B'way Update: Coal Miner's Daughter

Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter.

Coal Miner's Daughter, a new musical aimed for Broadway based on the life of country music legend Loretta Lynn, is currently in development. Tony winner Sutton Foster is slated to play Lynn. The production is in development under the direction of Tony Award-winner Sam Gold.  Music Production is by Tony Award-winner Jeanine Tesori.  Gold and Tesori last worked together on the Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home.

Inspired by the award-nominated 1980 film and autobiography by Loretta Lynn and George Vecsey, Coal Miner's Daughter chronicles Loretta’s rise from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to country music legend. Sissy Spacek won an Oscar for starring in the film. The stage adaptation will include songs from Loretta’s career and share stories from Loretta’s life beyond the film’s ending. 

Loretta Lynn's manager, producer, and daughter, Patsy Lynn, and longtime adviser, Nancy Russell, will act as consulting producers.

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.

Award News: DD Presenters and Tony Pre-Show

Aaron Tviet and Sutton Foster
will host the 2024 Drama Desk Awards 
on June 10.
Drawing by Justin "Squiggles" Robertson

The 68th Drama Desk Awards, held on Mon. June 10 at 6:15 pm at NYU's Skirball Hall and hosted by Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit of Sweeney Todd, have announced presenters: BROOKE SHIELDS, LAURA BENANTI, MATTHEW BRODERICK ANDREW RANNELLS, NIKKI M. JAMES, DEBRA MESSING, BRIAN D'ARCY JAMES, MONTEGO GLOVER, LENA HALL, and RUTHIE ANN MILES. Kelli O'Hara (nominated for Days of Wine and Roses) will perform a musical tribute to William Wolf Award recipient Andre Bishop. Nathan Lane will receive the Harold S. Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement. Lane has previously won six Drama Desk Awards, three Tonys, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Drama League Award, a Lortel and two Obies. 

There are balcony seats available for the general public and may be purchased at https://tickets.nyu.edu/dramadesk2024/15422

To purchase prime VIP orchestra seats please click HERE.

Julianne Hough and Utkarsh Ambudkar will
host the Tonys' pre-show on Pluto.

Tony Pre-Show: Emmy Award winner Julianne Hough and star of CBS’ GHOSTS Utkarsh Ambudkar will host THE TONY AWARDS: ACT ONE, a live pre-show with exclusive content that is available to viewers for free on Pluto TV beginning Sunday, June 16 at 6:30-8:00 PM, ET/3:30-5:00 PM, PT. Hough, who starred in the hit Broadway play “POTUS,” and Ambudkar, who made his Broadway debut in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s improvisational hip-hop show “Freestyle Love Supreme,” will kick off Broadway’s biggest night with the presentation of the first round of Tony Awards during the exciting pre-show telecast. 

Immediately following, THE 77TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS, with Academy Award winner and Tony Award nominee Ariana DeBose, will air live from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, from 8:00-11:00 PM, LIVE ET/5:00-8:00 PM, LIVE PT on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S. (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs)*.

No word yet on which awards will be presented on Pluto and which on CBS.

B'way Update: Mattress Transfers; Swept Away to Sweep In

Sutton Foster in
Once Upon a Mattress at Encores
Credit: Joan Marcus

Tony winner Sutton Foster will headline a revival of Once Upon a Mattress this summer on Broadway. The production is a transfer of the Encores presentation of the 1959 satirical fairy-tale musical which launched the career of Carol Burnett when she took on the lead of role of Princess Winifred the Woebegone. Mattress will begin previews at the Hudson Theater on July 31 with an opening set for Aug. 12 for a limited run through Nov. 30. The beloved musical returns to Broadway in a new adaptation by Emmy Award winner Amy Sherman-Palladino (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, “Gilmore Girls”), directed by Tony Award nominee and Drama League Award winner Lear deBessonet (Into The Woods). 

Following its Broadway engagement, Foster will headline the production in Los Angeles for a four-week engagement at Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre from December 10, 2024 – January 5, 2025. 

