Sweet Charity with Ariana DeBose being workshopped

Per a press release just sent out:



"Producers ATG Theatricals, Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson, Bee Carrozzini, Kevin Ryan, and Lamar Richardson have confirmed that an autumn workshop is planned for a new production of the classic Neil Simon / Cy Coleman & Dorothy Fields musical, Sweet Charity, starring Academy Award® winner and Tony Award® nominee Ariana DeBose, with all-new direction and choreography by Tony Award® nominees Jeff and Rick Kuperman.

Inspired by Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria, Sweet Charity explores the turbulent love life of Charity Hope Valentine, a hopelessly romantic but chronically unlucky dance hall hostess in New York City. With a hilarious book by Neil Simon and a quintessentially mid-1960s score by Cy Coleman (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics) that includes the songs “Big Spender,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” “The Rhythm of Life,” and “Baby, Dream Your Dream,” Sweet Charity captures all the energy, humor, and heartbreak of life in the Big City for one of musical theater’s most enduring and iconic optimists.

Sweet Charity opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre on January 29, 1966, in a production directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse and starring Gwen Verdon, John McMartin, Helen Gallagher, and Thelma Oliver. Bringing together several defining talents of the American theater—including Coleman, Fields, Simon, Fosse, and Verdon—the collaboration made the musical a landmark of mid-century Broadway. It ran for 608 performances and received nine Tony Award nominations. Charity Hope Valentine immediately entered the canon of great musical-theater heroines: funny, sexually candid, bruised but irrepressibly hopeful, and denied the conventional romantic ending audiences had come to expect from musical comedies.

In a statement, Jeff and Rick Kuperman said, “Sweet Charity asks a question that feels urgent today: how do you keep an open heart in a world set on breaking it? Ariana has the wit, fearlessness, vulnerability, and extraordinary physical command to make Charity entirely her own. We’re approaching the musical with deep respect for its history while creating a contemporary theatrical language in which dance drives the story and Charity’s hard-earned optimism remains at its core.”

Additional details will be announced at a later date."

Perfect vehicle for DeBose, and great match with the choreographers.

She also danced a bit of the “Rich Man’s Frug” with Sam Rockwell the first time she hosted the Tonys, so this seems almost predestined for her.

This news gets the same hand heart I gave her in the audience for that ceremony.

Updated On: 8/5/26 at 11:28 AM

Is The Baker’s Wife dead?

OhHiii said: "Ugh. I know I may be in a minority here but I find Ariana’s work (outside of WSS) to be wholly unremarkable. That’s coming from someone with 0 Oscars and 0 Tony noms, but I don’t find her to be a convincing leading lady by any stretch. Much less a ticket seller."

The main problem is that her career trajectory has made no sense. She's the first true triple-threat to break into the mainstream in a long time, and since WSS, she's been in Schmigadoon, that Disney animated film no one saw, and a bunch of bad to forgettable movies in every other genre except musicals. Put her in some musicals, people!

jlindsey865 said: "Is it typical to workshop a well established title like Sweet Charity?"

The in-development Dreamgirls revival had a workshop, and I believe Damn Yankees did as well.

OhHiii said: "Ugh. I know I may be in a minority here but I find Ariana’s work (outside of WSS) to be wholly unremarkable. That’s coming from someone with 0 Oscars and 0 Tony noms, but I don’t find her to be a convincing leading lady by any stretch. Much less a ticket seller."

You are not in the minority. She is a fantastic dancer, but beyond her acting in WSS, she isn't a very good actress. And her singing is fine but nothing special. She is not a draw and this will do poorly. Her pivot away from ensemble dancing and work (and her disparaging comments) was the worst thing for her career. She has an Oscar and she deserved it, but no one knows who she is and she can't do most roles much justice. Charity is a good part for her but she won't sell tickets.

Beginning the Gabi Campo understudy choo choo train. She’s such a star.

Triple threat in what sense? She's a fairly weak and unremarkable vocalist and she's stilted as an actor. It seems she's being pushed in Sutton sort of direction but Sutton had a voice and charisma.

She's clearly an accomplished dancer, but acting range and emotional vulnerability aren't the first things that come to mind when I think of DeBose--especially for Charity Hope Valentine.