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Today on Broadway: Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025
00:13:43
Cole Escola, Original Stars to Return to ‘Oh, Mary!’; Elizabeth Marvel to Lead LCT3 World Premiere; Grace Reviews New ‘Great Gatsby’ Stars Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines eve...
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- [00:02]
Matt Tammaneni
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Wednesday, February 26, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammaneni and I'm.
- [00:07]
Grace Ake
Tell me on a Sunday podcast.
- [00:09]
Matt Tammaneni
Grace Ake Grace On Tuesday, I did an interview with social media phenomenon and the new Jane Seymour in six on Broadway, Kelsey Watts. It was a great conversation. She has been huge on TikTok and Instagram for a long time, ever since she was on the Voice, and she is now just a week into her as the only queen that Henry ever truly loved. In six, we had a great conversation that'll be up in the podcast feeds here in the next few days. So if you want to hear that before you can hear it anywhere else, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio broadwayradio.com patreon Now, Grace, we've got a bunch of, like, little news that I want to run through, but the first news is not little and it might be one of the smartest things that I've seen in a long time because yesterday it was announced that the original stars of oh Mary will be returning in April, just in time for the Tony push. That means that the creator and original star Cole Escola, along with Conrad Rick Amora as Mary's husband and James Scully as Mary's teacher, will all be back over at the lyceum Theater on April 8th. They will join fellow original cast members Bianca Lee and Tony Macht, who are still with the production. They had all left at one point and been succeeded first by Betty Gilpin as Mary and coming up in mid March, Titus Burgess. We talked about him only doing it for three weeks, which I thought was weird at the time. Now it makes a little bit more sense. Philip James Brandon had taken over as Mary's husband and Chris Renfro had taken over as Mary's teacher. This show, of course, was never meant to be playing this long, Grace. There has been multiple extensions, so obviously people had other things to do. But when it comes down to Tony time, this is a show that will very much be in contention for a lot of Tony Awards, I think could be a potential best play winner, at least a nominee. Cole is probably up for a number of awards. So to have the original cast reunite on Broadway in time for, you know, the nominations and then for people who need to come into town to see all the shows for voting purposes, like this is really smart from an awards consideration purpose, but also a marketing purpose as well. And I think it'll probably be a really, really good move on all fronts for them strategically.
- [02:25]
Grace Ake
Grace yeah, I agree. We were hoping that they would bring everybody together before the Tony season hits and this is right on time. So I think this is, this is going to be great for them and I hope I get to see the him. But if not, I hope that anyone that missed all of these people, they now have a new opportunity. But also the people that are collecting everyone like Infinity Stones, I hope that everyone's seeing Titus and Betty and everybody. It's great.
- [02:47]
Matt Tammaneni
I do wonder if this is a show that is hoping to continue after this latest run. It is currently on sale through June 28th. I don't know if they are planning to extend again. Maybe Titus will come back after a three week run. We've seen things like that in the past, but we will definitely have to keep an eye on what happens there. Earlier this week we also found out a new star that is going to be coming to the Kit Kat Club and taking part in Cabaret on Broadway. Right now it is not somebody new as the MC or Sally, but instead the always wonderful Ellen Harvey will be taking over the role of Fraulein Schneider, who will be replacing the legendary B.B. neuwirth, who will play her final performance in the role on March 29th. Ellen Harvey will then take over on March 31st. Bebe will be exiting with the show's current emcee and Sally Bowles, Adam Lambert and Ali'I Cravalho. They will be replaced by country music star Orville Peck and Eva Noblezada who will also begin performances along with Ellen Harvey. So obviously losing Bebe Neuwirth is sad because she's one of the all time greats. But having Ellen Harvey return to Broadway after I guess probably like eight years since present laughter is great and she's obviously a wonderful addition to this cast. All right, real quick, let's dive into last week's Broadway grosses. And obviously we were down a little