(September 14, 2006) — Kristin Chenoweth will return to Broadway in December to star in a revival of “The Apple Tree,” three one-act musicals based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton and Jules Feiffer and all tied together by a common theme: the consequences of temptation.
The Roundabout Theatre Company production, directed by Gary Griffin, will open Dec. 14 at Studio 54. Preview performances begin Nov. 28.
The musical, which has a book and score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (with additional book material by Jerome Coopersmith), originally played New York in 1966 with a cast headed by Barbara Harris, Larry Blyden and Alan Alda. It ran for 463 performances.
No word yet on who will appear as Adam to Chenoweth’s Eve, but the performer starred in a City Center production last year at “Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert.” The Roundabout revival will be based on that production, also directed by Griffin. Her co-stars then were Malcolm Gets and Michael Cerveris.
Chenoweth received laudatory reviews for her performance, with The Associated Press praising her “megawatt stage presence” and for lifting the show into “the musical-theater stratosphere.”“The Apple Tree” consists of Twain’s “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” a whimsical tale of the world’s first couple; Stockton’s “The Lady or the Tiger,” an Arabian Nights-style fantasy in which a man must choose one of two doors and get what lies behind it a woman or a tiger; and Feiffer’s “Passionella,” the story of a forlorn chimney sweep who wants to become a movie star.
Chenoweth last appeared on Broadway in “Wicked,” the hit musical about the early years of the two witches from “The Wizard of Oz.” It is currently running at the Gershwin Theatre in New York, the Oriental in Chicago, on tour around the country and is in previews at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre, where it officially opens Sept. 27.
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