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Star quality: Charlotte d'Amboise already has a Broadway pedigree. Will the Charity episode turn a trouper into a headliner?

Article Excerpt
CHARLOTTE D'AMBOISE HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN ON BROADWAY as a true triple threat: the winning choice in roles that call for dancing, singing, and acting. Her verve, charm, deft comic timing--and great shoulder-and-hip action--have buoyed many a dance-heavy musical in the past two decades. From her Tony-nominated appearance in Jerome Robbins' Broadway to Susan Stroman's Contact to witty interpretations of Gwen Verdon's roles in Damn Yankees and Chicago, she has carried the torch for powerful, personable dancing that shoots across the footlights.

She brings a sullied innocence and slightly ditzy deliciousness to Roxie Hart in the revival of Chicago--a role she's been playing on and off since she opened the national tour in 1997. Certainly the strongest dancer to take on the role since Ann Reinking, the revival's choreographer, she runs away with big numbers like "Me and My Baby" and "Roxie," and displays more grace and agility while high up on a ladder than most people do standing on the ground.

Last April d'Amboise, 39, was briefly glimpsed in the title role of Sweet Charity, the Broadway revival of the 1966 Cy Coleman-Neil Simon-Bob Fosse collaboration that opened in May with new choreography by Wayne Cilento. In a roller-coaster series of events, she was whisked out of Chicago to take over as Charity Hope Valentine--the vulnerable, ever-optimistic dance hall hostess searching for love--for...

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