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Today on Broadway: Friday, Aug. 15, 2025
00:20:00
Critics weigh in on ‘Mamma Mia’ return, Bakula joins DeBose in ‘Baker’s Wife,’ Henningsen and Karimloo reunite for ‘Jane Eyre’ concert Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every M...
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Matt Tamminini
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Friday, August 15, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamminini and I.
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Grace Aki
Am Tell Me on a Sunday Podcast.
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Matt Tamminini
Grace Aki Grace, this is another summer Friday. That means that we will have a special Patreon exclusive episode in the feeds on Sunday night at 8pm it is a conversation that you and I have answering some questions from listeners and some questions that I had for you. So if you want to hear that, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio or broadwayradio.com patreon and sign up at the Mezzanine tier and above. We do these pretty much. We do them four times a month, but because August has a fifth Sunday, there will not be one on the 31st. However, we will pick back up doing them weekly in September. We will also have a couple special episodes coming up in the feed on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week because I will be out of town. There'll be a show from Jan Simpson. I'll have a special interview. So we will have content in the feed starting on Tuesday, but it will not be Today on Broadway until Thursday.
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Grace Aki
Thursday.
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Matt Tamminini
But Grace, we are getting into all of this because we are a little late. We had to wait for the reviews for the Broadway return engagement of Mamma Mia to officially open and all of those reviews to come out. We are recording after 10pm all of the reviews are out except for the New York Times. There is no New York Times review. I don't know if maybe the Times is just not doing it because it's essentially the same production that happened 25 years ago. I have not seen that officially, but as of recording time, the review aggregator site Did They like it? Has collected 13 reviews. Nine were positive, one was mixed, and three were negative. And whoever these negative people are, we will get to it. I am afraid that they have no joy or whimsy in their hearts, but let's start with Adam Feldman of timeout New York, who gave the show three out of five stars. Still positive, but on the fence there, he said. Quote Unlike most of the jukebox musicals that have tried to replicate its formula, Mamma Mia. Keeps its balance. It draws you just enough in while maintaining an amused sense of itself. It never loses sight of what it offers, at its core, the joy of vicarious karaoke. Owen Gleiberman of Variety was also positive, saying quote Yet Mamma Mia. Remains what it always was, a feast for your pleasure centers. It's a show that almost invites us to roll our eyes at it until that moment or two later when you're inevitably going, my, my, how can I resist you? Jackson McHenry from Vulture was one of the negatives, saying quote the title still carries the big old exclamation point, but the fantasy is more than a little long in the tooth. It's maybe it should be styled with a question mark or just an ellipses. Mamma Mia. They sure do sing a bunch of ABBA songs. Emilyn Travis of Entertainment Weekly was positive writing Quote it's been over 25 years since Mamma Mia. First took to the stage, and it's abundantly clear that the fervor surrounding it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And it's easy to see why. The show is pure sunshine, baked into a musical and dressed in disco balls, sequins and feathered boas. My, my, how could we resist you? It's funny that they're all doing these exact same quotes here. Let's wrap up with Zachary Stewart from Theater Mania, who is positive, saying Quote this is not a dark Brechtian take on a well known musical look like he's throwing some stones over at Jamie Lloyd there, nor a queer reclamation of mainstream pop culture. But I'm not sure anyone needs that for Mamma Mia. A show that knows what it is and consistently delivers. When confronted with such a chronically enjoyable juggernaut, one can only say thank you for the music. This, as we've talked about before, is essentially an extension of the recently wrapped national tour. Still directed as it was originally by the cast comes straight from the national tour. As Donna is Christine Sherrill, as her daughter Sophie is Amy Weaver. Some of the other mainstays in the cast include Rob Marnell as Harry, Jim Newman as Bill Austin, Lena Owens as Lisa, Grant Reynolds as Sky, Carly Sokolov as Rosie, Ethan Van Slyke as Eddie, Jaylene Steele as Tanya, Justin Sudirth as Pe, Victor Wallace as Sam Carmichael and Haley Wright as Ali. I loved it when I saw it, Grace. Here on tour or a few months ago. I'm very much looking forward to see it on Broadway. Are you a Mamma Mia. Person, or am I just far more basic than you are?
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Grace Aki
I've never seen it.
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Matt Tamminini
Have you seen the movie?
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Grace Aki
No, and I really enjoy. Yeah, I really love ABBA's music. I have an 18s album from when that came out, the. You know, the kid group. I know. I've just never seen it. I think. I think I just. It missed me. I don't know. I don't know, Matt.