bit. Not only because Broadway lost a number of shows, it was actually down two whole shows. And one of the shows that was running only had three performances. So that obviously hurt. And it was, you know, after the Valentine's Day President's Day weekend, so things went down again for that purpose. But the 26 shows on Broadway grossed $27,930,129. The total attendance on Broadway was 231,705 people and the average ticket price was 9% to $120.54. However, back on top, as it always is lately, Wicked came in at 2,561,492 bucks. But both Lion King and Hamilton are really close to $2 million, which makes me think that once we get to the spring and into the summer that we will be seeing two, three, maybe even four shows creep over that $2 million mark. The Lion King came in at 1.95 million, Hamilton was at 1.9, the Outsiders was at 1.4 and Aladdin was at 1.3. The rest of the show, seven figures in descending order are MJ Sunset Boulevard, the Great Gatsby, Death Becomes her and Juliet Cabaret, Hell's Kitchen and Cursed Child. Redwood, during the week that it opened and obviously had a bunch of comps for those purposes, was next at just about $955,000. Buena Vista Social Club was the show that only had three performances last week. Grace. It only had three, but it brought in $447,171, which if extrapolated to an eight show week would be 1.19 million bucks. Which is very encouraging for a show that, while it does come with an established name, is not a hugely well known and popular IP. In total, 18 of Broadway's 28 shows played to capacities of 90% or more. Three shows were right at 100%. Buena Vista Social Club, Operation Mincemeat. Obviously those are two of the newest shows on Broadway as well as Wicked. Hamilton was at 100.42% and the Outsiders was at 102.48. Taking that crown now that Romeo and Juliet is closed. Now, Grace, are you a fan of the Netflix TV show Derry Girls?
- [06:16]
Grace Ake
I love the conceit of it. I've not gotten too in the weeds of it, but I do know it by nature because I love a lot of that cast.
- [06:25]
Matt Tammaneni
Yeah, I've never seen it, but I know people who absolutely love it. Well, one of the stars of that show is going to be making her New York theater debut and that is Saoirse Monica Jackson. She is going to be joining the production of the world premiere of Sierra Elizabeth Smith's Irishtown that'll begin performances at the Irish repertory theater on April 2nd ahead of an opening on April 13th and continuing through May 25th. She will star alongside the always fantastic Emmy and Tony nominee Kate Burton along with Brenda Meaney and Angela Reed, and is being directed by Nicola Murphy Dubie. The show follows the Irishtown Players, a celebrated Dublin based theater company which has just started rehearsals for for a new play from a visionary playwright. But trouble arises when the actors decide she's going too dark, too experimental and perhaps not Irish enough. Speaking of world premiere shows, yesterday Lincoln Center Theater and LCT3 added a new world premiere to its season and that will be Caitlin Saylor Stevens 5 Models in Ruins 1981. It'll begin performances at the Claire Towel Theater on April 19th and it's currently scheduled to run through June 1st. The massively talented star of stage and screen Elizabeth Marvel will lead the cast. It is set at a European estate just after Princess Diana's wedding and it follows a fashion photographer on an assignment to shoot the COVID of Vogue, which threatens to be her last. Alongside Marvel will be Stella Everett, Maya Novi, Sarah Maria Rodriguez and Madeline Wise. The show will be directed by the Wilma Theater. Co Artistic Director Morgan Greene did some other show and casting news Grace unfortunately we learned very early on Tuesday morning that Drag the Musical will play its final performance off Broad Broadway at New world stages on April 27th. At the time of its closing, it will have played 239 shows. So you have just about two months to get over two new world stages. If you want to check this out before it wraps up, then a show Grace, that I know you're very excited about. Joy A New True Musical has added two new cast members. Of course we discussed the fact that Betsy Wolf will be leading the show in the title role last week, but now we know that Jill Abramovitz will be playing her mother Toots and Honor Blue Savage will be playing her daughter Christie. And one more show and casting thing here for you. We previously talked about Vape, the Grease parody that is going to be having a one night only benefit concert performance at the town hall on March 11. This is a obviously the title says Grease parody that had a world premiere in 2018 and was supposed to come to New York in 2019. But the rights holders for Greece issued a cease and desist letter. The