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Today on Broadway: Thursday, June 26, 2025
00:18:32
‘Chess’ revival announces house and dates, Library of Congress receives Sondheim manuscripts, sides feud over potential Times Square Casino Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines ev...
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- [00:00]
Matt Tammanini
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states welcome to Today on Broadway for Thursday, June 26, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammanini and I'm.
- [00:27]
Grace
Tell Me on a Sunday Podcast Grace.
- [00:28]
Matt Tammanini
Ake just a little bit of programming news. James Marino, the one and only James Marino is going to helm Today on Broadway Tomorrow because I will be out of town and unable to record. So he is going to guide you through all of the news tomorrow. So if you hear his dulcet tones on the show, do not be alarmed. I am just out of town and he is pinch hitting for the day. But you will always have plenty of content here in the Broadway radio feeds, both in Patreon and in the regular places you find podcasts. So make sure that you tune in all weekend and head over to patreon.com broadwayradio broadwayradio.com patreon to get everything that we've got. But Grace, let's start on the Broadway where we got confirmation of some very important details for the first ever Broadway revival of the musical Chess. We already knew that the show would star Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher. We now know that it will begin performances on October 15th at the Imperial Theater with an opening night scheduled for November 16th. This is a show that reunites Lea Michele with Michael Mayer, who obviously she had worked on Broadway before but really shot her into superstardom with their collaboration in Spring Awakening. This will be the first time since she has been on Broadway since Funny Girl, and the first time that she has originated a role in a production since Spring Awakening, obviously starring opposite Tony winner Aaron Tveit, who won his Tony for Moulin Rouge, and Nicholas Christopher, who has been kind of one of those guys who's always been around doing really great work and is starting to kind of come into his star era after not only Sweeney Todd on Broadway, but a production, Grace, that you just absolutely raved about with Jelly's Last Jam at Encores a year or so ago. Maybe we can talk about that here in a second. But real quick, tickets go on sale today. Thursday, June 26th. There was a pre sale that started yesterday for people who had originally signed up on the show's website. Lauren Lotaro is choreographing and Brian Youssef is the music supervisor. But for people who might not have seen Nick Christopher in, like, a starring role, maybe they saw him in kind of some featured roles, especially in Sweeney Todd, but maybe didn't get a chance to check out Jelly's Last Jam. Explain, like, how dynamic he can be, especially when given a great part, like, at Encores a season ago.
- [02:52]
Grace
Yeah, I've never. I mean, here's the thing. You might have also seen him on the Hamilton tour. You might have seen him go on in some of those other roles, like in Sweeney Todd, besides, like, Pirelli and things like that. But I. You know, he's just such a dynamic human being that, like, he can make the most villainous person charming. He can make a really charming character kind of villainous. Like, he. He's a really dynamic performer. He's incredibly charismatic. His voice is out of this world. So I just think it's. It's incredibly special. Special to see that group of performers in this show together.
