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Today on Broadway: Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024
00:14:14
‘Swept Away’ Gets Two-Week Extension, Trisha Paytas to Make Broadway Debut, ‘Stereophic’ Tiny Desk Concert Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every Monday through Friday.
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Thursday, December 12, 2024. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammini, and I'm.
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B
Tell Me on a Sunday podcast. Grace Ake.
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A
Grace, I wanted to remind everybody that we will be coming to them late in the Patreon feed tonight with Friday's episode because we are going to wait to record until after all of the reviews are out for Cult of Love. I do not know when that embargo is. I need to check that. But it will drop as soon as we're done in Patreon, and it'll be in the regular feed on Friday morning. But as we dive into the news here, on Thursday's episode, Grace, there was a little bit of a course correction over at Swept Away because following Tuesday night's performance, one of the show's stars, Stark Sands, made a little bit of an announcement and he talked about the fact that ever since they'd announced they would be closing on December 15, people have been coming to the theater, they've been standing in line, they've been buying tickets, and that they've been selling out the show. All of last week, after the announcement was made, show was sold out. This week, every performance for the show is sold out. It is going so well that they announced that they would be extending by two more weeks. So the closing date for the show has now officially been moved through December 29th. Tickets are on sale at the box office and on tele charge, and people who had previously had tickets for performances that had been canceled have been contacted by Telecharge to see if they want to keep those tickets or whatever. But, Grace, watching this video, I'm not 100% sure that everybody in the cast knew that. Can you clarify that? Because, like, Stark was making the announcement. It was a very lovely speech and I'll have it in the show notes. Obviously, some of the cast seemed like they knew, but then there were some of the people in that on stage where I was like, wait, does Adrian know? Because Adrian seemed very emotional as well as some of the ensemble members as well.
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B
I have no idea. I don't know if they were all told together or not, but obviously, like, Stark had prepared, you know, this speech and everything. So I hope that they were all, you know, gathered together. But. And maybe that was a performance in its own to. To acknowledge just how exciting and relieved they were. But no, it's very, very cool. It doesn't often happen, if ever. And it's just a testament to how excited the fans are to keep championing the show. And I'm glad that they're able to work through Christmas, frankly. It's very exciting.
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A
Yeah. So if you have not had an opportunity to check out the show, you now have an additional two weeks. They'll be playing through Sunday, December 29th, as I said. So a great time to get over to the Longacre for the holidays and support that show. Speaking of things that don't happen often, Grace, it is not often when we see one night only performances on Broadway, but it is even less likely when those one night only performances on Broadway are not really by theater performances or even musicians or anything like that. But it was announced yesterday that on Monday, February 3, at the St. James Theater where Sunset Boulevard is currently performing, we're going to have a one night only show from social media star Trisha Paytas. The show will be called Trisha Paytas Big Broadway Dream. She's going to be joined by a bunch of special guest stars and she'll have an ensemble. Now I have to be quite honest with you, like I know very little about Trisha, only mainly based off of her like previous relationship with a Tony winning Broadway star. But she's huge on social media. She's got like almost 10 million followers on TikTok, more than 5 million on YouTube. Grace, as our social media expert, can you just like fill me in on who this is on and why this is such a big deal to so many people?
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B
Yeah, you're talking about one of like the biggest, like the most global influencers that you have kind of like in the entertainment space. She's been around in like YouTube and doing Instagram and TikTok and all those great things for so many years that I know that she's been very loud and proud about her love of comedy and theater and all of those great things. So I think that someone has just made her dreams come true. I think that's the whole like M.O. of the show. And she obviously had this sold out show at the Beacon to where she announced it as well. So yeah, I think that the demand is going to be very high for this show. Her fans obviously adore her and I think that they're going to make a trip for that February 3rd St. James show.
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A
So what is her shtick on social media? Is it just like observational, this is my life or is she like a performer and does skits? Like what is the, what is the crux of her social media platform?
