B'way Update: Titanique Cast; Gay Fantasticks

Jim Parsons, Debrah Cox, Frankie Grande
and Constantine Rousouli
will headline Titanique on Broadway.

Titanique, the long-running Off-Broadway parody musical, has announced new passengers for its Broadway voyage. Joining co-creator Marla Mindelle as Celine Dion will be four-time Emmy Award winner and Tony nominee Jim Parsons (“Big Bang Theory,” Mother Play, Our Town) as Ruth Dewitt Bukater; multi-platinum Grammy-nominated singer and actress Deborah Cox (The Wiz, The Bodyguard Musical) as Unsinkable Molly Brown; original cast member Frankie Grande (Rock of Ages, Mamma Mia) returns as Victor Garber; and Olivier Award-winning Titanique co-creator Constantine Rousouli (Wicked, Cruel Intentions: The Musical) as Jack Dawson, a role he originated off-Broadway. Additional casting will be announced in the coming weeks. 

Previews begin March 26 at the St. James Theater with an opening set for April 26. The limited run engagement will play through July 12.

Big Bang/Conners Overlap

Jack McBrayer, Katey Segal, Johnny Galecki,
Kaley Cuoco, and Keith Carradine at Leonard
and Penny's wedding on TBBT.

I stopped watching The Big Bang Theory around season 8. It was getting repetitive after Howard and Bernadette got married and then they jumped the shark by having her get pregnant, oh, and moving Sheldon and Amy in together. But lately I started watching episodes on HBO Max because I loved the characters so much. Interestingly, there was a great deal of actor overlap between TBBT and The Conners, a show I did watch until the very last episode. The most obvious case of double casting was Sara Gilbert and Johnny Galecki who starred as Darlene and David, high school sweethearts later divorced parents on both Roseanne and The Conners. On TBBT, Galecki was the top-billed Leonard Hofstedder and Gilbert guest-starred in a few episodes as snarky fellow scientist Leslie Winkle. Also Laurie Metcalf won several Emmys for playing Roseanne's eccentric sister Jackie and appeared as Sheldon's religious mother Mary. But what I did not know was Katey Segal (Futurama, Married with Children) played both Penny's mother and Darlene's stepmother. So that means she was Johnny Galecki's mother-in-law and ex-step-mother-in-law. To add another degree of connection, Katy also played Kelly Cuoco's mom on Eight Simple Rules (which I've never watched.) Laurie and Katy guest starred on the episode where Leonard and Penny had a second wedding ceremony. 

B'way Update: Our Town Cast, Dates and Theater; OCC Noms

Cast members, dates and a theater have been announced for the upcoming Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's beloved Our Town, to be directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon (Purlie Victorious, A Raisin in the Sun). Previews will begin Sept. 14 at the Barrymore Theater prior to an Oct. 10 opening. 

Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Ephriam Sykes, 
Billy Eugene Jones, Katie Holmes and Julie Halston
will star in Our Town.

The 28-member cast will be led by Emmy, Golden Globe & Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) as “Stage Manager”, Zoey Deutch as “Emily Webb”, Katie Holmes (All My Sons) as “Mrs. Webb”, Obie & Audelco Award-winner and Drama Desk-nominee Billy Eugene Jones (Purlie Victorious, Fat Ham) as “Dr. Gibbs”, Tony & Grammy Award-nominee Ephraim Sykes (Ain't Too Proud) as “George Gibbs”, Tony & Drama Desk Award-nominee and Emmy-Award-winner Richard Thomas (The Waltons, Race) as “Mr. Webb”, Tony & Drama Desk-nominee Michelle Wilson (Sweat, Confederates) as “Mrs. Gibbs”, 2021 Special Tony Award-winner and Drama Desk-nominee Julie Halston (Tootsie, You Can't Take It With You) as “Mrs. Soames”, Donald Webber Jr. as “Simon Stimpson”, as well as Ephie Aardema, Heather Ayers, Willa Bost, Bobby Daye, Safiya Kaijya Harris, Doron JéPaul, Shyla Lefner, Anthony Michael Lopez, John McGinty, Bryonha Marie, Kevyn Morrow, Hagan Oliveras, Noah Pyzik, Sky Smith, Bill Timoney, Matthew Elijah Webb and Nimene Sierra Wureh.  The final two cast members will be announced at a later date.

B'way Update: Cast for Mother Play; Death Becomes Her

Jessica Lange will star in
Paula Vogel's Mother Play.

Casting and dates have been announced for Mother Play by Paula Vogel (Indecent, How I Learned to Drive) to open this coming spring at Second Stage's Hayes Theater. Tony and Drama Desk winner Celia Keenan-Bolger (To Kill a Mockingbird), Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner Jessica Lange (Long Day's Journey Into Night), and Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG winner Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) will star in the world premiere directed by Tony nominee and Drama Desk winner Tina Landau (SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical). Previews begin April 2 with an April 25 opening. 

