Imagine coming to New York with your family. You want to see a show, but don’t really care which. Tony winners are the toughest and most expensive tickets in town, Book of Mormon isn’t quite family friendly enough, Phantom feels too old, you saw The Lion King when it came to your town a decade ago, and WHAT?! When the hell did Idina Menzel leave Wicked? But then you notice a familiar face on that enormous poster above American Eagle. Is that the Willis girl? You like her. She seems nice. You’ll take five for Chicago.
Page Six is reporting Rumer Willis, the winner of the most recent season of Dancing With the Stars, will make her Broadway debut this August in Chicago. She’ll be joining an exclusive club of singers, actresses and personalities who have accepted the role of Roxie Hart, the “wannabe vaudevillian and murderess who kills her lover after a spat and is sent to jail.”
Chicago is the longest-running American musical in Broadway history (a fact its promotional posters love screaming at you), and—as the only current musical whose film adaptation won the Oscar for Best Picture—has some of the best name recognition in New York’s theatre district. Audiences don’t have to know musicals to be familiar with Chicago, and actresses who play Roxie Hart don’t have to know musicals to star in it.
The role of Roxie often comes during transitional times in their careers and tends to act as either a comeback or a “Hey everybody! I’m still here!” You become Roxie when you’re just famous enough to be recognizable to families struggling to pick a show at the TKTS booth, but not so famous that you can’t find time in your schedule to spend a few months preparing for and and acting in a major Broadway production. You don’t even have to be a great singer! (Catherine Zeta Jones won the Oscar, not Renee Zellweger.) Becoming the new Roxie is by no means a pathetic move—this is Broadway, after all—but it always feels a little strange. When a new one is cast, the response is often, “Huh. Her.”
When do actresses become Roxie? And what happens next? Let’s take a look at Broadway Roxies of the past decade or so to find out.
Gretchen Mol, 2004
Just Before Roxie:
After almost becoming Hollywood’s next big thing, Gretchen took a hiatus from film acting and moved to the stage. She starred in The Shape of Things in both London and New York in 2001, followed by its 2003 film adaptation.
Just After Roxie:
She starred in The Notorious Bettie Page, a modestly successful indie film.