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Today on Broadway: Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025
00:13:13
Leslie Odom Jr. is back in the room where it happens, Gabi Carrubba joins ‘Bat Boy,’ is ‘Chess’ rearranging songs? 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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Introducing Family Freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom. Up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone16128 gigabyte 8. $29.99 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due. If you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile welcome to Today on.
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B
Broadway for Thursday, September 11, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamminini and I'm.
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C
Tell Me on a Sunday podcast, Grace.
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B
Ake Grace, obviously today is an anniversary that nobody likes to celebrate. Whether you are a New Yorker or not, you are somebody who, if you're listening to the show, loves New York for a multitude of different reasons. So for everyone who lived in New York on September 11th of 2001, for everybody who was impacted by losses on September 11th, 2001 or has continued to feel the pain from that day these two plus decades later, our hearts are going out to you. Obviously that is a day that many of us who were around at that time will never forget and hopefully something that we never have to relive. And so as our country still struggles with things every day, evil and hate and murder on a daily basis, we send our thoughts and well wishes to everybody that they can commemorate this anniversary with the solemnity that it deserves. All right, Grace, let's head into the news. And the biggest thing happening in the theater community happened on Tuesday night over at the Richard Rogers Theater where Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. Returned to his Tony winning role of Aaron Burr in Hamilton. You might have heard of it. It is obviously one of the biggest things happening in theater not only this fall, but this entire season. So. So that premium tickets to Hamilton have hit a record number. They are now up to $1,525 for Leslie Odom's nine week return to the show. And that's if you can get them. I am going to New York next month in October and my friend Heather and I decided far too late to to try to get in to see Leslie in the show. We could not get two seats together. The only seats that we could get were there for a week. The only two seats we could get were two. Two different obstructed view seats on opposite sides of the theater and they were both over $400. I cannot believe we paid that amount. But neither of us saw Leslie in the show originally, so we felt like we had to. Obviously this is good news for the producers of Hamilton. Not that they needed more good news, Grace, but I guess this is. I don't know how to feel about a fifteen hundred dollar ticket. As incredible of an experience as I think that will be to see Leslie, who is one of the absolute best back in this show.
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But I'm remembering, you know, what, six, seven years ago, that was norm as well, you know, So I don't think that this is out of character. I mean, I remember people spending gobs and gobs of money on the market.
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B
That was on a secondary mart.
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C
Oh, sure, sure, sure. But this is good that the show is making it, you know, like, I think it's, I think it's better to keep it there. So I don't know, it's like if. But they love seeing. And by the way, he's the, he. He is a original cast member as well. But you've got like David Guzman back in the building. You've got other people that also were there to the start. You know, Thane is still there and God, I love him. But you know, I think that like there's so many people in that building, I think that are also being uplifted by this moment that maybe haven't in a second. I, I think all of it, all of it is good news. Right? So. But yeah, you know what? If people want to spend that, they're gonna spend it. I know all the people that were there last night were just electrified. I've never had FOMO like that in a while. I was meanwhile, outside of art, seeing Harry Styles leave because, you know, one of his besties, James Corden is in this new show. So there was a lot of, you know, excitement on the streets on a Tuesday night in September after such a kind of hellish week last week. Gross wise, this was nice. This was nice to have.
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B
Yeah. We have video from Hamilton's Instagram of the moment when Leslie Odom Jr. Stepped out onto the stage at the beginning of the show for the first time. It was an incredible ovation from the crowd, standing ovation that went on and on and on. And it looks like he didn't have to like quiet them down. Like he didn't like break character because that's not really a, a role where you want to break character. But he definitely had to seem to kind of wait it out. So Very exciting. But in other Hamilton news, it was reported that last week, if you remember, the the original filmed version of Hamilton that is on Disney plus went into movie theaters starting on Friday and it actually debuted at number two in the box office charts for movie theaters last week, earning nearly $10 million over the weekend. That's pretty incredible. On Friday alone it grossed $4 million. So I don't know if it's still going on. Depending on where you are, check your local listings. I didn't have an opportunity to go see it last week, so I might have to pop over to Disney Springs to see if it's available to check out for a second weekend. But that is very cool. Again, all things coming up Hamilton, and that's not a terrible thing at all. All right, Grace, we finally got it. We got the complete cast announcement for New York City Center's upcoming production of Bat Boy. We already knew that Taylor Trench would be playing the title role. He' joined by Kerry Butler, Andrew Durand, Mary Faber, Alan H. Green, Evan Harrington, John Michael Lyles, Alex Newell, Olivia Puckett, Christopher Sieber, Rema Webb and Marissa Jarrett Winoker. We already knew about them joining the production. Now. The one major role that we didn't know was Shelly Parker, who is Bat Boys kind of quasi love interest in the show. And I had heard that like every age appropriate woman in New York City had gone in for that role and they just couldn't land on who they wanted when. Well, who they landed on is kind of an up and coming name in theater. And that is Gabby Karuba. She is the standby for both Connie Francis and Sandra Dee in Just In Time and she's going to be playing Shelley Parker. Joining them will be Tom McGowan, Jacob Ming Trent, Marissa Rosen and Colin Trudeau. The Production begins on October 29th and is extending through November 9th. I'm a little annoyed because I'm going to be in town. Like I leave like a week and a half before it begins and I come into town a week after it closes. So a little annoyed at myself that I didn't plan that out a little bit better. But other things dictated those trips. But I don't know much of Gabby. Do you know Gabby Karuba at all, Grace?
