The cast of  'A Tale of Two Cities' - the musical - prepares to debut on
Broadway.

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK UNITED STATES (JULY 16, 2008) REUTERS -
 The cast of the new musical 'A Tale of Two Cities' is getting
ready for its opening at the start of the fall Broadway  season.  
   Jill Santoriello's musical version of the Charles Dickens novel will
open in September.  The cast has just started rehearsals on the Great White
Way and are gearing up for their big debut. 
   Director and choreographer Warren Carlyle describes the show as "a
tiny love story in an epic setting.  It's a beautiful story about family, not
necessarily blood family.  They're a group of people who find each other who
become a family in this sweeping epic setting."
    Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution the musical centres
on the themes of injustice, vengeance and the redemptive power of love. 
   Writer and creator Jill Santoriello describes herself as a hopeless
Broadway romantic.  Santoriello says she has always wanted to create a
sweeping epic, so bringing the show to Broadway is a dream come true.
   Natalie Toro portrays Madame DeFarge in the musical and says the
character is multidimensional. 
   "In the book she is portrayed as really really cold.  Just awful,
homicidal.  And for our stage purposes we decided that we were going to
humanize her so that the audience could feel that there really is a purpose of
why she is so evil, why she turned the way she did.  No one is born evil.  I
don't want to destroy the plot here, but there really is a reason and she kind
of goes off the deep end," she told Reuters.
   'A Tale of Two Cities' opens on September 18 at the Hirschfeld
Theater.