Beyoncé As Aida: Theater Fans Divided

Maybe Beyoncé’s shoeless cameo at Bergdorf Goodman last week was in preparation for a barefooted movie role: According to Jim Hill’s media blog, the pop star might play as Aida in Disney’s new screen adaptation of the hit musical.

As always, the theater-crazed online community has plenty to say. There’s a camp lobbying for the original Broadway cast to reprise their roles, but as any theater junkie knows, Disney will be looking for a big-name cast to light up the marquee. Thus, the debate over Beyoncé stepping in to fill the role created by Tony-winning original Aida Heather Headley rages undiminished.

Judging from this thread, we imagine the folks at Broadwayworld are an empathetic lot, deeply and genuinely concerned with Beyoncé’s crossover from singer to actor: Poster Mattbrain rightly warns that if she keeps singing in movies she’ll “never been taken seriously as an actress.” (So nice that they have Beyoncé’s best interests at heart!) Meanwhile, Soapguy17 says he’d “cringe” at the thought of Beyoncé riffing her way through the score, while others feel that’s nothing a little great directing couldn’t fix. And then comes Americanboy99’s creative suggestion for who should take on the role of statue-narrator Amneris: “For some reason Jessica Simpson kept popping into my mind. I tried hard to get it out, (but) for some cooky [sic] reason, I think she could pull it off.”

Considering her much-publicized inability to learn the words to even one Dolly Parton song, we think not. —Jocelyn Guest