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Today on Broadway: Friday, Sept. 19, 2025
00:13:00
New Orleans-set musical announces Broadway plans, Kritzer and Levesque to lead ‘Working Girl’ musical, Nichelle Lewis sings ‘Ragtime’ Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every Mo...
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Matt Tamineni
Broadway for Friday, September 19, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamineni and I'm.
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Aki Grace
Tell Me on a Sunday Podcast Chris.
- [00:37]
Matt Tamineni
Aki Grace, we are getting ready to head into the weekend because I'm out of town. There won't be a special Patreon exclusive episode this weekend, but we'll still get the allotted three to four over the course of the month. We will get the the rest of them through the back end of September, so do not worry about that. But if you want to make sure that you do not miss anything from Broadway Radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio and broadwayradio.com Patre now let's dive into the news. Grace and this one kind of came out of nowhere, not gonna lie, but yesterday we got an announcement that a new musical is planning to come to Broadway. Not this season, but in 2026 and 2027. And it is a jukebox kind of review show from one of the best to ever make those kinds of Broadway musicals. And that is Tony Award winner Jack Fertel who is behind such shows as Smokey Joe's Cafe and After Midnight. This one is called Let the Good Times Rol A New Orleans Gumbo. This show had its world premiere that opened last month and actually just wrapped up about a week and a half ago at the Phoenix Theater Company in Arizona. It became the highest grossing box office and most attended premiere in that theater company's history. No major stars were involved with they were all local Phoenix area artists, but they did actually release a concept cast album last month for the show as well that featured some folks like Jay Harrison, G, Lauren Patton, Rashidra Scott, Alicia Umphress, John Edwards, Johnny Roche. So this one seems like it's moving pretty forward. I honestly this was not on my radar at all. Grace but it is obviously set in New Orleans. It captures pivotal moments in the city's history from the Great Flood to Hurricane Katrina and features songs made famous by everyone from Bessie Smith to Dr. John, Professor Long Hair, the Meters, Harry Connick Jr. Rebirth Brass Band and Randy Newman. Unfortunately, Grace no cowboy Mouth mentioned in this in this list of artists that are sampled in the show. But this is interesting. I love Smokey Joe's Cafe and I guess we will see when this pops up on Broadway next season.
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Aki Grace
I'm really excited about this. Obviously we've always talked about how exciting it would be to have a New Orleans style musical. So this announcement is very exciting. I think that last season with Roundabouts reimagining the Penzance musical, I think that people audiences are excited about that prospect and I think that in an original sense here, this is going to be well suited as well. So I'm a big fan as a Chattanooga native of Bessie Smith and I think that all of the people mentioned in the, you know, from Harry Connick Jr. And all that great stuff. It's, it's good.
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Matt Tamineni
I actually do I'm going to go ahead and include the Spotify cast album in the show notes if you want to listen to that concept album and hear a little bit about what the show is going to be like. Speaking of shows that are probably gonna be on Broadway next season at the latest, late on Wednesday, we actually got information as to who is going to be in the cast for the upcoming world premiere of the musical adaptation of Working Girl that's gonna have its world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse in California later this fall. This show has been in the works for a long time and actually we've talked about it, I think a little over a year ago we talked about the fact that both Jojo Levesque and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer had been involved with a workshop presentation. Well, they are back to star in the musical that will begin performances on October 28th out in California. Jojo will play the the role of Tess that was originally created by Melanie Griffith in in the original movie. Leslie will play her boss Catherine, who was Sigourney Weaver in the original film. They'll be joined in the cast by Ashley Blanchett, who is playing Sin, who was the Joan Cusack role. Anoop Desai is going to be playing Jack, who was Harrison Ford in the original film, and Joey Toronto is playing Mick, which was the role created by Alec Baldwin on screen. Also in the ensemble will be some familiar names like Jacqueline Arnold, Amy Hillner Larson, Sydney Moon, Jennifer Perry, Ian Ward and more. The show is actually going to be directed by the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, Tony Award winner Christopher Ashley. But if you remember, he's getting ready to end his tenure at La Jolla because he's taking over as the AD for Roundabout Theater Company with next season. So not traditionally a show that would fit into Roundabouts oeuvre, so to speak, Grace. But with Christopher Ashley becoming the AD there, maybe they changed some things up and maybe it ends up at RTC next season or just somewhere else. I don't think you have this show with these kind of stars having an out of town tryout without intentions of coming to Broadway. And I didn't even mention the fact that it features a score by Cindy Lauper and a book by Teresa Rebeck. So lots of really great folks coming together on a project that seems like it does make sense for a musical. Like we said, some of these movie two musical adaptations don't always work, but this one feels like it's got the right people involved to make it a pretty special and a pretty fun show.
