WHOOPI Goldberg has joined the cast of the acclaimed musical Annie for a special limited engagement run.
The View host will take on the role of Miss Hannigan in the show’s touring production, which will play later this year at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
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Whoopi, 68, will join the New York leg of the tour in the second week of its engagement in the city.
The tour will play at the Chicago Theatre from November 12 through December 1 before heading to New York, where it will run into the new year.
The actress, who has appeared on Broadway before, will perform from December 11 to January 5.
“I love the theater, and in my mind, there is no better way to spend the holidays than to get back on stage,” she said in a statement.
Read More on Whoopi Goldberg
“I can’t wait to step into the delicious role of Miss Hannigan and perform for the greatest audiences in the world—in my hometown of New York City.”
Additional casting for the musical has yet to be announced.
WHOOPI’S BROADWAY CAREER
Whoopi made her stage debut in 1984 with her self-titled solo show, Whoopi Goldberg.
She went on to appear in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and, most recently, Xanadu in 2008.
The EGOT winner snagged a Tony Award in 2002 as a producer of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie.
She later made her West End debut in 2010, playing a short run as Mother Superior in the stage adaptation of the 1992 film Sister Act, which she starred in as Deloris Van Cartier.
Whoopi also produced the original Broadway production, which transferred to New York the following year.
THE VIEW’S BATHROOM FIGHT
Whoopi’s newest gig will come as her daytime talk show heads into its holiday break for the year.
The View recently moved into a downtown New York City studio, which fans will get a glimpse of during the Season 28 premiere in September.
And Whoopi, who has remained on the show for the past 17 years, is not thrilled with the new location.
Biggest revelations from Whoopi Goldberg’s new memoir
WHOOPI Goldberg shares a number of honest revelations in her memoir, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me. From battling drugs in the ’80s to saving her mom from an attempted suicide, here are some of the biggest revelations she shares.
MOM’S TRAGIC BREAKDOWN
In her book, Whoopi wrote about her mother’s tragic mental breakdown and how she saved her from suicide when she was a child.
She documented how her family, including her brother Clyde, who died of a brain aneurysm five years later, shaped her early life while growing up in public housing in New York.
Whoopi recalled how she came home early from elementary school one day and found her mom looking “disheveled” and barefoot wearing a slip dress under a black trench coat.
“I watched as she went over to the oven, turned it on, and put her head in there,” she recalled of the disturbing moment,” she wrote.
“I was old enough to know this was really bad news. I ran over and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out.”
BATTLE WITH DRUGS
The Oscar-nominated star also admitted to hitting rock bottom in the 1980s when recreational drug use in Hollywood was at a high.
She classed herself as a “very high-functioning addict” who would still show up on set and do her job for about a year until she realized she was getting “sloppy” at work.
One “slap-in-the-face” moment took place while she was staying at a luxury hotel in Manhattan for her birthday when somebody had given her an ounce of cocaine.
RELATIONSHIP WITH FATHER
Whoopi also shared details of her relationship with her estranged father who walked out on her family when she was a child.
“My mother didn’t talk about the marriage ending because she stayed married to him until the day he passed, nor do I think she ever thought of it as a failure,” she wrote.
“It turns out that my dad was gay. Which couldn’t have been easy either.”
Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, will be released on May 7, 2024.
In a new exclusive, sources told The U.S. Sun that she was “furious” over her new dressing room, which doesn’t have a bathroom.
“It’s so small, and she doesn’t have her own bathroom,” an insider said, adding that Whoopi is “refusing” to use it.
“Whoopi had the biggest dressing room with an ensuite including a shower and full bathroom,” they added.
The source also said that Whoopi is planning to move her production office, which is currently uptown, “right next door to the new ABC studios downtown.”
“Whoopi is that determined to use her own dressing room at her production studios, rather than use the paltry ABC accommodations,” they noted.
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