producers of Vape successfully sued that they had the right to do the show under parody law. So now it is going to have a one night only concert in New York City and it is going to star the likes of Kerry Butler, James Carpinello, Ann Harada, Jackie Hoffman, Aisha Jackson, Joel Perez and Jelani Remy. The show features a book by Katie Hogan and Sketchworks Comedy and Lyrics and additional book work by Billy Reece and Danny Sales. Proceeds will benefit the Entertainment Community Fund. And speaking of Entertainment Community Fund, maybe Happy Ending, Death Becomes her and oh Mary have all set Entertainment Community Fund performances for this winter. They are a number of different shows in February and March where the producers have subsidized all of the Tickets. So every single cent that you spend on a ticket to the shows on those nights will go to the Entertainment Community Fund and it will benefit entertainment workers in whatever capacity who were affected by the Southern California wildfires. In the show notes, we have the dates and times for all of the shows. There are multiple, so you can check to see when you're available and which ones you want to go to. But that is always a great thing to do when you have an opportunity not only to see a wonderful Broadway show, but contribute to a good cause as well. All right. Now, Grace, I ran through a lot of that news because I wanted to turn the floor over to you because on Monday night you went to a Broadway opening. Obviously it wasn't one that we talked about in the schedule. There were no reviews to come out officially, but that's because the Great Gatsby on Broadway welcomed its new principals, although Ryan McCarten had been there for a while. Sarah, Thailand is new, but they wanted to do a big official opening night and there were tons of stars, tons of influencers there. So I wanted to get your take on this new version of the show with these two new stars.
- [10:56]
Grace Ake
Yeah, I did not expect to be seeing this show this year, like pretty quickly into the year. I was so excited that Ryan very graciously invited F and I to this really lovely opening. When I tell you that this Monday night show was the most elaborate, electric Monday night show I think I've ever been to in my life. The Broadway theater was ecstatic. Shout out again to Vivacity, their press team who has done non stop great work on the show but also curated an excellent event and evening. I look to my left and Kenny Ortega is sitting with Jinx Monsoon and Nicole Scherzinger and Andrea Martin and I almost fell out of my seat. A very specific group of people that matter to just, just me, but I think also our listeners. But it was just amazing to see like this group of people and Mackenzie Kurtz was there, Jessica Keenan Wynn was next to me, I guess from the Heather's days. When I tell you that Ryan McCarten tore the roof off of the building, I am not joking. If you were still like, oh, I've already seen the show. This is your moment. You need to buy a ticket right now. Tickets are on sale through September 7th. Nobody's paying me to say this. I'm telling you that you have to. I love Sarah Hyland. You guys know that. I saw her in Little Shop. She did not disappoint. She was excellent as D Easy, Ryan. There is a. There is a number in Act 2 that we were leaping to our feet. That is how much like, we were clapping for these two and the entire ensemble cast. Also, my friend Austin Colby is going to be stepping into the role of Tom Buchanan, so I'm obviously going to be going back for that. But it was just a great night. It was a great performance. There was an electricity and, like, just a joy with the cast that's being brought to the piece that I was very excited by. Got to talk to Nate, Tyson and Kate, like, the composers of the piece after the show, and I just adore them. It was just an awesome night and it was an amazing performance, and I just cannot recommend enough for people to go and get a ticket to see them. It was excellent work.
- [13:00]
Matt Tammaneni
Awesome. As I said before when the cast announcement, it's so hard for me to see shows multiple times, although, you know, Hadestown and Six are exceptions to that. But, like, because when I come up, there's so many new shows I have to see. But, like, I was super interested in Ryan and Sarah in these roles, so I might have to figure out how to get this one in at some point during their runs after that review. So we appreciate that, Grace. 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 Reading. You can follow me on Instagram @bww. Matt. Grace. Where can people find you?
- [13:29]
Grace Ake
You can find me at. It's Grace Hockey.
- [13:31]
Matt Tammaneni
All right, everybody, have a wonderful Wednesday and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.