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Aki Grace
I think that with like Brian Youssef is amazing, you know, music supervision and the arrangements and working with Stephen Aremus and how they had collaborated previously on Kinky Boots with Cyndi Lauper. These are just like people that love working with, working together and know how to make a good product. And I think that having Teresa Freeback on the book is going to be super impactful. I'm a fan of this film. I go to a Mike Nichols screening kind of like once a year for this. And so I was really excited to hear that JoJo was attached to it. I think she's going to be excellent. I really liked her Moulin Rouge and I think this is going to be a really great show.
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Matt Tamineni
Yeah, it's crazy that this is after the success of Kinky Boots, this is the first musical that Cyndi Lauper has had come to the stage. I don't know if she's working on other things, but you would have thought the way that she dove in to the Broadway in theater scenes with Kinky Boots that this would be something that we would see a little bit more of over the past. I don't even remember when Kinky Boots debuted. Was that 15 years ago? I don't remember. But nonetheless she does doesn't have to write musicals. She's fine on her own, but certainly cool to be able to see this one coming to the stage sooner rather than later. All right, in some other news, Grace, yesterday the Red Bull Theater Company announced some pretty cool additions to its schedule. I'll have a link so you can get all of the information. But the main that is joining their lineup is a one night only concert that is going to feature an incredible cast. It's gonna happen on December 15th over at the Symphony Space and it is going to be a concert version of the Boys from Syracuse which is the Rogers and Hart musical adaptation of Shakespeare's the Comedy of Errors. David Ives is penning the concert adaptation and it features just an unbelievable group including Stephen Boyer, Eddie Cooper, Nikki Renee Daniels, Christopher Fitzgerald, Santino Fontana, Nicky M J names Mark Lynn Baker, Sarah Stiles, John Yee and more people to be announced. This is a show that doesn't get done very often and it's kind of interesting. Grace, we've talked about this quite a bit with CSC and, and Red Bull doing shows and musicals that kind of fit into the Encore's normal thing where Encores has kind of ventured away from that in recent years, although with a new artistic director, I think they're getting back to it. But if you love classic musicals, this is one that you don't get to see very often. And it has great songs. Falling in love with love this can't be love Sing for your supper. Like, I think this is going to be a very, very cool event in December over at Symphony Space.
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Aki Grace
You and I both love everything that Symphony Space does with these opportunities, I think is so cool. I wish I could get up there more often. Maybe this is my, my opportunity to make a note of it. But I agree. I mean, I think what they're doing is very exciting. Their programming consistently stays cool and also like, they're doing things that like, people aren't always, you know, it's not the first on the radar, but people are like, I'm so glad someone did this. And I think that that's what community building is and how we continue to, you know, foster great spaces like theirs.
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Matt Tamineni
What did we see? Did we see something at Tiffany Spaces? Glory.
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Aki Grace
We saw Glory Days.
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Matt Tamineni
That's right. That's what I thought. Yeah.
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Aki Grace
Yeah.
