Renowned Broadway, West End and film actress Caroline O’Connor, recently met up with legendary star of stage and screen, Chita Rivera, to discuss the first London revival in 20 years of Kander and Ebb’s THE RINK at Southwark Playhouse, which will run for a limited season from 25 May to 23 June 2018.
Rivera, who won the Tony and Drama Desk Awards for her performance, said “I’m so excited to be handing over my skates to the new Anna, the wonderful Caroline O’Connor. This musical is a very unique piece and it’s definitely ahead of its time because two of its central characters are women!”
O’Connor understudied the role of Angel in the original 1988 West End production of the show, which starred Josephine Blake and Diane Langton as Anna and Angel respectively. She said “I’m positively thrilled to be creating a new Anna for the brand-new production of THE RINK at the Southwark Playhouse in London.”
THE RINK focuses on Anna, an Italian housewife who runs a roller-skating rink on the Eastern seaboard, which she is about to sell to developers until her estranged daughter, Angel, returns after a long absence, hoping to save the rink and patch things up with her mother. THE RINK will have choreography by Fabian Aloise, with casting, to be announced, by Jacob Sparrow and is produced by Jack Maple and Brian Zeilinger