Actors - Carmen Jones

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	Actors - Carmen Jones

Carmen Jones was a 1943 Broadway musical, later also performed a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet opera Carmen in an African-American setting. (Bizet's opera was, in turn, based on the 1846 novel by Prosper Mérimée.) The Broadway musical was produced by Billy Rose, using an all-black cast. Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the book (dialogue) and lyrics, but stuck rather closely to Bizet's original music.

The original Broadway cast were nearly all new to the stage; Kennedy and Muir write that on the first day of rehearsal only one member of the cast had ever been on a stage before.

The 1954 film was adapted by Hammerstein and Harry Kleiner. It was directed by Otto Preminger.

The motion picture won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Musical and Dandridge was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first African-American so honored. Halle Berry, who played Dandridge in the biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
, which included a re-enactment of one of the film's famed scenes, was the first African-American actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Monster's Ball
.

The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Plot

Parachute maker Carmen Jones makes a play for a soldier named Joe, who is in love with sweet Cindy Lou. Later, Carmen abandons Joe to pursue boxer Husky Miller. Joe then abandons Cindy to pursue Carmen; when she rejects him, he kills her.

Original New York cast

Carmen Jones - Muriel Smith / Muriel Rahn
Joe - Luther Saxon / Napoleon Reed
Husky Miller - Glenn Bryant
Cindy Lou - Carlotta Franzell / Elton J. Warren
Frankie - June Hawkins
Remo the Drummer - Cozy Cole

Film cast

Carmen Jones - Dorothy Dandridge
, sung by Marilyn Horne
Joe - Harry Belafonte
, sung by LeVern Hutcherson
Husky Miller - Joe Adams, sung by Marvin Hayes
Cindy Lou - Olga James
Frankie - Pearl Bailey

Original London cast

1991 at the Old Vic

Carmen Jones - Wilhelmenia Fernandez / Sharon Benson
Joe - Damon Evans / Michael Austin
Husky Miller - Gregg Baker
Cindy Lou - Karen Parks
Frankie - Carolyn Sebron
Remo the Drummer - Robin Jones

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Carmen Jones ]

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