Further casting has not been confirmed. The Encores production also featured Michael Urie, Harriet Harris, Cheyenne Jackson, Nikki Renee Daniels, J. Harrison Ghee, Francis Jue and David Patrick Kelly. Mattress opened Off-Broadway in 1959 and later transferred to the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon). The show changed theaters several times and ended up at the St. James for a total run of 470 performances. Sarah Jessica Parker starred in a 1996 revival and Jackie Hoffman and Jon Epperson (aka Lypsinka) headlined a 2015 production from Transport Group. There have been three TV adaptations, airing in 1964, 1972 and 2005 with Burnett repeating her Winifred role in the first two and playing the evil Queen Aggravain in the latter. Here is a link to my blog on those broadcasts as part of the Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show series.

The company of Swept Away
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Swept Away: The musical Swept Away (not to be confused with the 1974 Lina Wertmuller film of the same name) will be sweeping onto Broadway this fall. The show with a score by the Avett Brothers has had productions at Berkely Rep and Arena Stage. The announcement was made on May 17 at an Avett Brothers concert at Forrest Hill Stadium. A date or theater was not specified. Tony winner John Gallagher, Jr. (Spring Awakening), Tony nominee Stark Sands (Kinky Boots), Adrian Blake Enscoe and Wayne Duvall are slated to star. Based on the Avett Brothers' 2004 concept album Mignonette, the musical is inspired by an 1844 shipwreck of a whaling vessel off the coast of New Bedford, Mass. Michael Mayer (American Idiot, Thoroughly Modern Millie) directs. The book is by John Logan (Moulin Rouge, The Last Ship, Red).

B'way Update: Tveit and Foster Confirmed for Sweeney; More Casting; More Rumors

Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit
will star in Sweeney Todd
Credit: Matthew Murphy

As reported yesterday and now confirmed, Tony winners Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster will assume the roles of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett in the current revival of Sweeney Todd at the Lunt-Fontanne. They will begin performances Feb. 9, 2024 for 12 weeks through May 5. Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford continue in the starring parts until Jan. 14, 2024....Tony nominee Ato Blankson-Wood (Slave Play, Hamlet) has been cast in the role of Cliff (originated by Bert Convy of Tattletales fame) in the upcoming revival of Cabaret, alongside Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin. Ato Blankson-Wood said, "I am beyond excited to return to Broadway in Rebecca Frecknall's brilliant production of Cabaret. I recognize the weight and responsibility of telling this particular story at this particular moment and am emboldened by the fact that I'll get to do it alongside Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, two actors whom I admire so deeply. Cliff, like me, is an artist attempting to create and make sense of the world against a backdrop of escalating violence and hatred, I look forward to learning what he has to teach me."

Ato Blankson-Wood

B'way Update: Lempicka Confirmed; Plus Rumors

Eden Espinosa and George Abud
in Lempicka at La Jolla Playhouse.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

The musical Lempicka, based on the life of controversial Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka, will join a growing number of new musicals opening on Broadway this spring. After regional runs at the Williamstown Theater Festival and La Jolla Playhouse, previews begin March 19 in advance of an April 14 opening at the Longacre Theater. Eden Espinosa (also starring in The Gardens of Anuncia this season Off-Broadway) will play the title role and Tony winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown) will direct. The book, lyrics and original concept are by Carson Kreitzer and the music is by Matt Gould who also co-authored the book.

B'way in Limbo: Tonys Delayed; More Shows Rescheduled

Jagged Little Pill, Moulin Rouge and Slave Play
received multiple 2020 Tony nominations.

The lights on Broadway will remain dim for even longer due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Last month, the Broadway League announced that all 41 of its member theaters will be shuttered until May 30, 2021. This is the latest in a series of extended closures since the stages closed on March 13. In the wake of this announcement, many shows have had to reshuffle their schedules and the Tony Awards have been pushed back even further. Broadway's highest honors for the abortive 2019-20 season have been delayed numerous times but the nominations were given out on Oct. 15 with Jagged Little Pill netting the most with 15 and Moulin Rouge garnering 14. Slave Play took 12. It was expected that the awards would be handed out online sometime in late fall. But with Broadway shows not returning until June of next year, Broadway League president Charlotte St. Martin has stated in an interview with Sirius XM host Julie James, "We don't have  a decision date yet. Since we're not opening in March, we have more planning time." 

