icenetwork.com

Oksana Baiul and Frank D'Agostino hope to bring "Cold as Ice," to Broadway in 2010. (courtesy of Frank D'Agostino)

By Lois Elfman, special to icenetwork.com

(08/06/2009) - For the past two years, since 1994 Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul headlined the ice musical Cold As Ice at the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport, N.Y., she has been gearing up to bring the show to Broadway. She and the creator of the show, Frank D'Agostino, have been lining up a team of designers, directors and producers.

To enable her to fulfill D'Agostino's original vision that the show melds skating, song and dialogue, Baiul has immersed herself in acting and singing lessons.

"Because it was a workshop and because we only had two-and-a-half weeks to put the show up [for the Gateway run in 2007], the skaters' participation wasn't as great as we would have liked it to have been," says D'Agostino. "Oksana had some lines, but [going forward] she will also be singing and acting in this show along with the other skaters.

"Oksana has been very dedicated," he adds. "She's been taking voice lessons three times a week. She's training for this like she's training for the Olympics."

Baiul, who has done a bit of acting, including an episode of Lifetime series Strong Medicine, really likes the idea of Cold As Ice being more than an ice show.

"It's a musical, which is taking place on ice," she notes. "Ice is an element to it, but it's not the main focus to the show. When we will be casting skaters for the show, we'll be casting not the big name skaters, but we will be casting skaters who can act and sing. That's the idea of the show."

Baiul is scheduled to appear in Stars, Stripes and Skates, a benefit for the Heritage Foundation of 9-11, on Sept. 26, in Danbury, Conn., and she will perform a routine from the show set to her own vocals. She and D'Agostino anticipate that former national men's competitor Derrick Delmore, who appeared in the previous run of Cold As Ice, will also skate to his own vocals.

"Oksana has been involved in every aspect of the show. It's her baby," says D'Agostino. "She took a chance two years ago and she has stayed true to this project. It's all coming together."

Baiul calls D'Agostino "a very loving stage mother." He is a former skater and skating coach who also has an extensive theater background. His vision for Cold As Ice, which he compares to A Chorus Line, came to being when he was meeting with a scenic designer several years ago who suggested D'Agostino utilize his skating past to craft a story. It tells the story of a skater's life the way A Chorus Line explained a dancer's life.

"I started thinking about all the years it takes to train a skater," he says. "All the skating mothers behind their daughters -- some good, some bad. I thought there really is a story there." In addition to his personal experiences, he says he interviewed numerous other skaters. Baiul's character is not Baiul herself -- in fact she doesn't win a gold medal -- she is a Russian skater coming to the U.S.

"What I love about this project is me being able to express myself in a different way," Baiul says. "It's through voice and my acting. It's really challenging for me to work on those aspects of the show."

Baiul has also shot the pilot for a reality TV show following her in the next phase of her life, which includes her preparations for Cold As Ice.

"I'm taking this step very seriously," Baiul says. "I don't want to be an idiot who thinks that there is no skating work so I have to go into acting and singing."

If the reality show gets picked up by a network, she hopes it will also show her ongoing work in skating as well as her extensive charity work.

"This shows me taking my career to the next level," she says.

D'Agostino and Baiul hope to bring the show to Boston this autumn and then bring it to Toronto. From there it will tour and hopefully find a spot on Broadway in 2010.