Elaine Paige appearing in Follies

The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced additional casting and a two week extension for its revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies. The production has been extended two weeks and will now run from May 7th-June 19th 2011 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater.

Elaine Paige will play Carlotta Campion - the seen-it-all-before ex-Follies girl and fading film star, who belts out show-stopper “I’m Still Here”.  She follows a long line of musical theatre stars who have played the part including Shirley MacLaine, Carol Burnett, Elaine Stritch and the late Eartha Kitt. She also recorded a new album when she was in New York recently.  Elaine Paige and Friends  is due to be released in the UK on 1st November.

Speculation that Kim Cattrall would be joining Bernadette Peters (who is playing Sally Durrant Plummer) to perform the role of Phyllis Rogers Stone was incorrect and Jan Maxwell will be playing the part. Miss Maxwell  is a Broadway regular whose appearances in The Royal Family and Lend Me a Tenor in New York both earned her Tony Award nominations.

Other casting in the musical features Terrence Currier (Theodore Whitman), Rosalind Elias (Heidi Schiller), Florence Lacey (Sandra Crane), Linda Lavin (Hattie Walker), Régine (Solange LaFitte), David Sabin (Dimitri Weismann), Susan Watson (Emily Whitman) and Terri White as Stella Deems.