Kelli O’Hara will star in a new Broadway revival of “Kiss Me, Kate,” playing one of the lead roles in a Roundabout Theater Company production set for spring 2019.
O’Hara returns to Broadway for the first time since she won a Tony Award for her 2015 turn in “The King and I.” The actress is a musical-theater favorite for performances in revivals at both Lincoln Center Theater (“King and I,” “South Pacific”) and at Roundabout, where she co-starred with Harry Connick, Jr. in the 2006 revival of “The Pajama Game.”
Scott Ellis, who is an associate artistic director at Roundabout, will direct “Kiss Me, Kate” after staging well-received Roundabout productions of musicals including “She Loves Me”and “On the Twentieth Century.” Warren Carlyle, with worked with Ellis on “She Loves Me” and “Twentieth Century,” choreographs.
The 1948 Cole Porter musical “Kiss Me, Kate” hasn’t been on Broadway since the 1999 Tony winning production that starred Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie. With a book by Sam and Bella Spewack, the show centers on the turbulent backstage relationship between the two lead performers in a musical production of “The Taming of the Shrew.”
No further casting for the Roundabout production has yet been set, nor have the exact dates or the venue details. “Kiss Me, Kate” is currently on tap to start performances in February 2019.
