Matt Tiamineni (0:01)

Welcome to Today on Broadway for Friday, May 23, 2025 on Broadway radio is Matt Tiamineni. Obviously, we are getting ready to head into Memorial Day weekend, so we will not have a normal episode on Monday. I don't have an interview planned as of now, so keep your eyes and ears open on Monday. There may be something in the podcast feed, there may not be. I am going to be heading up to New York on Sunday to see the final performance of Grace's run of To Free a Mockingbird at the Soho Playhouse on Sunday. So I'm not exactly sure if my schedule is going to allow for anything else. But it is a holiday, so if you need more Broadway radio, there is tons of other stuff in the archive, both in the regular feed and in Patreon. So if you need more of us in your ears, head over there. All right, let's start out with some news that I actually teased on yesterday's episode and that is the fact that coming up, starting in just a few months, there will be a Broadway revival of Yasmina Raises Tony Award winning cop comedy art. I mentioned it yesterday when talking about the fact that George Wendt was one of the replacements in that cast. Well, yesterday we found out not only is that production coming to the Music Box Theater beginning performances on August 28th with a limited run scheduled to play through December 21st, but we know who is going to direct. Scott Ellis, currently represented on Broadway with Pirates, the Penzance musical, and we know who is going to star that includes Tony Award winners James Corden and Neil Patrick Harris and Emmy winner and erstwhile could have been Nicky Arnstein. Bobby Cannavale Cannavale is going to be playing the role of Mark, the one originated by Alan Alda in the original Broadway production. James Corden is going to be playing Ivan, which was the Alfred Molina role, and then Neil Patrick Harris is going to be playing Serge, which was the Victor Garber role. There was actually a Daily Mail article earlier on Thursday that said Corden was going to be playing Serge. That is obviously now confirmed to be false, but he is in the cast. This is going to be the first Broadway revival of the show since its original run in 1998. As with all of Reza's plays, this was originally written in French and then it was translated into English by Christopher Hampton, who is kind of the go to guy for translating all things from French into English. And the show follows three friends whose friendship is tested when one of them, Harris's Serge, buys an expensive painting that marks Bobby Cannavale dislikes with Corden Zevon Stuck in the middle this will be the first time that Corden has been back on Broadway since his Tony winning role in One Man, Two Governors. Neil Patrick Harris, you might forget, was most recently on Broadway in Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which he did for like three weeks. Since then he did the Off Broadway show Shit Meet Fan at MCC and Bobby Cannavale was last seen on stage obviously in Here We Are, Stephen Sondheim's final musical Off Broadway at the Shed. A fan ticket presale will launch on May 29, so next Thursday with general on sale happening the next day on Friday the 30th. Speaking of shows that could potentially be coming to Broadway, yesterday there was an invited reading of Schmigadoon, the musical which had previously played at the Kennedy center through its Broadway Center Stage series. As it was there. Christopher Gattelli directed and it is obviously based off of the Apple TV plus series of the same name written by Cinco Paul. Many of the stars, but not all of them that were part of the DC run were back. You had folks like Alex Brightman, Sarah Chase, Isabella McCullough, Brad Oscar, but we had some other folks who jumped in to replace people who had done the Washington D.C. run. One of my favorites, Donalyn Champlin took over the role of Mildred Layton from Emily Skinner, Max Clayton, who was in the show's ensemble, took over the role of Danny Bailey from Ryan Vasquez, Yvonne Hernandez took over the role of Doc Lopez from Javier Munoz and Pearl sun replaced Ann Harada as Florence Menlove. At this point, to be quite honest with you, I haven't really been able to get a clear answer as to whether or not they are working on this show still because they want to bring it to New York or or if they want to do it for licensing purposes. I will note that Broadway Video is one of the producers for this reading. Broadway Video is the production company owned by Lorne Michaels that also did like Mean Girls and stuff like that. So I imagine that with Lorne Michaels involved they probably do want to have a first rate production of it in New York City and then potentially license it out. That is not clear to me though. I have not gotten anybody to tell me, yes, this is definitely just for licensing or yes this is definitely working towards Broadway. But when you have folks like this in a room together, Alex Brightman, Donalan Champlin, Sarah Chase, Mackenzie Kurtz, who I forgot to mention who was in the DC company as well, Izzy McCullough, Brad Oscar, like these are great talents. So if you are just looking to license it, maybe you don't need to have all of them. But if you're working to Broadway, it would be good to have people who can perform at that level. So I don't know what the plan is for this, but I would lean more towards the fact that this is probably looking to have some sort of Broadway run, but I'm not super, super confident about that at this point. One show that I do think, from what I have heard is looking to come to New York City is actually going to make a pit stop in the uk where it's going to have its UK premiere, and that is the cult ride the Cyclone. Now you might remember this was a show that originally premiered in Canada in 2008. It premiered at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2015, had an Off Broadway run in 2016 that was a little controversial. Taylor Louderman had been involved with the show then she kind of unceremoniously quit during rehearsals or maybe early in previews. The show didn't run super long Off Broadway, but it was a cult favorite for a lot of people. And then when the cast album was released five years later in 2021, it started to get really popular on social media. Clips from the show started to be used on TikTok and and it kind of had a resurgence. Now the show is going to have its UK premiere later this year at the Southwark