B'way Update: New Stoppard Play; Kinky Boots Off-B'way; COVID Woes

Ed Stoppard (the author's son), Alexis Zegerman,
Faye Castelow and Adrian Scarborough in
Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt. 
Photograph: Marc Brenner

What a coincidence. Just as I finish reading Hermione Lee's comprehensive, 700-plus page biography of Tom Stoppard, an announcement by Twitter arrives that his latest play, Leopoldstadt will be arriving on Broadway at a future, unspecified date. The tweet was sent by the production. Auditions for the New York company will take place later this month. The play concerning a Jewish-Catholic family in Vienna over several decades, opened in London in 2020 but closed after a brief run due to the COVID pandemic. A production was set for Toronto earlier this year but was cancelled due to ongoing COVID restrictions. The production reunites Stoppard, director Patrick Marber and producer Sonia Friedman who collaborated on Travesties in 2017.

B'way Update: 'Fun Home' Finds a Home

Obie winner Syndey Lucas and Michael Cerveris in Fun Home
Credit: Joan Marcus

There have been a lot of Broadway announcements lately. Love Letters and Side Show are getting revivals, Larry David will make his B'way debut as both actor and playwright in a comedy called Fish in the Dark, and Fun Home will move to the Circle In the Square one year after its acclaimed Off-B'way run at the Public. The oval space surrounded by audience presents interesting challenges for director Sam Gold. Fun Home will join other shows such as Urinetown, Next to Normal, Avenue Q, In the Heights, and Grey Gardens which played Off-Bway and on in separate seasons and were therefore eligible for Obies, Drama Desks and Outer Critics one year and Tonys the next. That leads to some weird differences in the awards, like Urinetown and Avenue Q getting a bunch of Tonys but no DDs. Fun Home did get the Lortel, Obie and NY Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical as well as the Outer Critics Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical, but lost the DD to A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. It's too early to tell what Fun Home's competition for the 2015 Tony will be. There will probably be a big push for Sting's The Last Ship and this year the Best Score category will definitely be on the air since the 16-time Grammy winner will be nominated. You'll recall that in 2013, Cyndi Lauper got to accept her Tony on TV for Kinky Boots, while Jason Robert Brown who nobody knows outside of drama clubs across the country, had to pick up his two Tonys for score and orchestrations of Bridges of Madison County during the commercials. Here's a rundown of the Broadway season on and Off-Bway so far: 

OCC, DDs, and Tonys: Will 'Kinky Boots' Kick 'Matilda' to the Curb?

The Outer Critics just announced their winners and it looks like Kinky Boots will be kicking Matilda to the curb if these awards are any indication for the Tonys. Boots walked all over Matilda for the Outstanding Broadway Musical Award and Billy Porter also beat down Bertie Carvel for Best Actor. The two cross-dressing performers are also going head to head in the Tony lead sweepstakes. Perhaps the Matilda producers should have put the brilliant Carvel who steals the show as the delightfully horrible headmistress Miss Trunchbull, in the Featured Category where he would have been sure to win over the OCC champ in that category, Terrence Mann who plays Pippin's overbearing father Charlemange. I think Mann will probably win the Tony because he's been around so long without a win (he was nominated for the original Les Miserables, was in the original Cats and Beauty and the Beast, so the Tony voters may reward him for being in long-running shows where he has to wear a lot of make-up).