Toni Braxton Joins the Cast of Aida

Disney Theatrical Productions has announced that Toni Braxton will be assuming the title role in the Broadway production of Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida at the Palace Theatre. The Grammy-winning recording artist, who first appeared on Broadway as Belle in Beauty and the Beast in 1998, will take over as Aida for a limited, four-month engagement beginning June 30.

Aida, based on the Verdi opera of the same title, won four 2000 Tony Awards: Best Score, Best Scenic Design (Bob Crowley), Best Lighting Design (Natasha Katz), and Best Actress (Heather Headley, who originated the title role). The show features direction by Robert Falls (Death of a Salesman); a book by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast), Falls, and David Henry
Hwang (M. Butterfly); and choreography by Wayne Cilento (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying).

In his review of the show, TheaterMania’s David Finkle wrote: “The Disney folks, producing the show under their Hyperion Theatricals umbrella, have shrunk Aida into something weirdly underpopulated and underdone — not because there’s any indication that they thought an ‘intimate’ musical was the direction in which to go to differentiate fresh from familiar, but because they don’t seem to know what they had in mind other than to extend their roster of Broadway moneymakers (Beauty and the Beast and the incomparable Lion King) with another saleable title.”