- [03:25]
Matt Tammanini
All right, moving from New York to Washington, D.C. we got some really fantastic news that I am sure has already caused our friend Ashley Steeves to, I don't know, maybe just move to the nation's capital at this point. Because yesterday it was announced that the archives and papers of one Stephen Joshua Sondheim have been donated to the Library of Congress. They were bequeathed to the library as part of his will. They officially arrived at the library in March. And there are over 5,000 items that were included in this gift. They range from lyrics for songs that either never made it into shows or were cut from shows. Variations of songs that he had written for different purposes, tons of notes, correspondences, all types of things that the Sondheim fanatics amongst us will want to check out. And that is what's great about being at the Library of Congress. You can actually check them out. Starting on July 1st. Anyone overseeing 16 with a driver's license or a passport can get access to the original papers. Just an absolutely, incredibly important trove of information that is now going to be available for theater fans, for historians, for academics to kind of peruse throughout the course of history, and very exciting for anybody who loves Sondheim and love the art form of musical theater. All right, Grace, this is something that is going to hit very close to home for you, because I think it's going to be pretty close to where you work. But we have talked about this over the years, and it is finally coming down to brass tacks, because the state of New York has previously said that it was going to issue casino gaming licenses for three places in downstate New York. There are already some that are available throughout the state. It is believed that two of these are going to go to organizations that already have some sort of relationship with the Gaming Commission, whether they have tracks or off site betting or something else in New York. But now they are going to expand into casinos. That leaves one additional license to go to somewhere else in downstate New York. And there are competing organizations trying to get it. One of them, as we've discussed in the past, wants to put a casino in Times Square. That is Caesar's Palace. They want to put one right in Times Square. They are going to officially put in their application for that license this week. And to kind of hopefully sweeten the pot, Caesar's palace has pledged $5 million to support the LGBTQ Plus Health center at the Callum Lord Community Health center if the bid for one of these downstate licenses is is approved. But that has not completely assuaged the concerns of a number of organizations that are against this happening. There are going to be competing. RAL actually happened on Wednesday, and then one is going to happen on Thursday. There is one against the building of a Times Square casino that is being held by a number of groups that are opposed to it. Some of the groups that are specifically saying they are not in support of a casino in Times Square are iatse, the Union for Theatrical Stage Employees, the Broadway League, Broadway Cares, Equity Fights Aids. But then on the other side of the argument, some of the organizations that are in support of the casino are Actors Equity, AFM, Local 802, which is the Musicians Union on Broadway, Town Hall, Sony hall, other performance venues in the Times Square area, all of the construction unions, of course, and then both sides have different businesses and Times Square restaurants and places like that supporting the side. So it really is turning into quite the battle of people who are very passionate on both sides of this issue. Grace. It might just be too expensive and it might not end up going there anyway. There are a number of other locations hoping to get this casino. But I do think it's very interesting that two different sides of this debate are having rallies that will both take place at the Red Steps in Times Square in consecutive days to try to rally support. But it'll be interesting. Certainly would definitely change Times Square in a lot of ways. I am literally in an hour and a half heading out to the airport to go to a casino for the weekend. So I'm. I like casinos. I wouldn't mind having it there. But I don't work in the area or live in the area, so I don't know that my opinion really matters nearly as much. But it is certainly an interesting conversation that we will. That we will watch play out over the next few months because they do want to award that bid before the end of the year.
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Grace
Grace, gambling makes me very uncomfortable. That's not. There's no judgment there. It's just like, not my thing. Which is funny because I love the film Casino. Moving on. But I think that.
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Matt Tammanini
Of course you do.
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Grace
Of course I do. But I think, think that, you know, listen, Times Square, we are the, you know, the hub of the world's bright lights, consumerism, etc. Like, it has to exist. Whatever. I feel like, you know what, maybe this is that moment. Maybe Ben Platt at the palace can be Ben Platt at Caesar's palace in Times Square. I don't know. But yeah, here we go.
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Matt Tammanini
How about. How about Liza gives her last concert at Liza at Caesar's Palace? Like that would. That would maybe convince some people, but who knows?
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Grace
Can't do that to her.
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Matt Tammanini
All right, everybody, let's take a real quick break from our news to talk about our sponsor for this week, surfshark. All right, you know that I am heading out of town. And what always makes me a little bit concerned when I'm leaving is whether I'm going to have access to all of the things that I enjoy. Watching tv, streaming, all of those types of things is an integral part of my life. Not only from a work perspective, but a personal perspective as well. So as I am heading out of town, it's incredibly important to make sure that I am not hit with the dreaded not available in your region when I'm firing up a certain show or a movie, or most importantly, when I'm staying inside the country, a sporting event. But there is one really valuable workaround that I have found that is Surfshark vpn. Surfshark is your secret weapon to all things geo restricted. It lets you change your virtual location so you can watch any game anywhere. I have used it when I've been on cruises to watch things that I might not be able to watch in other places. I'm going to be on cruises during the college football season a little bit, so I will probably have to be doing that as well to watch some Ohio State football. But it works incredibly well. All you have to do is sign in, pick where you want the Internet to think you are coming from, and you can stream and watch whatever you need to watch.
