Thanks to Lisa for this article! Cinderella Review from the The Miami Herald If the glass slipper fits By Christine Dolen The Miami Herald Published: Tuesday, December 5, 2000 Say what you will about Cinderella, the girl has staying power. Her story started as a folk tale first recorded in China during the Ninth Century. It took on many now-familiar elements -- a fairy godmother, a pumpkin turned into a carriage, the glass slipper that changes a young woman's fate -- in a 1697 version by French author Charles Perrault, then Disney animators made the story into a typically sweet cartoon in 1950. Even Drew Barrymore took a turn, wearing the glass slippers in the 1998 movie Ever After. Still, one of the most beloved versions of Cinderella came from Broadway's great composer-lyricist team, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, who fashioned the familiar story into a successful made-for-TV musical in 1957. Across time, across cultures, across art forms, the story of the sweet-but-victimized young woman whose fairy godmother helps her into the arms of a prince remains the stuff that fuels little girls' dreams. And now, with all the spectacle contemporary high-tech theater can muster, Cinderella takes on yet another life, this time in an expanded stage version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. The show that opens at 8 tonight at Miami Beach's Jackie Gleason Theater is multiethnic, multigenerational and, in one case, gender-bending. It stars Paolo Montalban as the prince (a role he played opposite Brandy's Cinderella in the 1997 Disney TV movie version, which is now being endlessly recycled on the Disney Channel), Everett Quinton (that great male diva-in-drag from the Ridiculous Theatrical Company) as the wicked stepmother, and actress and pop star Deborah Gibson as Cinderella. As her fairy godmother, Gibson gets the agelessly alluring Eartha Kitt. Kitt, 73, earned her third Tony Award nomination last season for her sultry turn in The Wild Party and, as you might expect of this stylishly unique actress who speaks in a distinctive purr, she will not be your standard wand-waving fairy godmother. ``Even though she's a goody-goody person, she's interesting,'' Kitt said during rehearsals for the production's premiere last week in Tampa. ``Cinderella says, `You, a fairy godmother?' And I say, `You have a problem with that?' ``I do it all with my tongue inside my cheek anyway.'' ``Eartha is an icon, unique,'' says the 30-year-old Gibson, who had two No. 1 singles (Foolish Beat and Lost in Your Eyes) during her pop-diva days in the late '80s, when she was known as Debbie Gibson. ``Her charisma is amazing, and she's so grounded. She brings out a new side of Cinderella. This Cinderella is a little more sassy.'' The new $2.5-million production contains such familiar songs as Cinderella's In My Own Little Corner and the Cinderella-Prince duet Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?, as well as two songs pulled from other Rodgers and Hammerstein sources (The Sweetest Sounds from No Strings and There's Music in You from the movie Main Street to Broadway). Script writer Tom Briggs, who previously adapted Rodgers and Hammerstein's movie musical State Fair for the stage, has tried to create a more contemporary show for the diverse cast. Musical arrangements are by hot young composer Andrew Lippa, whose admired Off-Broadway version of The Wild Party preceded the one starring Kitt last season. Director Gabriel Barre, a Tony- nominated actor in his own right, has incorporated animal puppets and illusions designed by Franz Harary into the show. Theatrical glitz aside, the familiar story still belongs to Cinderella. And what audiences will see, Kitt and Gibson say, isn't just a young woman whose life is transformed by wishing but (as in the Brandy-Whitney Houston TV version) a Cinderella who has to grasp the power she has to change her life. ``Everything starts with a wish, but it's what you do with that wish that counts,'' Kitt said. ``God helps those who help themselves.'' Adds Gibson, ``The fairy godmother makes Cinderella work for her wishes.'' Kitt, who voices one of the characters in the new Disney animated film The Emperor's New Groove, said she enjoys theater and touring as much as she ever has, though the technical process has become more complex since she made her New York stage debut 48 years ago. ``Theater is so computerized now that if one thing is wrong, you have to do it all over again,'' she said. ``I made a mistake in a line at rehearsal and put up my hand to stop. Then you have to go backwards in the computer, then back up to where you made the mistake. It throws off your sense of timing. ``But I'm very glad that the public is still saying, `Welcome, Eartha.' '' Gibson, whose latest release is the single What You Want from her forthcoming seventh album, has amassed theater credits in such shows as Beauty and the Beast, Les Miserables, Grease, Funny Girl and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat since expanding her career into theater, television and film. And though there has been no talk of it yet, she hopes this Cinderella -- whose nine-month national tour includes an engagement at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in April -- proves strong enough to wind up on Broadway. ``We've made bold choices, with all regard for the original,'' she said. Christine Dolen is The Herald's theater critic. cdolen@herald.com