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Matt Tamminini
I get that, though. I get that.
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Grace Aki
But you know what I mean, like, it just. It kind of missed me and. And, you know, there I was never in the same place as the show was, and I just thought, oh, that's, you know, a long runner. I. I don't know. But it just didn't seem style wise, like a show that I wanted to go to. I'm sure I would have a great time. I'd love to see it sometime, and maybe I'll get to see it on Broadway. But, yeah, I just. It's just one that I don't have a memory of. And I think I know the plot where there's three possible dads and there's a blonde and there's a woman named Donna. I can kind of put it together, because when I was in Greece, I'll say this, when I was in Greece, it was everywhere. And then I was like, did they film it here? And they were like, no, it's about here. And I'm like, but is it about here? I also thought it was murals. Muriel's wedding. It's not.
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Matt Tamminini
Oh, no. Different show. Same songs. Same songs, but a different, different show. I also would love to see Muriel's Wedding come to the United States. That cast album from Australia is also fantastic. So. So, yeah, anyway. All right, well, let's get into some other news. Grace and Deadline exclusively reported yesterday that the one and only Scott Bakula will star opposite Oscar winner Ariana DeBose at Classic Stage Company in their long overdue revival of the Baker's Wife. Bakula will play Amable Castagnet. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that French name. He is the much older husband of Ariana DeBose's character, Genevieve. Grace, the last time Scott Bakula was on stage in a musical, you and I saw said musical, and we were so there. We were not fans of said musical. But I have long loved Scott Bakula. I Remember, I guess Quantum Leap must have started its run when I was, like, 8 or 9, and I loved that show as a kid. So I've always had a soft spot for Scott Bakula. And what's interesting is that a year before I was born in 1980, in the Great state of Ohio at the Cincinnati Playhouse, Scott Bakula did a production of the Baker's Wife. He played the character who, like, completes the love triangle between the three main characters. That part has not yet been cast yet, but it is somebody, from what I understand, coming over from the Outsiders. So we'll wait and see all about that. So it's kind of cool that he's had an opportunity to come back to this show. He has certainly done his fair share of TV and film, but he does have a background in theater. He made his Broadway debut in 1983 playing Joe DiMaggio in an American Fable. He also earned. Earned a Tony nomination in 1988 for Romance Romance. So, like, this is a guy that has theater cred, even if. Yeah, what? Go ahead.
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Grace Aki
But, Matt, the best Scott Bakula appearance of all time is as the dancing cat and Cats Don't Dance. It is his best work. He sings, he dances, he moves. He is an animated cat. But I need everybody to hop on board with Cats Don't Dance before they go see the Baker's Wife because, yeah, we love Scott Bakula in this house.
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Matt Tamminini
I'd never heard of that, but I think we talked about this around the connector time because I'd never heard of Cats Don't Dance, so I know All Dogs Go to Heaven, but Cats Don't Dance was a new one for me. All right, more news coming to us. And this is about the annual Manhattan Concert Productions big, fancy concert that they do at David Geffen hall every year where they always do some musical with some pretty big names and then have a huge choir behind them. This year, they're going to be doing the musical version of Jane Eyre, which is pretty interesting. Not normally. Like, normally it's like, you know, Joseph or even Scarlet Pimpernel, but, like, this is a little bit of a deeper cut. I think for them, it's the musical that has music and lyrics by composer, lyricist Paul Gordon and a book by John Caird, obviously based off of the Charlotte Bronte novel of the same name. It is going to star Erica Henningsen as Jane Eyre and Ramin Karimlou as Rochester. It is gonna take place on February 15, the day after Valentine's Day of next year. And we'll see what we learn more about this. I don't know this musical at all, so I guess maybe I'll have an opportunity to learn more about it. But Erica and Ramin are both very, very hot theater performers right now and they are always in demand. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a pretty good crowd that shows up for this one in February.
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Grace Aki
Back together after Valjean and Fantine.
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Matt Tamminini
Oh, that's right. That's right. Famous Erika was a replacement Fantine. Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. It's really funny when you look at that production of Les Mis, who all of the Fantines were like, they've all like, Erica wasn't a name back then necessarily, but like, every one of them has gone on to do, like, some really great stuff ever since then. As I'm looking through it now.
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Grace Aki
Like, I mean, everyone in that cast. Exactly.
