Casting TV's "A Christmas Story"

I would love to see Erin Dilly and John Bolton reprise their roles from the Broadway production, especially since Bolton has such a long history with the show. He was a part of it before Pasek and Paul.

I imagine they will go with a well known name for Miss Shields, though it is hard to think of someone who could belt "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" and tackle that number's tap dancing. And I wonder how big Luke Spring is now. He would probably be around 15 which might make him too old for the Specialty Tap Boy role.

The two child leads are harder to guess, though I would think Hudson Leverro (currently playing Young Calogero in A Bronx Tale) would be up for the part of Ralphie as he played younger brother Randy at Papermill.

If Fox follows the way they cast GREASE they will stick to young, relatively new talent from TV, but the roles of the parents appear to be more middle aged. I can see them stunt casting the role of Santa (Alec Baldwin?), and Jean Shepard with well known names.

The creative team (director, choreographer) is harder to guess, though I think the originals (John Rando, Warren Carlysle) would be great as they know the show so well.

Really looking forward to this one. I hope they don't mess it up.

This is a story that has never relied on star power to draw an audience, and I hope the producers acknowledge that and stick with John Bolton and Erin Dilly, who were terrific when I saw the show in Boston. There are certainly some bigger names who could fill the bill (Jason Alexander as the father or Tom Hanks as Jean Shepard come to mind), but I just think it is so unnecessary to go that route. Perhaps they will rely on the marketing clout from "Oscar and Tony winning composers Pasek & Paul" and leave it at that. I hope so. I really liked this show.

Call_me_jorge said: "They can use Rachel Bay Jones who played the mother in its pre Broadway tour. She has a growing fan base. I'm not sure if rehearsals for this will conflict with her time in DEH, though.





And come one to think of it, Will Roland looks a lot like Ralphie......