Mamma Mia!'s Louise Pitre Finds Next Musical Role

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Louise Pitre

This is so weird. I go for a swim, almost every day. It's a great time for me to meditate...I usually write lyrics while I'm in the pool. Today, I was thinking, "Gee, I wonder what Louise Pitre is doing these days..." (nice site BTW).

I was recalling a TV news piece from a few years ago when Louise first hit Broadway and was up for a Tony (Best Actress, Mamma Mia!, 2002). She walked into the famous Colony Records store on Broadway and pointed out her album on the shelf and she talked about finally fulfilling her dreams of Broadway stardom. It was cool to see this Canadian girl being celebrated as the toast of Broadway, and relatively late in her career too.

I'd seen Louise in tons of Toronto shows before she finally became the toast of Broadway, including I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change and Mamma Mia! in Toronto.

Well, no sooner than I had said "Doo doo doo doo", I ran across this article in Playbill on Louise Pitre's next gig. She's coming back to Toronto for a month to star in Annie Get Your Gun.

Canadian actress Louise Pitre will trade the tunes of ABBA for those of Irving Berlin in her next stage outing, Annie Get Your Gun.

The award-winning singer-actress, who opened the Broadway company of Mamma Mia!, is set to play Annie Oakley in a month-long run of the Berlin classic this summer in Toronto. The Toronto Star reports that Pitre will play opposite the Frank Butler of country music star Paul Brandt in the mounting of the musical at Toronto's Massey Hall.

Like the acclaimed City Center Encores! series, Annie Get Your Gun will be presented on a stage filled with a 25-piece orchestra. There will be lights and costumes but no additional scenery. Donna Feore will direct and choreograph the musical about the sharp-shootin' Oakley; Rick Fox will conduct the onstage orchestra.

Annie Get Your Gun will begin performances in early August. Dates and ticket information will be announced shortly.

For her performance as Donna in the Canadian, Broadway and touring companies of Mamma Mia!, Louise Pitre received the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the San Francisco Critics Circle Award, the U.S. National Broadway Award as well as a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. Her numerous theatrical credits include roles in Piaf; Les Miserables; The World Goes 'Round; I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Pitre's solo recordings are titled "Songs My Mother Taught Me" and "All of My Life Has Led to This." Pitre was also recently involved in the world-premiere production of the late Cy Coleman's The Great Ostrovsky.

The original production of Annie Get Your Gun -- featuring a score by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields -- opened at the Imperial Theatre in May 1946, playing 1,147 performances before closing Feb. 12, 1949. Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton starred. The most recent Broadway production -- March 1999 to September 2001 -- cast Bernadette Peters as Annie Oakley. Peters won her second Tony Award for her performance opposite Tom Wopat's Frank Butler. The Berlin score features such classic tunes as "There's No Business Like Show Business," "They Say It's Wonderful," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" and "I Got Lost in His Arms."

I saw Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun...twice. Louise has big (well, small in size, but you get my meaning) shoes to fill.

By Suzy Conn on April 14, 2005 7:02 AM | | Comments (0)


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