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Matt Tamminini
Yes, 100%. Casey Levy, Montego Glover, Erica Henningsen. I think Alison Luff even did it at one point. So, like, I think at one point, like, all of them were leading shows on Broadway with like Waitress and Mean Girls and all of those different things. And so, yeah, that was a great production of that show with just a really incredible, incredible cast. All right, moving on to some other show and casting news, we recently got information about the complete Off Broadway cast for Jordan E. Cooper's new play, oh Happy Day. It is going to be taking place at the Public Theater, beginning performances on October 2nd and running through November 2nd. Stevie Walker Webb is directing. In the cast will be such names as Tamika Lawrence, Tiffany Mann, Keith Randolph Smith, Brian DeCotes, and of course, Jordan E. Cooper is going to be in it as well. Cooper, along with Tamika Lawrence and Latrice Pace, who's also in the cast. They had previously done the show at the Baltimore center stage back in 2024, so they are reprising their roles. So the work reimagines the biblical story of Noah's Ark and resets it at a birthday barbecue in Laurel, Mississippi. And it features original music by gospel icon Donald Lawrence. I know, Grace, you're a big Jordan E. Cooper fan, so looking forward to hearing all about this one. Speaking of Off Broadway shows from renowned playwrights, the New York Bridge Production Group is going to present Mike Bartlett's Bull later this year. It's going to be directed by Max Hunter and it is going to be, this is a theme this week, an intimate production staged for just 50 audience members from September 19 through October 4 at the Storefront Theater Jack in Brooklyn. This is the newest show by Mike Bartlett, who wrote King Charles iii that was on Broadway and all of that stuff. So the staging will feature Kirsten Anderson, Miles G. Jackson, Alexander Pobutsky and Paco Tolson. And then this is interesting, Grace. There's a new jukebox musical in the works about the late songwriter Ali Willis. Are you familiar with Ali Willis at all?
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Grace Aki
I'm not. Well, I might be, but I don't know right now.
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Matt Tamminini
That's the thing. I had never heard of Ali Willis before, but Ali Willis wrote some of the most incredible song of all time. Also wrote the score for the Color Purple musical. But some of the songs that Ali Willis wrote include, like the theme song from Friends, as well as, like Earth, Wind and Fire's September. Wrote songs for some just absolutely incredible artists. Sister Sledge, the Pointer Sisters, Diana Ross, Herbie Hancock, Patti LaBelle, Bonnie Raitt, Diane Warwick, Jennifer Holiday, Al Jarou, the Emotions, Bobby Womack, Cyndi Lauper, Joe Esposito. Just has worked with some of the great RB singers and songwriters even of all time. She has two Grammy Awards, one for Beverly Hills Cop and one for the Color Purple. She's also nominated for an Emmy Award for I'll be There for you by the Rembrandts for obviously the theme song from Friends. She was inducted into the Songwriters hall of fame in 2018, and last year she was inducted posthumously into the Woman Songwriters hall of Fame. She passed away in 2019. The musical actually tells an original story that was created by James Berg and Stan and Stan Zimmerman, who worked on the Gilmore Girls. It is called Long Beach Blanket Bingo. It kind of recreates the campy beach movie music of the 1960s. The work follows a black female surfer and a naive white white boy, both on a segregated beach in southern California in 1965. So very interested to hear about this again. Not somebody that I'd ever heard of, but certainly has an incredible resume of songs. And then Grace, we had a workshop of a show that has been in development, I think, longer than you've been alive because we found out that there was a new New York workshop for the musical adaptation of Ever after, featuring music by Zena Goldrich and lyrics by Marcy Heisel and a book by Kate W. Weatherhead. I don't think Kate Weatherhead originally did the Burke book, so she must have come in in these more recent versions. But the cast is fantastic for it. Mackenzie Kurtz, Derek Klena, Lisa Howard, Ann Sanders, Lizzie Tucker, Andrea McCassett, Nathan Salstone, Dan Rosales, David Garrison. Just an absolutely stacked cast of performers, and they've continued to work at this over the years. There'll be an out of town tryout. There was one in, like, obviously, I think the last big one was in Atlanta or maybe the first one. There was one maybe at Goodspeed at one point. So they're not giving up on this with a cast like this for a workshop, Grace. Like, the show first had its premiere in 2015. So, like, the fact that they're still going this long afterwards, Grace. And they're putting a cast like this together. Like, is this something we have to start thinking about for Broadway for another out of town tryout? Where do you think we should have our heads for this one?
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Grace Aki
They've just done so much with it, you know, in the past. And Kate Weatherhead was not always attached to the book. So that is a new addition.
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Matt Tamminini
Yeah, that's what I thought.
