If I were casting it today, I would seriously look at casting a non-white actress as Sugar, just to help get as far away from Marilyn Monroe, who will never be bettered, as possible. I've done the show twice and the actresses in that role tend to do variations to greater or lesser degree on Monroe because you just hear her voice in the writing. And it's also a bit underwritten for what is supposed to be a third leading role, after the two men playing Joe and Jerry. A non-white actress would help the audience make the leap and not spend the evening comparing the performance they're seeing to a screen legend whose performance is readily available to be seen nowadays in ways that it wasn't back in the 1970's.
I wonder what Nikki M. James or Phillipa Soo are up to these days? |
