Zeta-Jones to make Broadway debut

Catherine Zeta-Jones won an Oscar in 2006 for her role in Chicago

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is to make her Broadway debut in a revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, it has been announced.

The Welsh Oscar-winner will play Desiree Armfeldt, who sings the show-stopping ballad Send in the Clowns.

Veteran star Angela Lansbury will also star as the terse Madame Armfeldt in the musical, set in a Swedish country house at the turn of the century.

It opens on 13 December at New York's Walter Kerr Theater.

The production, inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, is a transfer from British director Trevor Nunn's recent staging in London.

"I'm honoured that Trevor Nunn and Stephen Sondheim asked me to make my Broadway debut in this beautiful production," Zeta-Jones said.

"I look forward to starting rehearsal with this extraordinary group of people and working with the incomparable Angela Lansbury."

The actress won an Oscar in 2006 for her supporting role as Velma Kelly in the screen adaptation of the musical Chicago.

A Little Night Music first opened on Broadway in 1973 and has since won six Tony awards.