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B
She is a personality and I, that is that, that is who she is. She is kind of silly and funny. She offers some commentary. She's on a podcast. I think you'd have to see her content for yourself. I don't want to put her in a box to say that like, you know, this is what I think. You know, I wouldn't liken her to anyone else. She is her own person. That's what I think. I.
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A
Yes, that's fair. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. I mean, if somebody is just a personality, like that is what they are. And there's a lot of those on social media and obviously she is one of the biggest all right, moving Off Broadway and again, Grace, one of our favorite theaters, MCC announced the cast for their upcoming world premiere production of Natalie Margolin's new play All Nighter. It'll be directed by Jackie Bradley and it will begin performances on February 25th at MCC off Broadway and is currently scheduled to run through May 18th. In the cast will be Kristen Forth, who is on the Apple TV plus show, Buccaneers, Tony nominee Katherine Gallagher, Tony nominee Julia Lester, Havana Rose L and Aaliyah Chanel Scott, who is one of the stars of Sex Lives of College Girls. The show is set during finals week at a small liberal arts college in rural Pennsylvania. The play follows a tight knit group of roommates as they pull one last all nighter to complete their final assignments. Hold up in an old ballroom. The pressure mounts and the Adderall flows as the truths that bind the group together are put to the test. This is a fantastic cast, Grace. All people who are well known from stage and screen, but some of the best up and coming stars working today. So this is certainly one that I think a lot of people are going to want to check out at MCC in the spring.
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B
I will say. Aaliyah is a Tony Award winning producer with Run On Land Productions. She got a Tony Award, I believe for Parade Revival in the past like two years or so. So she's in the Broadway space already as a producer. She's currently on Sex Lives with College Girls. I feel like that audience is going to transfer very well for this show, but I do want to shout out that she is very much invested literally in the Broadway community already.
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A
Yeah, and she appeared in the national tour of Book of Mormon as Nabalungi. So she is not coming to this production without some pretty good theater roots. Then Grace we also got some additional casting announced for the upcoming Broadway premiere of Buena Vista Social Club. We already knew all of the principles, but the rest of the cast was filled out with Justin Cunningham, Andrew Montgomery Coleman, Carlos Gonzalez, Anthony Santos, Martin Sola and Teneri Sade Vasquez. And what's awesome about this is that they accompanied this with a track from their forthcoming Broadway cast album, I assume of the song Chan Chan, which is performed by the entire company. So if you want to hear a little bit about what this show is going to sound like when it Begins performances on February 21st over at the Gerald show and Feld Theater, you can now have an opportunity to do that. As we've talked about for months here, Grace, this is one of the shows that for now is presumed to be one of the leaders for best musical. So if you want to see what is coming down the pike, this is an opportunity to do so. And moving across the pond, Grace, yesterday we got official confirmation about something we've talked about a couple times before. But as Andrew Lloyd Webber spoiled which it's his show, so we can spoil whatever he wants. The Jamie Lloyd directed production of Evita that originally ran at the Regents Park Open air Theater in 2019 is coming coming to the West End. It will play the London Palladium from June 14 through September 6 with an opening night the day after my birthday, June 27. That might have to be where I am for my birthday. Jamie Lloyd is directing this show which he had previously done pre Covid and it starred Samantha Pauly at that point. They had then planned to do the show at the Barbican Theater in 2020, but it was obviously canceled due to Covid. No casting has been announced for this. No additional creative team has been announced for this, but I will say on Wednesday I did an interview with Jamie Lloyd's now frequent collaborator Fabian Alois, who is the choreographer for Sunset Boulevard, who also did the choreography for the original production of this Evita. He could neither confirm nor deny if he was still attached with this, but we did have a nice little conversation about that original production since he said he could only talk about it currently in the past tense. So if you want to hear that, that will actually be our episode of Today on Broadway coming up on Monday since I'm going to be out of town over the weekend and unable to record. But I love Evita. I love Jamie Lloyd's work. I love this concept. Ever since 2019. They shared very, very few videos about this Grace, but it just looks like an absolutely incredible reinterpretation of what this show is and I will be sat at the London Palladium sometime this summer, sticking with the Trisha vibe of influencers and social media people making Broadway debuts. Yesterday it was confirmed that Charli D'amelio has extended her run in and Juliet. She'd originally only been scheduled to be with the production through January 19, but she is now scheduled to stick with the show's ensemble through April 6th. All right, Grace, I'm going to wrap up. I've got like four or five maybe even more different performance videos that I'm going to share as feel good recommendations. The first one is from the production of Hadestown, which I love. The current Persephone is Grammy nominee Allison Russell. They have released a video of her performing Our lady of the Underground. Always a highlight. Then we also have a song from the upcoming Broadway production of Just in Time where Jonathan Groff is singing the iconic song Dream Lover, if you want to check that out. But then there are the two that I really want to focus on. Grace, I don't think you have gotten over to see Mama. I'm a big girl now at New World Stages. Have you?
