Our weekly photo news round-up of what is happening on Broadway.
Daniel Evans in a gay version of Company, Neil Patrick Harris in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Wicked celebrates its 10th anniversary, The Lion King tops the billion mark and more.
Daniel Evans in Gay Company
Our very own Daniel Evans, actor extraordinaire and artistic director of Sheffield Theatres, is in New York this week for a rather exciting project. The New York Times reports that the British director of Once, John Tiffany, is directing Dan as Bobby in a revised version of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company. Not hugely exciting in itself given that Daniel starred as Bobby in an acclaimed Sheffield production in 2011. BUT Sondheim and Tiffany are reworking Bobby to be a gay man – something that always seemed present in the show as Bobby struggled with various commitment issues (he just hadn’t found the right girl!)
They are running a private rehearsal of the show in New York today, Friday 18 October, and depending on how this goes the Roundabout Theater Company may stage a production. Evans will be in good company in the rehearsal as the Lady Who Lunches, Joanne, is to be played by Alan Cumming, with Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie also joining the fun.
Given Daniel’s commitments in the UK (he directs Oliver! at the Crucible this Christmas), here’s hoping it will arrive here soon. David Babani at the Menier – get to it!
Neil Patrick Harris Gets Angry
Neil Patrick Harris is getting angry! And not just because he isn’t doing the Company rehearsal as a Gay Bobby (NPH was superb in the concert staging in 2011 with the New York Philharmonic alongside Patti LuPone and others). He is gearing up to give us his Hedwig in the big new revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway. Directed by Michael Mayer, the new Broadway revival of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s 1998 rock musical sees NPH as a transgender rocker from East Berlin.
The How I Met Your Mother and Toy Awards star is getting dragged up to his sparkly eyebrows and the show promises to be the most talked about musical of the Spring on Broadway.
Ten Wicked Years
How has it been TEN YEARS since Wicked hit Broadway and sparked a global greenfest? The show kicked off at the Gershwin Theatre in New York on 30 October 2003 and has not stopped Defying Gravity ever since – with the London production still packing them in at the Apollo Victoria Theatre.
The original stars of the show, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, have just joined a 10 Year Reunion feature for Entertainment Weekly and look as fine as they did a decade ago as the Wicked witches.
Box-Office Big Beasts
The Lion King has just topped a money milestone on the Great White Way by grossing more than $1 billion – the first Broadway musical in history to top this figure.
That means it has taken more than the worldwide gross of the original movie. The show is already Broadway’s highest-grossing show of all time, topping The Phantom of the Opera last April. Phantom is still Broadway’s longest-running musical though, with The Lion King coming in fifth – but about to topple Les Miserable to gain fourth place.
The Lion King also continues to rake it in at the Lyceum Theatre in London and is currently celebrating its birthday having opened on 19th October 1999. Happy 14th birthday.
More Broadway Banter
- JAMES FRANCO: Looks like James Franco is going to make his Broadway debut this spring – as George in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.
- TONI COLLETTE: Also this Spring it seems that Toni Collette is also going to hit Broadway, in Will Eno comedy The Realistic Joneses alongside Dexter’s Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei.
Apollo Victoria Theatre, London
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