B'way Update: Mattress Casting; New Group Season; Etc.

Ana Gasteyer, Will Chase, Nikki Rene Daniels, 
David Patrick Kelly, Brooks Ashmanskas, and 
Daniel Breaker will headline
the Once Upon a Mattress revival.

The complete cast has been announced for the Broadway transfer of the Encores! presentation of Once Upon a Mattress. In addition to Sutton Foster as Princess Winifred and Michael Urie as Prince Dauntless, the cast will include Ana Gasteyer (SNL, The Threepenny Opera) as Queen Aggravain, Tony nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (Fame Becomes Me, Bullets Over Broadway), Tony nominee Daniel Breaker (Shrek) as the Jester, Tony nominee Will Chase (Kiss Me, Kate) as Sir Harry, Nikki Rene Daniels (Company) as Lady Larkin, David Patrick Kelly (Once) as King Sextimus, and Kara Lindsay (Wicked, Newsies) as Winifred's standby. The role of the Minstrel has been eliminated from this version which features a revised book by Amy Sherman-Paladino (Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and direction by Lear deBessonet (Encores' Into the Woods). Mattress begins previews July 31 at the Hudson Theater with an Aug. 12 opening. A Los Angeles engagement at the Ahmanson Theater follows from Dec. 10-Jan. 5, 2025. 

Marisa Tomei, Calista Flockhart,
Cooper Hamilton and Christian Slater
will star in The New Group's upcoming season

New Group Season: The New Group has announced the 2024-25 season, its 30th. The season launches with the New York premiere of Babe by Jessica Goldberg (fall 2024), followed by Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class (winter 2024) and the world premiere of a new musical The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse (spring 2025), with book by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, music and lyrics by Michael Breslin with additional music and lyrics by Patrick Foley; and as previously announced, the world premiere of by Nazareth Hassan’s Bowl EP, a co-production by Vineyard Theatre and National Black Theatre in association with The New Group. The first three productions will play the Pershing Square Signature Center and Bowl EP will play the Vineyard Theater.

Babe will star Oscar winner Marisa Tomei and centers on a husband-and-wife grunge and punk music producing team faced with a challenge from a new A&R hire. Curse of the Starving Class is Sam Shepard's 1977 Obie-winning examination of a shattered American family dealing with encroaching creditors and internal dysfunction. The cast includes Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal, Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans), Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Christian Slater. The Last Bimbo of the Apocalyspe follows a search for a missing pop icon. Bowl EP is about a rap group seeking a name and an identity.

The New Group’s Founding Artistic director Scott Elliott remarks, “Every milestone feels like a bit of a miracle, and we couldn't be more grateful that our audiences and artists keep coming back to The New Group for our specific brand of risk and reimagining.  For these three decades, we've set about presenting singular, intimate, theatrical ways of looking at our peculiarly American conundrums - and past our shared myths - through vivid characters and ensembles.  Looking forward to the next 30.”

Bobby Darin is the subject of 
a new bio-musical, Just in Time to star
Jonathan Groff.

Here and There: Tony winner and Doctor Who heartthrob Jonathan Groff (Merrily We Roll Along) will star in Just in Time, a reading of musical based on the life of crooner Bobby Darin, to be directed by Alex Timbers. Deadline reports the show is bound for Broadway but does not list the author. The score will consist of Darin's hits including the title tune from Bells Are Ringing by Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green...Tony winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, The King and I) is on board to direct the Dolly Parton musical, Hello, I'm Dolly, set for Broadway in 2026....N/A, the Off-Broadway play about Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater has been extended to Sept. 1.... Dead Outlaw, the winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical and Outer Critics Circle winner for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical, is reportedly seeking a theater for a Broadway transfer.

2024-25 Broadway/Off-Broadway/Awards Calendar 

Summer 2024

July 14--Ain't Done Bad (Signature Center)

July 29--Six Characters (LCT3/Clara Tow)
July 30--Job (Hayes)
Aug. 12--Once Upon a Mattress (Hudson)

Fall 2024

Sept. 12--The Roommate (Booth)

Sept. 12--Counting and Cracking (Public Theater/NYU Skirball)

Sept. 12--Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song (Theater555)

Sept. 12--Our Class (CSC/Arlekin Players) (previews begin; opening TBA)

Sept. 24--Vladimir (MTC/City Center Stage I) (previews begin; opening TBA)

Sept. 29--The Hills of California (Broadhurst)

