Brooke Shields Joins Tonya Pinkins and More in The Happiest Millionaire Concert
(© David Gordon)
Stage and screen star Brooke Shields will join the cast of the one-night-only benefit performance of Disney's The Happiest Millionaire. The special 50th anniversary production of the classic film, benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, will play two performances at Joe's Pub on December 3.
The actress joins previously announced stars including Lesley Ann Warren and Joyce Bulifant (reprising their roles from the film), Tony Award nominee Dana Ivey, Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins, two-time Tony nominee Brad Oscar, Luca Padovan, Sam Poon, Cherish Myers, John Charles McLaughlin, Nicholas Barasch, Cameron Bartell, Christopher Carothers, Tyler Fauntleroy, and Jason Pintar.
Shields will portray Mrs. Sarah Duke (of Duke University fame), the elegant and charmingly overbearing mother of Angier Duke, played by Barasch, love interest to young Cordy Biddle. She will share the stage with Ivey as Aunt Mary, elder matriarch of the Biddle family and Mrs. Duke's rival in early 20th-century sophistication.
The show is adapted by Doug Thompson and Alex Beck from the screenplay by AJ Carothers, produced by Happiest Musical LLC, Doug Thompson, and Brice Corder, with direction by Alex Beck, musical staging by Justin Henry, and musical direction by Mark Hartman.
The Happiest Millionaire, premiering in 1967, is the final live-action Disney production to be overseen by Walt Disney himself. The film features a score by Mary Poppins composers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman and originally starred Fred MacMurray, Greer Garson, Gladys Cooper, and Geraldine Page. The Happiest Millionaire also welcomed the Hollywood screen debuts of Tommy Steele, John Davidson, and Lesley Ann Warren. Set in 1916 Philadelphia, the film is based on the real lives of eccentric renaissance man, alligator collector, and boxing enthusiast Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, and his daughter Cordy, a fiercely independent fighter who, like all Disney princesses, wants to discover the world on her own terms.
All proceeds will solely benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
