Broadway Features and Reviews
Catherine Zeta-Jones Hasn't Lost Her Razzle Dazzle
By Rachel Dozier, Broadway Magazine
One of the highlights of the current Broadway season is the arrival of Catherine Zeta-Jones in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music as Desiree Armfeldt. This show marked her Broadway debut, and is consistently one of the top-grossing productions playing on Broadway.
Zeta-Jones' stage career began at age 11 in a production of Annie. Though she continued her career on the stage in various West End productions, she is best known for movies such as, The Mask of Zorro, America's Sweethearts, and the film version of Chicago, in which she played the notorious Velma Kelly.
The actress is starring alongside Broadway veteran Angela Lansbury. In a statement made to CNN on September 22, 2009, Zeta-Jones said, "I'm honored that Trevor Nunn and Stephen Sondheim asked me to make my Broadway debut in this beautiful production. I look forward to starting rehearsal with this extraordinary group of people and working with the incomparable Angela Lansbury, whose work I've long admired."
A Little Night Music was inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night. The music and lyrics were composed by Stephen Sondheim and the book was written by Hugh Wheeler. The show debuted on Broadway in 1973 and has had three London revivals since, with the last one in November 2008 being directed by Trevor Nunn, the current director of the newest Broadway revival.
Zeta-Jones was born in Swansea, Wales, September 25, 1969. Her brothers David and Lyndon Jones now aid her with her production company, Milkwood Films. An allusion to the Dylan Thomas radio play Under Milk Wood.
By the age of 15, she had dropped out of school, received her Actor's Guild card, and moved to London. In London she was in the chorus and an understudy for a lead in 42nd Street. When the lead became ill, Zeta-Jones took over and impressed the show's producer, David Merrick, so much that she became the lead full-time for nearly two years.
Her big break in the film industry occurred in Stephen Spielberg's, The Mask of Zorro. According to a 2001 movie review by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone Magazine, the actress "needs no lessons in being gorgeous." In a review by Janet Maslin of the New York Times, it is said that Zeta-Jones "plays Elena, Don Diego's long-lost and predictably raven-haired daughter, and she does it so showstoppingly that the film's appeal extends well beyond boyish action-adventure."
The actress has always been well known for her looks; however, she denies that she conforms to society's image of beauty. The beauty of Ms. Zeta-Jones on-stage has captivated Broadway audiences and critics alike.
"I like women who look like women. No one's more feminist than me, but you don't have to look as if you don't give a - you know. You can be smart, bright, and attractive aesthetically to others - and to yourself," the actress is quoted as saying.
You can catch Catherine Zeta-Jones in A Little Night Music on Broadway. Watch show videos and interviews right here on Broadway.tv, and see Ms. Jones featured in the January issue of Broadway Magazine.
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