What's New on the Rialto

Marcia Lewis is currently in rehearsals with the new company of Chicago in Chicago, no less. From there it will be on to Toronto for a four week engagement before moving to Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

A veteran of nine Broadway shows and countless stock and cabaret appearances across the country, Marcia Lewis, 1997 Tony Award nominee - her second Tony nomination - for her performance as Matron Mama Morton in the smash Broadway re-staging of Chicago, has had audiences cheering for more than three decades. Her first solo CD, "Marcia Lewis Nowadays," has just been released on the Original Cast Records label.

Marcia made her Broadway musical debut in Hello Dolly playing opposite both Phyllis Diller and Ethel Merman. Her first Broadway dramatic role was in The Time of Your Life at Lincoln Center. Prior to setting the stage alight with her rendition of "When You're Good to Mama, Mama's Good to You" in the current and continuing production of Chicago, she appeared at Playwright's Horizon in Romance Language and Miami, Tommy Tune's Bye Bye Birdie, Fiddler on the Roof with Topol, Orpheus Descending with Vanessa Redgrave, Cabaret with Joel Grey, Roza with Georgia Brown, and Rags with Teresa Stradas. For a year and a half she starred as the mean Miss Hannigan in Annie. Her role in Rags earned her a Drama Desk nomination as best supporting actress. Her appearance as Miss Lynch, the school principal, in Grease won her her first Tony Award nomination.

Marcia's cabaret appearances are legendary, having run the gamut from the prestigious Rainbow & Stars, Jan Wallman's upstairs at the Duplex, New York's famed Upstairs at the Downstairs in Let Yourself Go to gigs at Brothers and Sisters, Barbarann's, Grande Finale, Reno Sweeney's, Ibis, Freddy's, Eighty-Eights, Town Hall, Triad, The Village Gate and the Russian Tea Room. She's also performed her one-woman concert at Carnegie Hall.

She's won the Bistro Award for Best Musical Comedy performance, the coveted MAC Award, and the Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to numerous television appearances, Marcia made her film debut in the award-winning Night Warning. She has also been seen in Curtain Call, and as The Frog Lady in the MGM science fiction comedy caper Ice Pirates.

Marcia will appearing with Chita Rivera and Ben Vereen in the new production of Chicago at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino theatre in Las Vegas. (Box Office - (877) 632-7400) The musical opens March 3rd and Marcia will stay with the Las Vegas company for three months and then return to Broadway as "the keeper of the keys, the countess of the clink, the mistress of murderer's row ... Matron Mama Morton!"