Off-B'way Update: Sean Hayes; New Group

Sean Hayes 
will star in The Unknown
at Studio Seaview.

Tony, Emmy and SAG winner Sean Hayes (Will and Grace, Good Night, Oscar) will return to the New York stage in The Unknown, a solo play by Obie winner David Cale (Lillian, Deep in a Dream of You), at Studio Seaview with previews beginning Jan. 31, 2026, opening on Feb. 12 for a limited run through April 12. Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (Suffs, Violet) directs. Hayes plays a blocked writer retreating to an isolated cabin only to discover he may not be alone.

Director Leigh Silverman said, “David Cale is a masterful storyteller and I am thrilled to be embarking on our third collaboration with The Unknown. We are joined by the charismatic, dynamic Sean Hayes, an imaginative design team and visionary producers and I can’t wait to share this enthralling show with audiences.”

Playwright David Cale said, "I'm thrilled by the inspired pairing of the brilliant Sean Hayes with my solo thriller, and to be collaborating again with the great Leigh Silverman."

New Group Season: In other Off-Broadway news, The Group has announced in 2026 season and its new permanent home. The company which has been presenting its work in various venues including the Signature Theater Pershing Center, will now take up residence at the theater at St. Clement's, having signed a 30-year lease with the church. The company will present Preston Cowder's Bocking (summer 2026), Adam Rapp's Jackals (fall 2026) and Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine (winter 2026).

Milo O'Shea and Billie Whitelaw in 
the film version of The Adding Machine (1969)

Bocking is a sex farce about two parents called to the principal's office for their bedroom behavior. Jackals  is set in a pandemic-blighted Middle American city in the not-so-distant future. Single mother Orla must choose between a better life for herself or her 14 year old, whose ticket out may be the only commodity left: his immune system. The Adding Machine, a satirical fantasy, premiered in 1923 and concerns Mr. Zero who is replaced at his accounting job by a machine and acts out violently. Milo O'Shea, Billie Whitelaw, and Phyllis Diller starred in the 1969 movie version. A musical version opened Off-Broadway in 2008.

B'way Update: Stoppard, Sesame St., Good Night Oscar, Lena Horne, etc.

A scene from Leopoldstadt
Credit: Marc Brenner

Lots of theater news to report: Tom Stoppard's latest play Leopoldstadt has announced a theater and dates for its Broadway transfer after a critically acclaimed London production in 2020. The decade-spanning epic work about multiple generations of a Jewish-Catholic family in Vienna will begin previews at the Longacre Theatre on Sept. 14 in advance of an Oct. 2 opening. This will be Stoppard's 19th play on Broadway since Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead opened in 1967. He has won four Best Play Tony Awards (for R & G Are Dead, Travesties, The Real Thing, and The Coast of Utopia.) Leopoldstadt won the Olivier Award for its London run but was stopped short by the COVID shutdown. It's the first play in which the playwright uses his Jewish background as a source. 

Also from London: Killing Eve star Jodie Comer will star in Suzie Miller's one-person play Prime Facie, now in the West End, on Broadway in Spring 2023 at a Shubert theater to be announced. Previously presented in Sydney, Australia, Prime Facie focuses on a brilliant barrister coping with patriarchal power, burden of proof and morality. 

Ben Rappaport as Jack Paar and 
Sean Hayes as Oscar Levant
in Good Night, Oscar.
Credit: Liz Lauren

It's not confirmed, but Emmy winner Sean Hayes has stated on his podcast that Good Night Oscar by Tony winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, War Paint) will be arriving on Broadway. Hayes starred in the title role, pianist-actor-humorist Oscar Levant, during a smash hit run at Chicago's Goodman Theater. The play is set during an appearance by Levant on Jack Paar's talk show and features Hayes brilliantly playing George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Levant was a dry-witted comic, gifted composer and musician. He often played the sarcastic, deadpan best friend of the hero in such classic movie musicals as An American in Paris, The Barkleys of Broadway, Romance on the High Seas, and The Band Wagon.

Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant,
and Fred Astaire in
The Band Wagon

Smash Episode 206: The Fringe

Hit List or La Boheme?

So if it's the WINTER Fringe and Julia's now-invisible son Leo is almost on his WINTER break, how come everyone is dressed as if it's late summer on Smash this week? Last week we were left hanging as to whether Bombshell was going with the earlier, flashy workshop version which flopped in Boston or the new artsy-craftsy, high-toned, Ragtime-Follies-Scottsboro-Boys-Caroline-or-Change money-losing version. We open back in the rehearsal room and it's obviously the former has been chosen with Derek and Karen driving the "Waaah-mbulance" about not getting their way and Tom, Jerry and Eileen lording it over them. Derek pouts as he stages the big Second Act opener Public Relations and Jerry demands another number be cut to make room for it. He decrees the lovely Lead with the Heart get the axe and Julia storms out. Unfortunately, Jerry happens to be right, the show has too many ballads with Marilyn standing solo and nothing happening.