How much planning time do you need, Charlotte? It's been eight months. On the surface this foot-dragging doesn't make sense. All the other theater plaudits including the Drama Desks, Outer Critics Circle, New York Drama Critics Circle, Obie and Lortel Awards, were given out in modest, socially distanced ceremonies online or on New York-1, months ago. But when we consider the raison d'etre of the Tony is NOT to honor the best of the season, but to provide a commercial platform to advertise currently-running shows and stoke the box office, it adds up. Dispensing trophies several months before playgoers can buy tickets lessens the Tony impact to almost nothing. So the producers would rather wait until the awards can result in some cash. Will we have to wait until 2021 for the 2020 Tonys? Probably. I guess the producers of Moulin Rogue did not get the memo, because I just received a lavish promotional book on the show, the kind sent to Tony voters just as we are casting ballots.

New Broadway Openings for 2021

While New York City is slowly reopening from the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the return of Broadway and other stages is still far in the future. But there is a glimmer of hope. Several Main Stem productions have announced new dates for previews and openings, all in 2021 and the earliest dates are March 1. The Minutes by Tracey Letts will begin previews at the Cort Theater on next March 1 with an opening set for March 15, one year after its originally projected premiere. The dark comedy about a secretive town council meeting has had a bumpy road to Broadway. After its Steppenwolf Theater Company debut in Chicago in 2017, the play was set to open on Broadway in 2018, but was delayed. The 2020 production was to have been directed by Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro (Letts' August: Osage County) and feature the playwright, Armie Hammer, Ian Barford (Letts' Linda Vista), Blair Brown, Cliff Chamberlain, K. Todd Freeman, Danny McCarthy, Jessie Mueller, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, and Jeff Still. 

The fourth Broadway production of David Mamet's American Buffalo is now set to begin previews at Circle in the Square on March 24 with an opening slated for April 14, also a year from its original debut. The three-character play about small-time crooks planning a heist of a coin collection stars Laurence Fishburne, Oscar winner Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss. Neil Pepe directs. Previous productions have starred Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, and John Leguizamo. 

Franco and Foster Join 2014 Bway Roster

James Fracno will star in Of Mice and Men 
on Broadway

Add James Franco and Sutton Foster to the growing list of hot stars coming to Broadway in 2014. Franco will be making his Broadway debut along with Chris O'Dowd of Bridesmaids in a revival of Of Mice and Men to be directed by Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County). Foster stars in a revival of the musical Violet which was such a hit at the Encores! Off Center series earlier this year. Violet fills the spring slot in Roundabout Theatre Company's schedule which was left vacant when The Real Thing with Ewan McGregor was pushed ahead to 2014-15. That Franco is a busy guy, while filming The Interview, he had time to make a shot-for-shot parody of a Kanye West video with his co-star Seth Rogen. Plus he's working on several movies including a film version of The Sound and the Fury and a bio of avant-garde author Charles Bukowski.

Other big names coming to Broadway include Denzel Washington, Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Michelle Williams, Alan Cumming, and Bryan Cranston. The Breaking Bad star will headline All the Way, Robert Schenkkan's play about President Lyndon Johnson and the civil right movement which was a hit at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. March and April are getting pretty crowded now, see the updated schedule below:

Frantic Theatergoing and Free Comic Book Day

John Lloyd Young and Linda Lavin announcing
the Drama Desk nominees at 54 Below

This has been a hectic week of theatergoing and comic book shopping. There are a lot of shows to catch up with at the end of the season as we prepare for Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony voting. Another important event is Free Comic Book Day, a promotional event for the comic industry when they try to draw in new customers with free offers at the various comic-book stores, which falls on the first Saturday in May.

The Drama Desk nominees were announced by previous DD winners John Lloyd Young (Jersey Boys) and Linda Lavin (Broadway Bound, The New Century) on Monday at 54 Below. The next day Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Sutton Foster performed similar chores in giving out the Tony nominees. My reactions to both lists and that of the Outer Critics Circle will be explored in an upcoming blog post. Wednesday was the Tony nominees reception and that afternoon I attended the matinee of The Nance with Nathan Lane. Thursday I caught up with Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, which was presented earlier this season at Ars Nova and is now in a new location called Kazino all the way down on 10th Ave. They give you a Russian dinner as part of the show which is based on a section of War and Peace. The show didn't get out until midnight. Friday I was supposed to see Pippin, but Patina Miller, nominated for all the major awards as the Leading Player, was out that night and I had to reschedule.