Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Cheyenne Jackson Has Vocal Adrenaline

Broadway's Cheyenne Jackson will be coming to TV in the breakout hit TV musical Glee.  He will serve as the coach of Vocal Adrenaline, rival to William McKinley High's New Directions.  He will be taking the job from Idina Menzel's Shelby Chorcoran, who will be returning to the show without her group.  Other Broadway vets returning to the show are Neil Patrick Harris and friends  to the blog Lea Michele and Kristin Chenoweth.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Preliminary Casting Announced for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Preliminary casting has been announced for the upcoming Broadway musical version of Pedro Almodovar's 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.  The production, which will play the Belasco Theatre as a Lincoln Center production, will star Broadway diva Patti LuPone, Sherri Rene Scott, and Brian Stokes Mitchell.  Bartlett Sherr, a Tony winner for his direction of the recent Lincoln Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, will direct the tuner, which will begin previews on October 2nd and open on November 4th.  de'Adra Aziza, Danny Burstein, Mary Beth Piel, and Nikka Graff Lanzarone will costar in the show, whose score will be composed by David Yazbek and will feature a book by Jeffrey Lane who previously collaborated on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Al Pacino to Bring Venice to Broadway

Broadway.com has announced that the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park staging of The Merchant of Venice will transfer to Broadway.  Al Pacino, star of the Park production, will move with the production for 78 performances from mid October through early January at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway in a production directed by Daniel Sullivan.  The current production will close August 1st.  Al Pacino previously portrayed Shylock in the 2004 movie adaptation of the play and won Tony Awards for his performances in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, as well as appearing in Broadway productions of American Buffalo, Camino Real, and Salome.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Boxing and Ballet and Trotsky and Stalin

Elton John, it seems, can make music about anything.  From his highly successful career, in which he wrote songs about Norma Jean and the Crocodile Rock, to his Broadway scores to shows as varied as Aida and Billy Elliott, has taken on a new project.  Sir Elton and Lee Hall, his collaborator on the aforementioned Billy Elliott, will team up again on a musical adaptation of George Orwell's 1945 novella Animal Farm.  There are hopes that the show will appear as early as the end of 2011 or early 2012.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Daniel Radcliffe Will Learn to Succeed Al Hirschfeld

The 50th anniversary revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which has announced Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe as its star in what will be his Broadway musical debut, will play at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, which was recently vacated by the Tony-Winning revival of Hair.  The production will be directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford, currently represented on Broadway by the revival of Promises, Promises starring Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes.