzini, Kevin Ryan, and Lamar Richardson announced the project today.
Inspired by Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, Sweet Charity “explores the turbulent love life of Charity Hope Valentine, a hopelessly romantic but chronically unlucky dance hall hostess in New York City.”
The musical features a book by Neil Simon and a score by Cy Coleman (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) that includes the songs “Big Spender,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “The Rhythm of Life,” and “Baby, Dream Your Dream.”
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In a statement, Jeff and Rick Kuperman said, “Sweet Charity asks a question that feels urgent today: how do you keep an open heart in a world set on breaking it? Ariana has the wit, fearlessness, vulnerability, and extraordinary physical command to make Charity entirely her own. We’re approaching the musical with deep respect for its history while creating a contemporary theatrical language in which dance drives the story and Charity’s hard-earned optimism remains at its core.”
Additional details will be announced at a later date.
The pairing of Sweet Charity and DeBose has been predicted among some theater fans since she hosted the 75th Tony Awards in 2022 and performed a bit of the musical’s famous “Rich Man’s Frug” dance with audience member Sam Rockwell.
Sweet Charity opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre on January 29, 1966, in a production directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and starring Gwen Verdon, John McMartin, Helen Gallagher, and Thelma Oliver. Bringing together several defining talents of the American theater—including Coleman, Fields, Simon, Fosse, and Verdon—the collaboration made the musical a landmark of mid-century Broadway. It ran for 608 performances and received nine Tony Award nominations.
The 1969 film adaptation directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse starred Shirley MacLaine in the title role.