Lange will play Phyllis, a domineering matriarch supervising the move of her teenaged children Carl (Parsons) and Martha (Keenan-Bolger) into a new apartment outside Washington, DC in 1962. Phyllis has definite ideas about how her children should lead their lives. The play follows the family's rollercoaster ride through the coming years. 

In other news, Megan Hilty (Smash) and Jennifer Simard (Disaster, Once Upon a One More Time) will star in a musical version of the 1992 film comedy Death Becomes Her which starred Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, set to play Chicago's Cadillac Theater from April 30-June 2, 2024. The new musical, which has its sights set on Broadway, features a score by Noel Carey and Julia Mattison, book by Marco Pennette and direction by Christopher Gattelli (Newsies). Simard plays Helen, a writer whose husband has an affair with her former friend Madeline (Hilty), a glamorous movie star. As Helen plots her revenge against Madeline, the stakes becomes higher when both partake of a mysterious potion granting them eternal youth and beauty. 

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in
Death Becomes Her.

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Linda Lavin in You Will Get Sick, etc.

Linda Lavin on the CBS series
B Positive.
Credit: Warner Brothers

Updates to the upcoming fall season: Tony-Drama Desk-Obie winner Linda Lavin will return to the New York stage in You Will Get Sick, a new play by Noah Diaz beginning previews Oct. 14 at Roundabout Theater Company's Laura Pels Theater with an opening set for Nov. 6. The play focuses on a young man hiring an older woman to tell his family and friends about his life-changing diagnosis. Lavin won a Tony for Neil Simon's Broadway Bound and was nominated for The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Collected Stories and The Lyons. She won Obies for Death-Defying Acts and the Off-Broadway run of The Lyons and Drama Desk Awards for Little Murders, Broadway Bound and The New Century. She is probably best known for playing the title role on the long-running sitcom Alice (1976-85) and most recently starred on TV in CBS' B Positive...

Off-B'way Update: Jim Parsons to Star in A Man of No Importance

Jim Parsons
Credit: Jesse Dittmar

Four-time Emmy winner Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) will star in a revival of A Man of No Importance, the musical based on the 1994 film starring Albert Finney, to be directed by Tony and Drama Desk winner John Doyle (Sweeney Todd, The Color Purple, Company). Previews begins Oct. 11 at Classic Stage Company for an Oct. 30 opening. This will be Doyle's final production at CSC as artistic director after staging productions including Passion, Carmen Jones, and Assassins. Parsons has previously appeared on Broadway in The Boys in the Band, The Normal Heart, An Act of God and Harvey. He will play Alfie Byrne, a Irish bus driver with a theatrical flair. While suppressing his gay affections, Alfie leads an amateur dramatic company in a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome over the objections of the local church. 

The show with a book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, opened at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 2002 and starred Roger Rees, Faith Prince, Sally Murphy, Charles Keating, and Stephen Pasquale. It won the Outer Critics Circle Award as Best Off-Broadway Musical.

B'way Update: Logjam in Spring 2018; Early 2018-19 Announcements

Jim Parsons will star in a revival of The Boys in the Band,
which will be eligible for 2018-19 Tonys.

So many Broadway theaters are booked and so few shows are closing there is a logjam of venues this spring. Therefore many shows have announced their openings for the next fall. Usually a number of productions shutter right after the holiday season, but in addition to the perennials like Wicked, Lion King, and Chicago, a number of productions which received middling reviews but strong word of mouth are still going into 2018 including Anastasia, A Bronx Tale and School of Rock, as well as Tony winners Dear Evan Hansen, Come from Away, and Kinky Boots. Tracey Letts' The Minutes has an announced opening of March 8,

Glenda Jackson will return to Broadway
after a 30-year absence in Three Tall Women.

but no theater yet. They'd better hurry and grab one. The all-star revival of The Boys in the Band with Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, and Andrew Rannells had originally been slated as an April opening in order to qualify for the Tonys, but it's just been announced as opening on May 31, meaning it will eligible for the 2019 awards. The shift may have been due to director Joe Mantello's heavy workload. He will also be staging the revival of Three Tall Women starring Glenda Jackson in her first Broadway role in 30 years (the Scottish play with Christopher Plummer in 1988 was her last) which opens just two months earlier on March 29. Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill are the other two women. 

Additional shows making early announcements for 2018-19 include To Kill a Mockingbird, Getting the Band Back Together, King Kong, The Prom, Pretty Woman, a Kiss Me, Kate revival from Roundabout starring Kelli O'Hara, and the Cher Show. Cher is not the only pop artist to have a musical based on her life and/or work in the planning stages. Others include Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (which has booked the Lunt-Fontanne for this April according to Michael Riedel of the NY Post), Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical, Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morrisette), and a Pat Benatar musical. 

