Eight of Bravo’s Real Housewives, including Lisa Rinna, Phaedra Parks and Carole Radziwill, will appear Off-Broadway this winter.
The Housewives will star in a reimagined revival of Neil Simon’s Rumors this winter at the Newman Mills Theater at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space. Tony Award winner Zhailon Levingston (CATS: The Jellicle Ball) will direct the production, which will play a strictly limited 14-week engagement starting Jan. 9, 2027, ahead of Jan. 25 opening night.
The production will feature two separate casts of Housewives including Lisa Rinna as ‘Chris,’ Phaedra Parks as ‘Claire,’ Stacey Rusch as ‘Cookie,’ and Dolores Catania as ‘Cassie’ from Jan. 9 through Feb. 28, followed by Cynthia Bailey as ‘Chris,’ Eileen Davidson as ‘Claire,’ Carole Radziwill as ‘Cookie,’ and Candiace Dillard-Bassett as ‘Cassie’ from March 2 through April 21.
The production will mark the New York stage debut for all except Rinna, who made her debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago in 2007. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.
The play, which originally premiered in Broadway in 1988, follows four couples gathering for a party in a wealthy New York Suburb, where instead of fun “they find their host in an alarming state, his wife missing, and the police on their way,” according to the production description. The original production featured an ensemble cast that included Christine Baranski, Jessica Walter and Joyce Van Patten, with Baranski winning a Tony Award for her performance as Chris Gorman.
“What excites me about reimagining Rumors through the lens of The Real Housewives is how naturally these two worlds collide. Without changing a single word of Simon’s brilliant text, we can reveal something new in the piece: The delicious chaos that unfolds when private lives become public spectacle. At a time when we are so deeply divided, I can think of few things more necessary than gathering in a theater to laugh together,” Levingston said in a statement.
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