Cast ready to bring Dirty Dancing to Toronto stage
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 11:43 AM ET
CBC Arts
Toronto actor Jake Simons will play dance instructor Johnny Castle and New York actress Monica West has been cast as Baby in the Mirvish production of Dirty Dancing.
The stage production based on the 1987 film starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey is scheduled to preview at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre beginning Oct. 31.
Monica West, left, Jake Simons and Britta Lazenga are shown in this undated handout photo for the cast of Dirty Dancing in Toronto.
(Steve Stober Photography/Canadian Press)
The other main role, of Johnny's dance partner Penny, will be played by Illinois-born Britta Lazenga, a former dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, Mirvish Productions announced in a release on Wednesday.
The cast also includes Canadians Victor A. Young as Max Kellerman, Adele Gigantes as Vivian, Drylan Trowbridge, Kent Sheridan, Rudy Webb, Jeffrey Wetsch and Tyler Murree.
"The cast is largely Canadian simply because the depth of talent we found here was so stunning and unmistakably passionate," said writer and creator Eleanor Bergstein, who is working with the production backed by Mirvish and Jacobsen Entertainment.
The musical and film were both written by Bergstein. Set in 1963, the story follows 17-year-old Frances Houseman, known as Baby, as she reluctantly visits a summer resort with her family. There she meets the brawny dance instructor Johnny and their relationship develops.
The show, with its intense dance scenes, has been a hit in London and Hamburg, Germany. This will be its North American premiere.
Simons, 33, was raised in Kitchener, Ont., and started his professional career as a dancer in West Side Story at the Stratford Festival.
"I feel honoured to play a character who, for an entire generation, redefined dancing for men, making it both sexy and acceptable," said Simons, who saw the movie version when he was just 14.
He has performed in Song and Dance at Theatre Calgary and Aladdin and Grease at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. Recently, he has been a regular on TV series Queer as Folk.
Simons said he's been taking ballroom dance lessons in anticipation of the role.
Scenes resurrected
West was trained in classical ballet at the Rochester City Ballet, but switched to musicals, starring in productions at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York and George Street Playhouse in New Jersey.
"I remember the first time that I watched the film, I identified with Baby and felt her joy and pain as she finds first loves in both Johnny and dance," West said.
"In the stage production, there are brand new scenes that weren't in the film and I feel privileged to be able to introduce something fresh to the original text of the much-loved film."
The stage production resurrects some scenes that were left on the cutting room floor of the movie version.
The London creative team has come en masse for the Toronto version of Dirty Dancing, including director James Powell, choreographer Kate Champion, set designer Stephen Brimson Lewis and musical supervisor Conrad Helfrich.