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Grace Aki
And I mean, listen, F. My partner developed it for years and now it's so funny because it's now that that role is, you know, Nathan Salstone. So I was like, oh, I'll keep it in the family.
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Matt Tamminini
Oh, that's lovely.
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Grace Aki
But, like, was like, wait a second, you did this too? But I think it is the first time that Sarah Boggess has not been attached. So I wonder if. Or at least to my understanding. Right. So I'm hopeful that something happens with it just because it's been so beloved for so long. I. I've heard the fondest stories about getting to work on it with Roger Reese while he was. I think it was like a little while before he was directing Peter and the Starcatcher, which is the last thing he ever did. Well, besides, I mean, directing. But like, you know, he was in the Visit, of course. But I don't know. I'm just so. I'm just. Yeah. I'm curious because it feels like on paper, you don't start redeveloping a show like that if you don't have.
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Matt Tamminini
Yeah. So looking back, so Cierra Boggess did the alliance production in 2019, but she did not do the Paper Mill playhouse production in 2015. That was Margot Seibert. But Ciara did do, like, the industry readings in 2013. So, like, she's kind of gone in and out, it seems. But in that same industry reading, also in that cast were, like, Jeremy Jordan, Terrence Mann, Kate Burton, Ashley Spencer, Jose Lana F, Michael Haney, as well as Sadie Sink. I did not realize that F had worked with Sadie Sink at one point.
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Grace Aki
I don't think that they know they worked with Sadie Sink. So I can't wait to tell them this.
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Matt Tamminini
Yeah, she is listed as the young Danielle, the young Sierra Boggess character. So that's fascinating. And there had actually been actually an industry reading in 2007 that had a completely different cast. Elena Shadow, Max Von Essen, Jan Maxwell was in both of those readings. Did the one with F. Mary Beth Peel, Bren o', Malley, Emily Walton, Stephen Bogardus. So there's just been like a ton of really great people over the years. At Paper Mill was Margo Siebert, James Snyder, Christine Ebersol, Julie Halston, Mara Davy, Tony Sheldon, Andrew keenan Bolger, Liz McCartney. Just wild how many incredible people have been a part of this over the years. And now they have Lisa, Derek and MacKenzie. So I have to imagine that there is some hope for this in the future. And then finally, one other show with some industry stuff going on. This happened yesterday on Thursday. But it was an industry reading for a new musical called Hard Road to Heaven. It is featuring a book by Willie Holzman. This is not Winnie Holzman who wrote Wicked. This is a completely different person. Music is by David Spangler, Jerry Taylor and Marty Dodson. And the musical follows Jenny Dixon, the reigning queen of country, as she navigates the ups and downs of a superstar career in the gospel singing family she left behind. Playing that lead role is the always fantastic Jackie Burns. Also in the cast is Elizabeth Teeter, Jared Zurilli, Lee Hocking, J. Robert Spencer, Brian Fenkart, Jerry Dixon, Marcus Gladney, Jr. So another great cast for a musical in development. And we'll have to see what happens with this one moving forward. All right, Grace, any recommendations either? Like, even if it's not theater, is there anything that people need to take advantage of this weekend? Go see it in a movie theater. Go watch it on a streaming service. Anything on your radar that we have to let people know about.
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Grace Aki
You know what I have noticed? If you are in the New York area and there's a show that you're like, that's a really hot ticket, normally go to the booth this week. I am not normally saying that. And I will if any of you ever say that. I did say this. I didn't, and I will deny it every day, but you should consider going to the TKTS booth this week. I've seen a lot of shows that people have been posting about. Of course, that people are like, oh, I'm so glad that I got to see this. Obviously, Gypsy is leaving us this weekend. So if you have the opportunity in the means try to go see that before it leaves because wow, how excellent. So that's the one that I'm like, oh, gosh, it's leaving us so soon. So, yeah, go, go, go see something. Go see something. Also, Shin Godzilla is in 40. I think it's in 4K right now. So I'm going to go see that.
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Matt Tamminini
Yeah, I had a friend go see it on Thursday night. So her, her and her boyfriend were very excited to go check that one out on Thursday. All right, everybody, that's all that. Thanks for listening to today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram broadwayradio. If you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace, where can people find you?
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Grace Aki
You can find me at graceaki.
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Matt Tamminini
All right, everybody, have a wonderful Friday, a wonderful weekend. We will have episodes on Tuesday and Wednesday, but we'll be back with a new today on Broadway on Thursday.
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Grace Aki
Sam.