Liza Minnelli plays Broadway

2008-10-20 10:00

New York - Liza Minnelli will return to Broadway in December for the first time in nearly a decade in a two-week engagement of Liza's at the Palace.

Minnelli will play the legendary vaudeville house from December 3 to 14, producer John Scher announced on Sunday.

She will be accompanied by pianist-musical supervisor Billy Stritch, a 12-piece orchestra and four dancer-singers.

The show will feature some of Minnelli's best-known songs, particularly numbers such as Cabaret, Maybe This Time and New York, New York, all written by John Kander and Fred Ebb.

It will also celebrate Kay Thompson, Minnelli's godmother and an entertainer who appeared in such films as Funny Face and who was a vocal arranger and vocal coach at MGM during the Golden Age of movie musicals in the 1940s.

Last appearance honoured her father

Thompson also wrote the Eloise children's books about a little girl who lived in the Plaza hotel in New York.

Liza's at the Palace will be directed and choreographed by Ron Lewis.

Minnelli's last Broadway appearance was in December 1999 in another entertainment at the Palace, a show that honoured her father, film director Vincente Minnelli.

Her other Broadway appearances include Flora, The Red Menace (1965), The Act (1977) and The Rink (1984). Her films include The Sterile Cuckoo (1969), Cabaret (1972), New York, New York (1977) and Arthur (1981).

Minnelli's mother, Judy Garland, also appeared several times at the Palace, most notably in 1951 in a one-woman show that ran for more than 200 performances.

- AP