The Houseman family is now complete on ABC’s Dirty Dancing. Bruce Greenwood has joined the cast of the network’s three-hour remake and will take on the role of Dr. Jake Houseman, who was originally played by the late Jerry Orbach in the 1987 film. Houseman is the husband of Debra Messing’s Marjorie and the father of Baby (played by Scream Queens‘ Abigail Breslin) and her older sister, Lisa (Modern Family‘s Sarah Hyland).
Greenwood is currently starring in FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. His other recent TV credits include John From Cincinnati, The River, and Mad Men.
In addition to Messing, Breslin, Hyland, and now Greenwood, ABC’s Dirty Dancing cast also includes dancer Colt Prattes as Johnny, Nicole Scherzinger from the Pusssycat Dolls as Penny, Billy Dee Williams as Tito, and Awkward alum Shane Harper as Robbie.
Unlike the NBC’s The Wiz Live and FOX’s Grease: Live, ABC’s Dirty Dancing won’t be a live production. Instead, it will be three-hour musical TV movie based on the original 1987 film, which starred Patrick Swazye and Jennifer Grey as Johhny Castle and Baby Houseman. ABC’s remake also sounds like it will stay quite faithful to the original, as it focuses on “an innocent young woman in the early 1960’s who vacations with her affluent parents and siblings in the Catskill Mountains and falls for the resort’s working-class dance instructor.”
Executive producers on ABC’s Dirty Dancing include Allison Shearmur (The Hunger Games) and Eleanor Bergstein, who also wrote the screenplay for the original film. Jessica Sharzer (The L Word) will pen ABC’s musical adaptation, with Wayne Blair (The Sapphires) serving as the director. Furthermore, Dirty Dancing‘s music will be done by Adam Anders and Peer Astrom (Glee), and Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton) will be the musical’s choreographer.
Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images for Turner
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