Matt Tanetti (0:01)

Welcome to Today on Broadway for Thursday, May 22, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tanetti. By the time you hear this, especially in the regular feed, my second and final travelogue episode from my most recent New York trip will be in the Patreon feed over at patreon.com broadwayradio broadwayradio.com patreon and make sure that you sign up at the Mezzanine tier and above. This one features my good friend Taylor Locke, who joined me for the weekend of seeing shows. We went and saw Floyd Collins, which was the one new show that I saw. The rest of the shows were things that I had seen many, many times, but they were it was the first time for Taylor. We saw 6 Sunset Boulevard, O Mary and Hadestown. So if you want a different perspective on these tried and true shows, make sure that you listen to that. All right, let's get into the news and we are starting with one of, if not the biggest star the world as Tom Hanks is going to be coming back to the New York stage and this time it will not be on Broadway, it'll be off Broadway. He will be bringing a new show called the World of Tomorrow, which is based on short stories written by Hanks himself. He is co writing the stage play with James Glossman and Hanks will be starring in this show and it will be directed by Kenny Leonard. The show is going to play the Shed at the Griffin Theater. It will begin performances on October 30th and is currently slated to play through December 21st. Tickets will go on sale to Shed members on July 15th and general on sale will be for July 24th. In the show, Hanks will star as Bert Allenberry, a scientist from the future who travels through time to 1939's World's Fair in Queens in search of true love. The tale was originally found in a collection of short stories that hanks published in 2017. Additional casting for the show will be announced down the line. We've talked so much about how commercial off Broadway has been in a bit of a renaissance one because of really great shows and really good producing, but also because of such huge stars that have been willing to do shows in smaller venues off Broadway. Now, the Shed is not exactly a small venue by any stretch of the imagination, but it follows in that line. Obviously we have seen just recently, just in the past year, Adam Driver, Andrew Scott, currently Hugh Jackman and Liev Shriver, and now Tom Hanks. Plenty of major, major stars doing shows off Broadway and I guess really that's what you have to do to make a show work in those small venues. You have to make sure that you have somebody who can not only sell out every single show, but also one where you can charge top dollar for. And there is no doubt in my mind that Tom Hanks is going to command a very impressive ticket price if they want to do that. Obviously, when we saw Stephen Sondheim's final musical, Here We Are at the Shed, tickets were expensive, but they weren't obscene and they continually sold out every show and then extended multiple times. So it'll be interesting to see what those look like when the tickets go on sale in just a little under two months. Heading over to some awards news Yesterday the Drama Desk Awards announced two honorary awards that they would be giving out at this year's ceremony. The first will go to the legendary Tony winner Brian Stokes Mitchell, and the second will go to the equally legendary Tony Award winner Gavin Creel. Stokes will receive the William Wolfe Award, which recognizes individuals and entities whose achievements represent extraordinary, commendable contributions. Contributions to the high standards, innovativeness and or humane character of the industry, including instances of unusual largesse and or giving back to the entertainment community. Obviously, Stokes not only is an incredible star of the stage, but the fact that he is the former chair of the Actors Fund and then it turned into the Entertainment Community Fund. For almost two full decades, the work that Stokes has done on behalf of members of the entertainment community, especially in their most difficult times, times when they needed a hand for one reason or another, that certainly qualifies him for this honor. He has also been similarly recognized by the Tony Awards for his work with the Entertainment Community Fund. And then Gavin Creel is going to receive the Harold S. Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement. Obviously, Gavin passed away last year at the age of 48 following a very brief battle with cancer. The Drama Desks will take place at the NYU Skirball center on June 1 and the ceremony will be hosted by Deborah Messing and Titus Burgess. Alright, let's take a break real quick and talk about our sponsor for this week, Cash App. If you are waiting on somebody, a loved one, a friend, a co worker, an acquaintance, somebody that you sold something to off of Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. It is annoying no matter how large or small, to have to wait for them to send that money. Perhaps you had to wait days for the money to finally show up. Maybe there was some sort of glitch and it never actually got to you. Maybe you had to pay huge fees just to get your own money into your bank account faster. Maybe they accidentally sent it to somebody else, or maybe there's some sort of processing delay with no real explanation on why you can't just get your money when it finally arrives. But fortunately, all of those nuisances are a thing of the past. When you use Cash App Cash App is completely different. It's fast, it's easy, it's safe. I use it at least every few months to pay my account in SAL for doing my taxes. And then any opportunity that I have to send money to somebody, I do it via Cash App 1 because I know how it works and it's simple. And a lot of these other apps and websites confuse me and make it far more difficult than it needs to be. With Cash App, it's super easy to set up. All you have to do is enter your phone number or your email address, put in some basic information, then you're good to go. You don't need to give them your bank account number, your routing number, your mother's maiden name, your shoe size, anything like that. It's simple, it's straightforward. And then when somebody sends you money, you get it right away. It's your money. You shouldn't have to wait. Cash App is safe and it's secure and you can personalize everything about your experience with a Cash App right there on your phone. And for a limited time only, new Cash App users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real. There