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Grace
You know, I've been on the Love island kick and the fact that Love Island UK is available. This is why we need VPNs, folks. It's not just for all the, you know, encrypted what have you. You want to have safe surfing. No, no, no. For me it's about streaming. A lot of times that we, we talk about media that, you know, is a part of different countries and, you know, this edit of this film that's not dubbed or this subbed. When Matt and I were talking about Great British Bake off and starting from the very beginning, we could not find it over here in the US available to stream anywhere. So I, I just think it's so important that we get to see everything that we want to.
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Matt Tammanini
I almost completely forgot that you and I actually recorded episodes for a Great British Bake off rewatch podcast that has never seen the light of day. And we used Surfshark VPN to go and find all of those. That's a brilliant callback, Grace. I completely forgot. So it's time to take back control of your online security. Try Surfshark risk free today and enjoy their 30 day money back guarantee. Go to surfshark.com tob for four extra months of Surfshark. That's codetobsurfshark.com the URL and code can be found in our show notes. All right, Grace, let's go Off Broadway. And we recently got news that the Keen Company has selected two new artists to lead the organization. The long time, long serving artistic director Jonathan Silverstein is going to be stepping down and retiring following the end of this month. The last show under his leadership was all the World's A Stage, which just won the Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Musical. As he leaves, the King Company is going to be welcoming in two people, one to take over as the artistic director. Kelly Kirwan. She is going to be joined by the new producing director, Annie Middleton. Kerwin comes to the Keen Company after serving as the Artistic Director of the Oklahoma City Repertory Theater. And Middleton comes to Keene after serving as the GM consultant for the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Always great to have new blood in these long established Off Broadway organizations. Grace, I know you and I both love Keen Company so always excited to see what they do next and see what Kelly and Annie do with the future of that organization. And then in developmental news, yesterday we got word about two upcoming industry readings for a new musical called Glory Ride, which actually made its world premiere last April in London. I heard a lot about it back then. But these industry readings one's going to happen on Friday. One's gonna happen on Monday. The show is going to have its North American premiere at the Delaware Theater Company in February and March of 2026. Included in this cast for these readings will be Greg Edelman, Dan Barry, Desi Oakley, Neil Mayer and more. And it is going to be directed by Federico Belloni and choreographed by Dennis Jones. It features a book and score by Victoria Buchholz and Todd Buchholz, and it revolves around the secret wartime hor heroics of Tour de France winner Gino Bartali. Using his cycling career as a cover, he rode his bike thousands of miles between cities across Italy, and hidden in his bike were falsified identity cards and other documents to help victims cross borders to safety. His bravery rescued hundreds of persecuted Jews and other refugees during the war. As I mentioned earlier this week, I went over to the Dr. Phillips center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday night to see the national tour of Shucked. As I've said before, this is a show that I adored on Broadway. Saw it twice, one with Carolina Interbichler, one with Izzy McCullough, once with Alex Newell as Lulu, and a second time Alex was out. So I saw it with Nyla Sostre. Obviously. Completely different cast on tour except for one person. Actually, I saw Quinn Antwerp, who was the understudy for Brody on Broadway. I saw him go on for the first time that I saw it on Broadway, so it was nice to see him back in there. The rest of the cast is made up of the phenomenal Mickey Abraham as Lulu Tyler, Joseph Ellis and Maya Lagerstam as the storytellers, Mike Nappy as Peanut, Jake Odmark as Bo, and Danielle Wade as Maisie. The entire cast is really great and it's so interesting when you see national tours a lot. There are some that feel as tight and as put together as you would expect for a Broadway show, and some don't. This one really felt as if this could have just been a replacement cast of the same production that I saw on Broadway a couple seasons ago. The difference was that there had been some changes to the set. There is no second story in the barn like there was on Broadway. And they changed the Act 2 opening number, which I didn't register at first. I leaned over to my friend Mike, who I went with, and I said, I have no recollection of this song before. And then I realized a couple minutes later, oh yeah, this is a new song on Broadway. The Act 2 opening number was We Love Jesus, but that has been