Sept. 30--MCNEAL (Vivian Beaumont/LCT)

Oct. 1--Yellowface (Roundabout/Todd Haimes)

Oct. 1--Good Bones (Public)

Oct. 9--The Counter (Roundabout/Laura Pels)

Oct. 10--Our Town (Barrymore)

Oct. 10--Deep History (Public)

Oct. 17--Maybe Happy Ending (Belasco)

Oct. 20--Sunset Boulevard (St. James)

Oct. 23--Left on Tenth (James Earl Jones)

Oct. 24--Romeo and Juliet (Circle in the Square)

Oct. 30--Lunar Eclipse (Second Stage/Kiser)

Nov. 8--Gatz (Elevator Repair Service/Public)

Nov. 11--What a Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical (Studio 54)

Nov. 14--Tammy Faye (Palace)

Nov. 14--King Lear (Kenneth Branagh Theater Company/The Shed)

Nov. 19--Swept Away (Longacre)

Nov. 21--Death Becomes Her (Lunt-Fontanne)

Nov. 21--The Blood Quilt (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)

Nov. 22--The Merchant of Venice (CSC/Arlekin Players) (previews begin; opening TBA)

Babe (New Group/Signature Center)

Bad Kreyol (MTC/Signature Theatre)

We Live in Cairo (NYTW)

Winter 2024-25

Dec. 12--Cult of Love (Second Stage/Hayes)

Dec. 16--Eureka Day (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman) 

Dec. 19--Gypsy (Majestic)

Jan. 23--English (Roundabout/Todd Haimes Theater)

Feb. 20--Liberation (Roundabout/Laura Pels)

The Antiquities (Playwrights Horizons/Vineyard Theater)

Curse of the Starving Class (New Group/Signature Center)

Dakar 2000 (MTC/City Center Stage I)

A Knock on the Roof (NYTW)

Sumo (Ma-Yi Theater/Public)

2024-25

My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do?)

Romeo and Juliet w.Tom Holland/Francesca Amewudah-Rivers (?)

Smash

Spring 2025

March 10--Ghosts (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)

March 25--Old Friends (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman) (previews begins opening TBA)

March--Wine in the Wilderness (CSC)

April 21--Floyd Collins (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)

April 24--The Pirates of Penzance (Roundabout/Todd Haimes Theater)

April--Boop! The Betty Boop Musical (a Shubert Theater TBA)

May--Bus Stop (CSC/NAATCO/Transport Group)

Bowl EP (Vineyard Theater/National Black Theater)

Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. (Public)

Good Night and Good Luck

The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse (New Group/Signature Center)

The Last Five Years

Lights Out: Nat "King" Cole (NYTW)

Othello

The Picture of Dorian Gray (???)

Show Boat (Target Margin/NYU Skirball)

2025

Redwood

We Had a World (MTC/City Center Stage I)

Summer 2025

Twelfth Night (Public Theater/Delacorte)

Fall 2025

Initiative (Public)

2026

Hello, I'm Dolly

Future--Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death; Beaches the Musical; Beat Street; Black Orpheus; Come Fall in Love--The DDLJ Musical; Crazy Rich Asians; The Devil Wears Prada; Ella: An American Miracle; Everybody's Talking About Jamie; Frida, the Musical; Game of Thrones; The Griswolds' Broadway Vacation; High Noon; Imitation of Life; The Interestings; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; Just in Time; The Karate Kid; La La Land; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; The Mousetrap; Nancy Drew and the Mystery at Spotlight Manor; The Nanny; The Normal Heart/The Destiny of Me; Pal Joey; Purple Rain; The Queen of Versailles; The Queen's Gambit; Rear Window; The Secret Garden; Sing Street; Soul Train; Stranger Things: The First Shadow; Studio 54; Working Girl.

2024-25 Broadway Season Breakdown

New Plays

Cult of Love

Good Night and Good Luck

The Hills of California

Job 

Left on Tenth

MCNEAL

Oh, Mary!

The Roommate

New Musicals

Boop! The Betty Boop Musical

Death Becomes Her

Maybe Happy Ending

Old Friends

Smash

Swept Away

Tammy Faye

What a Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical

Play Revivals

English

Eureka Day

Home

Othello

Our Town

Romeo and Juliet

Yellowface

Musical Revivals

Floyd Collins

Gypsy

The Last Five Years

Once Upon a Mattress

The Pirates of Penzance

Sunset Boulevard