Broadway Update: 2015-16 in View

Groundhog Day (with Bill Murray and friend) will be made into
a Broadway musical for 2016-17

April is here and that means a mad dash of Broadway openings just before the April 23rd cut-off date for the Tony nominations. There are 14 Broadway openings this month--15 if you count both parts of Wolf Hall as two shows. But as we race towards the end of 2014-15, the next season 2015-16 has already begun to take shape.The first show of the new season will be An Act of God starring Jim Parsons as the deity, followed by summer openings of Penn and Teller and Hamilton's transfer to the Richard Rodgers. In the fall, we'll have On Your Feet, Al Pacino in David Mamet's China Doll, Clive Owen and Eve Best in Harold Pinter's Old Times, George Takei in Allegiance, and Fiddler on the Roof with Danny Burstein. December brings School of Rock and a revival of The Color Purple. There are also plans for 2016-17 with the new Groundhog Day musical from the creators of Matilda and a new version of The Wiz which will be broadcast on NBC first. Harvey Fierstein is writing new material for the book and Cirque du Soleil is producing it. Here's a schedule for the rest of this season and the beginning of the next:

April 2--Skylight (Golden)
April 7--Hand to God (Booth)
April 8--Gigi (Neil Simon)
April 9--Wolf Hall, Parts I and II (Winter Garden)
April 12--An American in Paris (Palace)
April 12--Ghosts (BAM/Harvey Theatre)
April 14--It Shoulda Been You (Brooks Atkinson)
April 15--Finding Neverland (Lunt-Fontanne)
April 15--Hamlet (CSC)

April 16--The King and I (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)

April 19--Fun Home (Circle in the Square)

April 20--Living on Love (Longacre)

April 20--Outer Critics Circle Nominations Announced (Friars Club)

April 21--Doctor Zhivago (Broadway)
April 21--Drama League Award Nominations Announced (Sardi's)

April 22--Something Rotten (St. James)

April 23--The Visit (Lyceum)

April 23--Airline Highway (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman)

April 23--Drama Desk Nominations Announced (54 Below)

April 28--Tony Nominations Announced

April 29--Tony Nominees Press Event

May 10--Lortel Awards
May 11--Outer Critics Circle winners announced by press release
May 15--Drama League Awards (Marriott Marquis)
May 18--Obie Awards

May 21--The Sound and the Fury (Elevator Repair Service at the Public)
May 21--Outer Critics Circle Awards (Sardi's)
May 28--An Act of God (Studio 54)
May 31--Drama Desk Awards (Town Hall)
May 2015--Dr. Faustus (CSC); What I Did Last Summer (Signature); Permission (MCC/Lortel)
June 7--Tony Awards
June 29--Shows for Days (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
July 7--Penn and Teller (Marquis)
Aug. 6--Hamilton (Richard Rodgers)

Oct. 5--On Your Feet (Marquis)
Oct. 15--Old Times (Roundabout)
Oct. 29--Therese Racquin (American Airlines/Roundabout) 
Nov. 8--Allegiance (Theatre TBA)
Nov. 19--China Doll (Gerald Schoenfeld)
Nov. 2015--Fiddler on the Roof
Fall 2015--Misery, American Psycho
Dec. 3--The Color Purple (Jacobs)
Dec. 6--School of Rock (Winter Garden)
Jan. 14, 2016--Noises Off (Roundabout)
Jan. 20--Our Mother's Brief Affair (MTC/Samuel Friedman)

2015-16--Children of a Lesser God, Houdini
April 21--Shuffle Along (Music Box)
Spring 2016--She Loves Me (Roundabout), Falsettos
2016-17--The Wiz
March 9, 2017--Groundhog Day
2017--Sherlock Holmes

Future--Bandstand, Disney's Frozen, Soul Train, Pretty Woman, The First Wives Club, Magic Mike, Freaky Friday, King Kong, Miss Saigon, The Visitor 

Being Gay at Award Shows: A Contrast

Jodie Foster at the Golden Globes

There were two very different images of being a gay celebrity on recent awards shows, one reflected how things are in 2013, the other was a shadow of a closeted past. On the People's Choice Awards last week, four of the five nominees for Favorite TV Comedy Actor were openly gay: Chris Colfer (Glee), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), and Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory). Two play gay characters (Colfer, Ferguson) and two straight (Harris, Parsons). The fifth nominee was Ferguson's straight brother-in-law on his show Ty Burrell. Colfer won, and I didn't even realize the gay slant in this category until I thought about it. Incidentally, the award was presented by Ellen DeGeneris who won her 13th People's Choice Award for Favorite Talk Show Host. The Million Moms must be having conniptions.

The wonderful thing was most of the actors have not made a big deal of coming out, their sexuality is casually mentioned in interviews which is all I've ever wanted. I wanted actors to be be able to mention their same-sex partners or love interests the same as their straight counterparts. I remember Anderson Cooper having to not even hint at his sexuality on CNN. Actors should not have to hide their true selves and it's not an invasion of privacy anymore and it won't damage their careers. It's important that young gay people being bullied in school for being gay have people like the four nominees be seen as popular, funny, and successful and not freaks or objects of derision.