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Matt Tamineni
Okay. I think that was maybe keen company doing that one, but yeah. And I also saw a concert at Symphony Space with Ashley Steeves that was a bunch of songs that were performed by and written for Rebecca Luker. So they always have great stuff over at Symphony Space. So excited about that one. Another show that kind of fits into a similar vein. We previously talked about this super hyper intimate production of Tartuffe that was going to be led by Andre de Shields that's only going to have like 100 people per performance, it's going to take place at the House of the Redeemer on the east side of Manhattan beginning on October 1st. We talked about the fact that not only was Andre de Shields leading the company, also in there is going to be such names as Todd Buonapane and Alexandra Soca. Now they've added two more cast members, and this will complete the cast, and they are Amber Amman and Tyler Hardwick. This is going to be very, very cool. Obviously, a tough ticket to get. Only 100 people can get in there every night. But it is currently scheduled to play through November 23rd. And hopefully, if those intimate performances go well, they'll have more opportunities to expand it even further. And then, Grace, I know this doesn't maybe register for a lot of people out there, but one of the biggest events that happens down in my neck of the woods every year is Epcot's Candlelight processional, where they bring in either local school choirs or later in the evenings, choirs of Disney cast members. And they sing Christmas carols and somebody tells the story of Christmas. And they have these unbelievable guest narrators come in for every performance. And yesterday they announced the entire group of everybody that's going to be doing the narration this year. And there are a ton of theater and theater related names. I'm just going to go through all of them because there's not that many, but you'll hear a bunch of people who have theater connections. You've got Constance Wu, Jordan Fisher, Jennifer Garner, Ashley Eckstein, Ralph Macchio, Leslie Uggams, Marlee Matlin, Henry Winkler, Lauren Daigle, Gary Sinise, Brendan Frazier, Luis Fonzie, Joel Smallbone, Brie Larson, and wrapping it up with Cheryl Lee Ralph. My family, we've already kind of looked to see when we want to go. Unfortunately, because we don't pay the ridiculous amounts of money for the annual passes, our annual passes are actually blacked out. But of that, of that group, Grace, who. Who would you want to see as the narrator for the candlelight processional?
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Aki Grace
Oh, you know what? Because I've been watching so much West Wing recently. Marlee Matlin, such a fan of hers. She's so good on the show. Just an admirer. I used to watch her on the Apprentice, if you can believe that. Yeah, forever ago. What a choice. I thought it was about advertising, but yeah, like, I think it's a great list. And also, I'm a big fan of Ralph Macchio. I've had the pleasure of meeting him several times and he's so nice and so cool, but yeah, it's such a great list. I've watched these on YouTube for years, like decades. And I just think it's one of the most special traditions that there is. So I, I love whenever these, these lists get released every year.
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Matt Tamineni
Yeah, it's very cool. All right, I'm going to leave you with a couple recommendations. The first one is of the iconic original star of Merrily We Roll Along, Anne Morrison. She has taken over the role of Kimberly in Kimberly Akimbo that is currently out on tour. We have our first video of her from the, from the road and she is singing the so Wish. So if you want to check that out, head to the show notes and then from the Lincoln center rehearsal room we have Nichelle Lewis singing your Daddy's Son. Obviously one of the most heartbreaking and chill inducing songs in the history of musical theater. Ragtime will begin performances at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on September 26th. And hopefully we get more of this rehearsal footage because I remember when they put out all this rehearsal footage for the, for the encores run and I ate it up then. And I cannot wait to eat up even more of this not only as rehearsal footage but also when it comes to Broadway. And I'm very excited to see what changes, if any, happen from the transfer from City center over to the Vivian Beaumont Theater. All right everybody, this is all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, odryrating. If you want more BroadwayRadio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace, where can people find you?
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Aki Grace
You can find me at GraceAkhe.
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Matt Tamineni
Alright everybody, have a wonderful Friday, a wonderful weekend. We'll be back to talk to you on Monday.
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