Clare Halse, Dan Burton and Daniel Crossley in Singin’ in the Rain at the Theatre du Chatelet, Paris. Picture: Patrick Berger
The Theatre du Chatelet, or Broadway-on-Seine as it became known after bringing a classic American musical to Paris every year under the stewardship of Jean-Luc Choplin, reopens in September after more than two years of refurbishment.
And even though Choplin has gone, the new regime of British artistic director Ruth Mackenzie and Choplin’s right-hand man Thomas Lauriot dit Prevost is maintaining the passion for famous musicals sung in English with French surtitles by bringing back An American in Paris to its original home for its Christmas show.
It will run from 28 November 2019 to 1 January 2020 with most of the same creatives who premiered the award-winning musical at the Chatelet for a short run at the end of 2014 before taking it to New York and on a US tour. It then settled in at the Dominion in London’s West End for nine months in 2017-18.
The book by Craig Lucas was slightly tweaked from the 1951 Oscar-winning movie, bringing it a year or so further away from wartime but still featuring the immortal songs of George and Ira Gershwin, some of which were not used in the film.
Who can forget ‘But Not For Me’, ‘I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise’ and ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’? But the show focused more on the dancing than the singing with top American ballet dancer Robert Fairchild playing Jerry and Royal Ballet star Leanne Cope as Lise. In London, Ashley Day took over from Fairchild after three months.
Christopher Wheeldon, who adapted the movie script for the stage, will direct and choreograph the September production.
Previous classic musicals to adorn the Chatelet before it closed for its makeover in early 2017 include A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, My Fair Lady, The King and I, Into the Woods, Singin’ in the Rain, Passion, Kiss Me, Kate and Sunday in the Park with George.
Jeremy Chapman
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