The Other Shoe Has Dropped

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival announced April 24 that Anika Noni Rose would not be playing Cleopatra in Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra this season. The reason? Scheduling conflicts with her television filming of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. What took everybody so long to figure that out? It seemed pretty clear to me March 14.

Ms Rose is presently on Broadway starring in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The production has been held over to June 22. This extension will not interfere with the television filming. Interestingly in Playbill-on-Line, March 4, in a Q and A Ms Rose was asked what leading role she was dying to play. She answered: Cleopatra. But no mention that at the time she was scheduled to play the role, albeit Shaw's version, at Stratford. Playbill-on-Line reported Ms Rose being cast in the television series March 11.

Interesting. Did she know then (March 4 or 11) she wasn't going to Stratford?

Ms Rose will be replaced by Nikki M. James who will also be playing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at Stratford.

Lynn
April 27, 2008

Anika Noni Rose is on a roll. The Tony Award winner (Caroline, or Change) is on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and got the best reviews of anyone in the production. It runs until April 13.

She has also just been cast in a new HBO series based on the detective books, “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” by Alexander McCall Smith. The filming of the series begins in August. The series is set in Botswana.

Ms Rose is also cast to play Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, in Ontario. It stars Christopher Plummer as Caesar, and is directed by Des McAnuff.

Caesar and Cleopatra runs at Stratford from August to November, playing 3 times a week at the beginning of the run, and then increasing to four and five times a week for the rest of the run.

Question? How is Ms Rose going to be in two places at the same time: Filming the series (set in Botswana) and playing Cleopatra in Stratford, Ontario?

Lynn
March 14, 2008