{"id":94388,"date":"2025-11-02T22:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T06:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=94388"},"modified":"2025-11-02T22:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T06:00:08","slug":"dreamgirls-rocky-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2025\/11\/02\/dreamgirls-rocky-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreamgirls &#038; Rocky Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You want to talk about physically and emotionally exhausting shows?&nbsp; Try appearing in <strong><em>Dreamgirls<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Every few years, someone has visions of reviving the hit Broadway musical.&nbsp; The problem is finding someone who can fill <strong>Jennifer Holliday<\/strong>\u2019s voluminous pink blouse from the 1981 original production!&nbsp; The most successful was <strong>Lillias White<\/strong>, who helmed the 1987 revival (she was Holliday\u2019s understudy) \u2013 to say nothing of returning to the role for <strong>Seth Rudetsky<\/strong>\u2019s superlative concert in 2001 with <strong>Audra McDonald <\/strong>and <strong>Heather Headley<\/strong>.&nbsp; In 2004, <strong>Frenchie Davis <\/strong>from <strong><em>American Idol<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>The Voice<\/em><\/strong> headlined a handful of cities.&nbsp; Of course, <strong>Jennifer Hudson <\/strong>starred in the film version in 2007.&nbsp; Due to the success of the film, a national tour was hurriedly put together in 2009 with another <em>AI<\/em> alum.&nbsp; <strong>Syesha Mercado <\/strong>starred as Deena when the musical opened at the <em>Apollo Theatre <\/em>in Harlem \u2013 the first stop on a national tour that hoped to land on <em>Broadway<\/em>.&nbsp; Needless to say, that didn\u2019t happen.&nbsp; In 2016, <strong>Amber Riley <\/strong>from <strong><em>Glee<\/em><\/strong> was cast as Effie for the London debut of the musical.&nbsp; Following in Holliday and Hudson\u2019s footsteps, she won an award for her portrayal \u2013 the <em>Olivier <\/em>(their version of the <em>Tonys<\/em>).&nbsp; And now, director <strong>Camille A. Brown <\/strong>hopes to discover an unknown and make them a star when\/if the show hits <em>Broadway <\/em>next fall.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It was recently announced that <strong><em>The Rocky Horror Show<\/em><\/strong> would return to <em>Broadway <\/em>in April of 2026.&nbsp; So, the question on our quivering lips was simple \u2013 who would play the iconic role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter?&nbsp; Would some famous chap slip into the well-worn pumps and corset?&nbsp; Or would they find some fabulous unknown?&nbsp; In a way, they did both.&nbsp; Our very own <strong>Luke Evans <\/strong>will take on the role.&nbsp; Yes, the Welsh dreamboat is a known entity, having starred in numerous films (including the live-action version of <strong><em>Beauty and the Beast<\/em><\/strong>) as well as many stage roles on London\u2019s <em>West End<\/em>.&nbsp; But he hasn\u2019t conquered <em>Broadway<\/em>&#8230;yet.&nbsp; He\u2019ll lead the <strong><em>Rocky Horror<\/em><\/strong> cast when it bows at the venerable <em>Studio 54<\/em>.&nbsp; I predict he\u2019ll fill out the corset quite well \u2013 to say nothing of the panties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You want to talk about physically and emotionally exhausting shows?&nbsp; Try appearing in Dreamgirls.&nbsp; Every few years, someone has visions of reviving the hit Broadway musical.&nbsp; The problem is finding someone who can fill Jennifer Holliday\u2019s voluminous pink blouse from the 1981 original production!&nbsp; The most successful was Lillias White, who helmed the 1987 revival<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94389,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94388\/revisions\/94389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}