LEGENDS!
by James Kirkwood
Joan Collins & Linda Evans | A comedy by James Kirkwood about big stars, big egos and big hair
Producer Ben Sprecher has enlisted former Dynasty co-stars Joan Collins and Linda Evans to star in the piece, which is eyeing a Toronto tryout in 2006 before its Great
White Way debut, according to The New York Post.
In the 1980s, soap stars Joan Collins and Linda Evans sent ratings soaring as Dynasty's glamorous enemies, Alexis and Krystle. Now they are reuniting for a new version of troubled stage show, "Legends".
James Kirkwood's Legends! was expected to come to Broadway in the late 1980s with Carol Channing and Mary Martin starring as the two warring Hollywood divas being wooed to do a stage show together, Star Wars: The Play,
by a producer with no credibility. The pre-Broadway tour of Legends! began in Dallas in January 1986. |
Plagued by negative press (including
mostly harsh reviews), by the time it folded in Palm Beach in January of the following year, the tour was better known for the backstage drama between Channing and Martin than anything that happened onstage. Kirkwood later wrote Diary of a Mad Playwright about his harrowing experience on the road with the show. In this new production, Collins will play Sylvia Glenn, the acerbic star originally played by Channing. Evans will play Martin's part, the seemingly sweet Leatrice Monsee.
Legends!,
this James Kirkwood comedy that spawned the infamous backstage tome "Diary of a Mad Playwright," is headed to Broadway.
The New York Post reports that former "Dynasty" stars Joan Collins and Linda Evans will take on the roles played on the road by Carol Channing and the late Mary Martin.
Legends! originally played a 23-city tour in the mid-eighties with plans to bring the comedy about two former, feuding movie stars to Broadway. Martin, however, pulled out of the production when her second-act speech about breast cancer was cut. In Kirkwood's "Diary of a Mad Playwright," he writes about the moment Martin gave her notice: "This is a very rare moment in my professional career. Not only is the speech ruined for me, but also the play is ruined for me. I will go on, but I will not play London, and I will not come to New York. I'll fulfill my contract, and then you can get someone else and cut anything you want."
Ben Sprecher will produce the Broadway mounting, which will tryout in 2006 in Toronto. About his decision to produce the piece, Sprecher told the New York daily, "I was looking for a play for Joan [Collins], something she would feel comfortable in. I read the script and thought it was very, very funny. I was prepared for her to think it was too lightweight, but she really enjoyed it."
Collins, who made her Broadway debut in the revival of Noel Coward's Private Lives,
will play Sylvia Glenn, the film star modeled on Joan Crawford, while Evans will play the Loretta Youngish Leatrice Monsee. Legends! will mark Evans' Broadway debut. |