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B
No, but I've heard how not only amazing it is, but also the celebrity guests.
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A
Yes, Celebrity Guest is where we're going. But I will say it is essentially like a big old shaggy 54 below show put in an Off Broadway house. It seems like it's kind of thrown together at the last minute. Obviously it's not because they are doing it every night, but it's just fun and it's silly and it's goofy and those three women are incredible individually and incredibly together. But there is one moment when Marissa Jarrett Winoker recreates the song. I can hear the bells from Hairspray. And every night she pulls somebody up from the audience. Then I was there, she pulled somebody up. Like a bunch of people in the crowd were pointing to this guy. She pulls him up and she asks him if he knows Hairspray. He said yes. I was actually in a production of Hairspray. And that's great because the person who's getting pulled up as this is playing the role of Link Larkin. She asked him if he had played Link. He said no, I was in the black ensemble. So pretty funny joke. But since then we have seen a ton of people, including Andrew Randalls and other stars, Jonathan Grof get pulled up to do it. Well, apparently recently the original Link Larkin, Matthew Morrison, was in the audience, so they had to have him pull up. He knew all the choreo. He knew all the lines. Still, either he has a great memory or he came prepared. But it was just very cool, very fun to see them do this. And it is so obvious, Grace, how much all four of those people still love each other and how important they are in each other's lives. There are some Matthew Morrison jokes that Laura Bell Bundy makes during the show as well that I'm sure landed especially well with him in the audience. But if you haven't checked this out, the show is running through either the end of this month or beginning of January. It's a ton of fun. So for people of my age and your age, Grace, where we kind of grew up with Hairspray in the Zeitgeist, it's a can't miss video clip, but also a can't miss show. And then the final video I have is something that I didn't know was coming, but my God, am I glad it's here because I've already watched through it twice or once and I've started it a second time. And this comes from NPR Music, and it is a Tiny Desk concert with the original Broadway cast of Stereophonic. It is so cool to see these people doing these songs live. Obviously we see it live on stage, but like up close and personal. And they are actually accompanied by Will Butler and Justin Craig, who is the music director. They do some extra piano and guitar and Will does some vocals. But Will Brill, Juliana Canfield, Tom Pasinka, Sarah Pigeon and Chris Stack are all recreating what they do on stage. Obviously, some of those folks have left the production at this point, but it was so incredible to have them to have video of them doing this live. Grace because obviously we have the cast album, but it's different to be able to see these people doing it on, you know, not on stage, but on video, which is something I didn't know we were ever going to have. So I this is I love anytime a Broadway show does a Tiny desk concert, but this is certainly one that I'm going to cherish for a long time.
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B
I love that. Wait. That's so sweet.
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All right, that is all that we have for you today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Roderick Radian, you can follow me on Instagram @bww. Matt Grace, where can people find you?
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B
You can find me at.
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A
All right, everybody, have a wonderful Thursday. We will talk to you late tomorrow in Patreon and regularly on Friday morning in the regular feed.