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C
Oh, yeah. From dear Evan Hansen days. She's been, she's been out here for a long time. She also directed an independent short horror film with my friend Alex Molnar. She's done a lot. She's a deeply creative, exciting person and I think that she needs to be on everybody's radar.
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Yeah, this will definitely get a lot of attention and hopefully this helps her make her make a little bit bigger name for herself after this. Speaking of somebody who does not need any help of making a name for herself, Tony Award winner Priscilla Lopez has joined the rotating roster of stars that will be a part of the Off Broadway return engagement of Michael Griffo's play Pen Pals that is currently running at Dr. 2. Lopez will star opposite Pauletta Pearson, Washington from October 15th through the 26th. The show is currently scheduled to play through December 21st with a great number of stars coming in and out, including such names as Paige Davis, Kathleen Chalfont, Marcia Cross, Sharon Lawrence, Maureen McCormack, Emily Skinner, Donna Lynn Champlin and more. So if you want more information about that, we will have it in the show. Notes Sticking Off Broadway Grace, the show that we talked about earlier this week, Prince F that is beginning performances, actually began performances yesterday as we're recording here on Wednesday over at Studio Seaview, has extended. It is now going to play through November 9th. This is the encore run after it had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizon earlier this year. So more opportunities to check out this show. And I have a feeling that this is one that could continue to extend even deeper into the holidays if the word of mouth continues to be as good as it is. And then in developmental news yesterday we got word about an industry presentation of a new musical happening next Wednesday and Thursday, September 17th and 18th, for a new show called Golden. It is written music and lyrics and book kind of all jumbled together amongst these people in different configurations by John Hodges, Gordie Wells, Dustin Sullivan and Flynn, and Francesca Papiat and Whit Cook. And the cast is going to include some fairly familiar names including Cicely Daniels, Vishal Viedi, Nathan, Sal Stone, Carissa Hoagland, Major Attaway and others. The show follows a group of storytellers attempting to share a classic fable of Rumpelstiltskin, only to discover themselves somewhere entirely and wonderfully else. Grace, we know you are good friends with Nathan Sal Stone, so anytime you have an opportunity to check him out is always fun. And I love seeing these new musicals, so I'm hoping this will be a great one for everyone who's able to attend. And then, Grace, I don't know if it was on Tuesday night, but recently you had a really cool experience over at the Algonquin Hotel. Tell us about this new exhibit from the Al Hirschfeld Foundation.
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C
I was so excited that I got invited to this. I'm describing it the same way that the head of the Hirschfeld foundation and Doug described it as probably the most gorgeous Hirschfeld presentation of collected works in many, many years. This is a Sondheim Hirschfeld tribute, if you will. They also have just released a book that's a poster book where you can literally tear out some of the most iconic Hirschfelds and it's encouraging you to frame them, to use them in your home as a print book by Abra Literary. It was so beautiful to see lots of starry people. John Leguizamo was there. He got to see his Hirschfeld portrait. They also presented Danny Burstein with a company, Revival Inc. That he was in. There was also there were just a slew of people I'm going to be posting about on my social media momentarily, so you'll be able to go see it about the night. But it was just really a beautiful tribute and it's located at the Algonquin Oak Room that is on display for free from 12 to 7 from now through 20 September. I highly recommend that you go. It's not often that these things are open to the public, so I highly recommend that people check it out because it was really gorgeous, very cool, very.
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Jealous that you had an opportunity to see that. I might need to get this book and frame some of those because I love having those kind of things on my wall. I've got a couple of squigs on my wall and I would love to throw one of those in there as well. All right, Grace, the recommendation comes with a little bit of information. I think Chess on Broadway released a small snippet of the song Someone Else's Story on their Instagram. Now what's interesting about this is that in this version that they put on social media, it is sung by Lea Michele. Traditionally in this show, or at least for many, many decades, that song has been sung by Svetlana, but it is now being sung by Lea Michele, apparently, who is playing Florence. What's interesting about this, and I actually saw our friend Aaron's social media post about this before I saw the video, is that song was originally written for Florence and that's how it was in the original Broadway production. But ever since then it has been moved to Svetlana to give her a little bit more to do in the show. And obviously we know how great of a vocalist Lea Michele is, so hearing her sing an incredible song is never a bad thing. I'm a little disappointed though, just because we know how much we love Hannah Cruz. But taking away a major songs from Svetlana doesn't give her a whole lot to sing. She's got a couple reprises than she does. I know him so well with Florence, but otherwise she doesn't really have a song of her own unless they move some other things around. So I'm going to be really interested to see how they break these things up. Grace. To see if there's any more movement of those songs, I went to try to dig out my program from when I saw the concert version, which is like the precursor to this vers that was on Broadway a couple years ago, and I couldn't find it. So I have to dig a little bit deeper. I wanted to see how they had that broken up because I don't remember if Svetlana or Florence sang it. But I think it'll be fun to figure out how they move things around. And I know you don't know Chess at all, but I'm hoping that we get a little bit more for Hannah Cruise to do because as we know, she is an incredibly talented vocalist.
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Yeah, it could have fooled me. I don't know it either way.
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Yeah, you would know. You. I could have told you that Tveit sang it and you'd have believed it.
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C
Oh, well.
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All right, everybody, that's all we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @BroadwayRadio. And if you want more BroadwayRadio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio grace where people find you.
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You can find me at Grace Hockey.
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All right, everybody, have a wonderful Thursday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.