is 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 deposited right into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's Cash App for listeners of a certain age at this point you have already heard the sad news that the great star of the television sitcom Cheers, George Wendt, passed away earlier this week at the age of 76. And while there have been plenty of people tributing George's work on Cheers as norm, there is a theatrical side to George. He's appeared on Broadway four different times. He was one of the original replacements in the original Broadway production of Art, and I think we might be getting a revival of that show here very soon. He also was a replacement, Edna Turnblad on multiple occasions in Hairspray on Broadway, and then he originated the role of Santa in Elf the Musical. And then he played Joe Bell in the short lived, ill fated Broadway stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's back in 2013. He also did a season touring as Santa in Elf and back in 2006 starred as juror number one in a national tour of 12 angry men. Went is survived by his wife and their children and if you didn't know, his nephew, the star of the Off Broadway version of Dead Poets Society and a little TV show called Ted Lasso. Jason Sudeikis all right, moving over to some show and casting news yesterday was announced that the last five years on Broadway is adding performances. Well, strike that, it's adding a performance. At one point I had heard rumors about a potential extension and recastings after Adrian Warren and Nick Jonas had wrapped up their runs. That does not seem to be happening, but we are getting one extra performance which is going to happen on Sunday, June 1st 15th at 7pm and this extra show will feature the show's understudies, Noah Kaiserman as Jamie and Nasia Thomas as Kathy. This will be one week before the show closes up at the Hudson Theater on June 22. Who knows if Noah or Naysha is going to have an opportunity to perform in the show any other time? It is all kind of a crapshoot when it comes to understudies, but to know that these two folks are going to get a chance to do the show before it wraps up is awesome. One of the great events in the New York theater community that happens, I'm pretty sure every year is the Transport Group's starry concert of some iconic musical that raises money for the theater company. And this year it is going to be happening at Carnegie hall on June 23rd at 8pm and it will feature tons of stars doing the songs of hello Dolly. Tony nominee Leroy Reams, who has been a part of this show's history for almost five decades, will direct the night. And currently the list of stars in this one night only event include Kate Baldwin, Nikki Renee Daniels, Hannah Ellis, Andrew Barth Feldman, Katie Finneran, Jessica Fontana, Santino Fontana, Jay Harrison, G. Ann Harada, Erica Henningsen, Gray Henson, Ashley D. Kelly, Beth Leavel, Keisha Lewis, Jack Malone, Zachary, Noah Peyser, Tom Cessma, Helen J. Shen, A.J. shively, Christopher Sieber, Robert Preston Smith, Ephraim Sykes, Barbara Walsh, Natasha Yvette Williams, Samantha Williams, Alicia Umphress, Jessica Vosk and Anna Zavelson. That is such an incredible group of people to be singing these songs. I don't know if they can add more people. They often have more names added as the dates go closer to these things, but who knows who else they can get to be a part of this. So it's going to be Exciting. What's awesome about this is that not only will it be the songs, but it will feature a selection of Gower Champion's original choreography that will be restaged by Randy Slovicek, who was in the 1995 Broadway revival of the show, which Leroy Reams actually directed. There will also be a 30 piece orchestra doing the music. So if you're going to be in town on June 23, this is a night that you do not want to miss. All right. Heading out on the road and the national tour of Back to the Future is actually going to be welcoming some new stars. And these new stars are old stars because they are folks that appeared in the original Broadway production of the show. David Josephsberg is going to step into the role of Doc Brown, a role that he understudied on Broadway. He also played Principal Strickland on Broadway. But we are also going to get Nathaniel Hackman, who originated the role of Biff Tannen on Broadway, stepping into that role as well. They will begin performances with the company on June 4th in Hartford, Connecticut. A couple weeks ago I talked to the creators and co directors of the immersive show the Death of Rasputin over on Governor's Island. At the time, they told me like the day before it happened that they were going to be extending through the end of May. Well, they've had another extension. The show is now going to play through June 15th. That'll make it a full two months run of this show, which is so difficult to do, one, where you have to take a ferry to get to the show, and two, at this time of year when there is so much focus in the theater community on the new shows, especially those vying for Tonys, that this is something to be celebrated. The price of a ticket includes the ferry over to Governors Island. So if you want to see the show, that makes it a little bit easier. Who knows if this is going to be able to extend even further. But if you want to make sure that you see this, jump on that opportunity now. All right, before we wrap up, I have not one, but two different things to recommend. The first comes from Goodnight and Good Luck and stars George Clooney and Alana Glaser. They spoke with Architectural Digest and they walked them through the set by Scott Pask, which I think is a really marvelous and underappreciated set because of everything that they have going on all the time, the different pieces that move on and off. Obviously you're going to have an opportunity to see this set when it appears on CNN live on June 7th. So if you want to see what this set looks like, head over to that video. And then the other one comes to us from this year's MCC Miscast, in which very soon to be Tony winner Cole Escola performs the song I Was Stubborn from the Music Man. Absolutely iconic work here from Cole. All right, everybody, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to TODAY on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Broadway Radio. And don't forget to get your tickets to Defria Mockingbird at the Soho playhouse through Sunday, May 25th. All right. Have a wonderful Thursday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.