replaced with Ballad of the Rocks. And I don't understand why. At first I thought, man, was We Love Jesus potentially more offensive to people in redder states than I remember. But I went back and listened to it on the ride home and it really wasn't. There was nothing that I thought was would have been problematic. I mean, certainly Orlando, we've had Book of Mormon come through three times, I think, in 10 years at the Dr. Phillips Center. So certainly more offensive things in that than in We Love Jesus. But the song that they replaced it with is the Ballad of the Rocks. It does give a little bit more context to the story, I guess, but it is not nearly as fun of a song, not nearly as big of a production number as We Love Jesus was on Broadway. But other than that, it is pretty much the same solid, really, really funny show. Well, obviously the characters are all the same. I felt there were some pretty different takes on the characters, not to the point where it changed the show, but just the individual actors brought something different to their performances. So you did get a little bit of a different flavor to it. Some just as good as On Broadway, some not as much. But overall the show remains incredibly funny. If you like puns, if you're okay with a few off color dad jokes, Robert Horne's book is certainly going to be up your alley. But really what stands out to me is the music by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, who are country music writers. They are not musical theater people. And yet this show continues to have such an incredibly strong score that obviously brings in those Nashville country, country western influences and it feels organic and natural and authentic. But it very much a musical theater score. It does all the things you want it to. You have the I Want song, you have the 11 o' clock number, you have these character moments and you have a variety of songs, which is something that I don't think we've gotten from people from the pop world who have come in to write musical theater scores, whether that's U2 or Sting or even Ingrid Michaelson. You know, I loved the Notebook, but it was still very similar throughout. That is not the case with Shuck. You get a little bit of everything. So. So if you are in the Central Florida area or in Florida in general and want to head up to Central Florida through Sunday, June 29th. Highly, highly recommend the national tour of Shucked. It remains one of the most joyful, fun, silly, a little blue off color shows that I've seen in a long time. I am not going to be in town this weekend when my family has our normal tickets. So my mom, brother and sister are going to be going with my niece and nephew. So I'm kind of glad I'm not going to have to sit next to either of them for some of those jokes. So when you're, if you're taking kids, just be prepared for a few off color moments which might go over the heads of some younger kids, teenagers, probably not. So be prepared for that. But nonetheless, love shucked, love the Tour, love the Dr. Phillips center, and can't wait for the 2025, 2026 season to start later this year. All right, Grace, we will wrap up the week, at least for me, with some highlights from Broadway. Bears. Come out, come out. Yesterday we talked about the fact that it brought in a record amount of money for Broadway. Equity fights aids amassing $2.4 million. So if you want to check out the highlights from the annual striptease and burlesque show, we will have it in the show notes. Also, depending on when you hear this, it might be out by now or not. But keep your ears to the grindstone about the latest closing announcement for a show on Broadway. All right, everybody, that's all we have for today. Thanks for listening to today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram oddwayradio. And if you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace, where can people find you?
- [18:41]
Grace
You can find me at Grace Hockey.
- [18:43]
Matt Tammanini
Everybody, have a wonderful Thursday and James Marino will be back to talk to you tomorrow.
- [18:52]
Zoe Saldana
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- [18:56]
Grace
Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.
- [18:59]
Zoe Saldana
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- [19:08]
Grace
There's always a trade in.
- [19:09]
Zoe Saldana
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- [19:10]
Grace
I feel like I have to give.
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Zoe Saldana
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Grace
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.
- [19:18]
Zoe Saldana
I'm good. Seriously.
- [19:19]
Grace
Let me check this pocket.
- [19:21]
Matt Tammanini
Oh, mints.
- [19:22]
Zoe Saldana
Really, I'm fine.
- [19:23]
Grace
Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.
- [19:27]
Matt Tammanini
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Matt Tammanini
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Zoe Saldana
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- [19:50]
Matt Tammanini
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