After days of speculation, Cats has finally found its glamour cat Grizabella in Leona Lewis, the season 3 winner of “The X-Factor” in the UK, as confirmed by The Shubert Organization and The Nederlander Organization. This will mark her Broadway debut.
Hailing from Britain, Lewis has won one Bambi Award, an MTV Video Music Award, and three World Music Awards, and has sold over 20-million records worldwide. She’s also a three-time Grammy Award and seven-time BRIT Award nominee. In 2014, she appeared in the jukebox musical film “Walking on Sunshine.”
Based on T.S. Elliot’s “Book of Practical Cats,” through song, dance, and poetry, Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, which once held the record for the longest-running musical on Broadway, follows a tribe of felines at their annual Jellicle Ball, where one cat is chosen to be reborn into a new life in the Heaviside Layer.
Quentin Earl Darrington joins Lewis & will return to Broadway as the lovable, wise patriarch Old Deuteronomy, the role originated on Broadway by Ken Page. Darrington made his Broadway debut as the tragic piano player Coalhouse Walker, Jr., in the 2009 production of Ragtime, coincidentally at the Neil Simon Theatre, where Cats will begin previews on July 14th, before opening on July 31st.
This will mark the first time the Tony-winning musical has been revived on Broadway after a two-year run at the London Palladium, which saw Beverly Knight and Nicole Scherzinger in the iconic role of the faded glamour cat who longs for acceptance back into the tribe.
Joining Lewis and Darrington will be Shonica Gooden (Rumpleteazer), Ahmad Simmons (Alonzo) Sharrod Williams (Pouncival), Giuseppe Bausilio (Carbucketty), Jeremy Davis (Skimbleshanks), Kim Faure (Demeter), Sara Jean Ford (Jellylorum), Lili Froehlich (Electra), Daniel Gaymon (Macavity), Christopher Gurr (Gus/Bustopher Jones), Tyler Hanes (Rum Tum Tugger), Andy Huntington Jones (Munkustrap), Kolton Krouse (Tumblebrutus), Eloise Kropp (Jennyanydots / Gumbie), Jess LeProtto (Mungojerrie), Georgina Pazcoguin (Victoria), Emily Pynenburg (Cassandra), Arianna Rosario (Sillabub), Christine Cornish Smith (Bombalurina), Corey Snide (Coricopat), Emily Tate (Tantomile), and Ricky Ubeda (Mistoffelees) with Richard Todd Adams, Aaron Albano, Callan Bergmann, Claire Camp, Francesca Granell, Jessica Hendy, Harris Milgrim, Madison Mitchell, Nathan Patrick Morgan and Megan Ort.
For tickets, visit Cats on Broadway.