Playhouse Elephant. It is going to begin its run on November 14th and it's currently scheduled to play through January 10th as it was originally off Broadway. Kevin McCollum is involved with producing this run. If you know Kevin McCollum, he knows how to turn small little scrappy shows like Ride the Cyclone into hits as he has done for throughout his entire career, most recently with six. So I think the fact that Kevin McCollum is actively involved with this show in its UK premiere means that it is very, very likely to also be looking for a run in New York City. Lizzie Gee is is directing and choreographing this production. From what I understand, there is a chance that maybe this cast will have some Americans in it and potentially coming to New York City after the run and the UK ends in January. I don't know if that is looking for a Broadway run. I think this probably makes more sense in an Off Broadway space, but we will have to wait and see what happens there. All right, let's take a real quick break to talk about our sponsor for this week, Cash App. Over a decade ago I had a landlord who wanted me to pay Rent through a specific money sending app that I will not mention, but it is built built into my bank of America app. So take that for what it's worth. When I asked how to connect with my landlord, he said just use my phone number. I put in the phone number that I had for him, which I think was his cell phone number and I sent my rent money into him. The problem is that his bank account was not linked to that cell phone number. So what happened was is that money got stuck in limbo for two full weeks because he was not able to confirm it because it wasn't connected to his account. So I had to wait for it to expire and then then send him the money. It was a massive pain. I had just moved in, it was my first month obviously because I didn't know how this all worked. And ever since then I have refused to send any sort of payment that mattered through one of those apps. That is until my account started insisting on me paying him via Cash App. Cash App was a world of difference from that previously unnamed app that I was forced to use. It was simple, it was quick. I could tell right away if I was sending the money to the right person. I know knew right away that it was going to show up and it was able to get a confirmation as soon as it was received. There are no big fees to send or to receive money. There's no processing delays to get your money out. Cash App is the most user friendly modern way to send and receive money. Your setup takes only a couple minutes and you don't have to put in your bank information. There's no waiting to find out if your money shows up. It is secure and safe. It actually tells you if it thinks you are sending money to to a shady account. And you can personalize everything about your payments from start to finish. While I never love sending money to my accountant, I do love using Cash App because it's fast, it's safe and it just makes my life so much less stressful than trying to figure out one of those other clunky apps. And for a limited time only new Cash app users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real? There's no no catch. Just download Cash App and sign up. Use our exclusive referral code Broadway in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's Cash App. As we are just a few weeks away, I am anxiously awaiting the announcement of who is going to be hosting the Tony's pre show. What is it? Tony's act one I think is what they call it on Paramount. Plus they've already announced that it's happening so we know that we just have to wait and see who the hosts are going to be. Although I have heard that at least one of the hosts is a current Tony nominee for Best Actor in a musical and he was on Glee. I know that narrows it down to 2 but doesn't already have a Tony Award, so figure that out. Who it might be. Who knows, maybe Julia Huff will be back as she has done it multiple times in the past. But in the meantime we did find out who is going to be hosting the First Impressions cam for the Tonys this year. In the past it has been Eric Bergen and Rachel Bloom, but now we're going to have a certified Tony winner in Bonnie Milligan hosting that First Impressions cam that'll be used on social media and throughout the broadcasts as well. She will be there backstage capturing the initial responses from the Tony winners and immediately after they step off stage following their acceptance speeches. You can get all of those videos on their social media platforms at the Tony awards on their YouTube channel, and some of them are also included in the broadcast itself. Bonnie is great. I'm sure she will be sweet and lovely and funny and she knows what it's like to get off that stage and have all of your thoughts and all of your emotions cascading out of your mouth all at one time. So I'm sure she will be a wonderful support to all of those very excited, very touched winners. If you are in New York City today, Friday, May 23rd Han for Ham is back this afternoon at 4pm at the Richard Rogers Theater where they will have three different shows that are nominated for Tony Awards presenting free performances outside on the street on 46th Street. Those shows today will be the best revival, Tony nominee Floyd Collins and not one but two. Two best musical nominees. Death Becomes her and Dead Outlaw and oh Mary is going to be involved somehow. So I don't know if Cole and or Conrad are going to show up to host. I would guess Cole because Cole was actually used in the lovely Photoshop that Lin Manuel, Miranda and Hamilton posted. So if you want to see all of those folks together just standing on a sidewalk doing some performances, head over to the Richard Rogers probably pretty early because even if the performances start at 4:00, like you're gonna have to get there pretty close to be able to see those. But of course if you can't get there. They will probably be all over social media very, very shortly after they happen. All right, everybody, that's all we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram rodwayradio. Don't forget, you have just through Sunday, May 25, to see Grace's show to Free a Mockingbird at the Soho Playhouse. You can get tickets in the link in the show notes. All right, everybody, have a wonderful Friday, a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and we'll be back to talk to you next week. Weekend.