Matt Tammanini (0:01)

Welcome to Today on Broadway for Wednesday, May 21, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammanini. We are heading into the home stretch of Grace's show over at the Soho Playhouse. So make sure that you are getting your tickets to see to Free a Mockingbird. I will have a link in the show notes on how you can get those. I haven't told her yet and I don't not sure if she's checking in on these episodes in the middle of her run. But I'm gonna go for the final performance on Sunday night. So if you're gonna be there, let me know and we will say hi at that time. But you don't want to miss this opportunity. You never know when she's going to have a chance to do the show in New York City, especially at such a great facility like Soho Playhouse. So get your tickets now and make a nice holiday weekend out of it. All right, let's dive into the news and let's start with the Chita Rivera Awards. It is awards season and we found out who the winners were for this dance focused awards organization. There are a number of different categories that they have that are both theater focused and film focused. We'll just focus on the theater ones here. Let's start with outstanding choreography in a Broadway show. The winners are Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck for Buena Vista Social Club. Outstanding dancer and a Broadway show. They have two winners in this category. The first is Kevin Solak. He plays Tulsa in the Broadway revival of Gypsy. And then the other one is Robin Herder, who of course plays Ivy Lynn in the Broadway production of Smash. The outstanding ensemble on a Broadway show goes to Buena Vista Social Club. That often makes sense with the choreography and the ensemble, and I think both are incredibly, well deserving. The voting committee for the Chita Rivera Awards did decide to give an Off Broadway special recognition to both Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles for choreographing Cats the Jellicle Ball. In addition, as had been previously announced, Tony award winner Ben Vereen received the lifetime achievement award. And David Newman, most recently of Swept Away this season, received the Douglas and Ethel Watts Critics Choice Award. Now that we've got these out of the way, I mean, we really are just focused on the biggies now. We have the drama desks coming up on June 1st and then obviously the Tony Awards coming up a week later. The drama desks will be the last little bit of data and information that we have to really get us into being able to get a full picture to make predictions Speaking of that, I did want to let you know that coming up later this week, perhaps over the weekend, we will be releasing the link for our annual Tony Pickham's pool. The winner of this pool, assuming that it's not somebody from Broadway radio, will receive a gift bag of theater related things. So if you want to be a part of that, keep your ears and eyes out and we will send out that information in an episode coming up in the next week or so. All right, going from awards to some show and casting news, this one comes to us from the Stephen Sondheim Theater where we have two new stars heading in to Angelique on Broadway. Let's start first with the new Angelique. Making her Broadway debut will be Cheryl Porter. She is best known as a Vocal coach on TikTok who does breakdowns of songs and explains things about what different singers are doing. Well, she has gone on to have just millions and millions of followers and likes and views on social media, especially on TikTok. She where she is known as Mama Cheryl. She also voiced the Circle of Life in Italian for Disney's 2019 version of the Lion King. She is going to take over the role of Angelique from Jeanette Baerdel on August 7th. So coming up here in a few months, but before that, Gianna Harris, who is original cast member of Hell's Kitchen on Broadway and also played Ally at different times, she's going to take over in the title role of and no, I'm just kidding, in the title role of Juliet. She will begin performances on June 10th. She succeeds Maya Boyd in that role. They will both be joining the cast that is made up of Joey Fatone, Allison Luff, Drew Gehling, Liam Pierce, Michael, Ivan Carrier and Nathan Levy. For now, who knows if there are any other changes between now and when either of those folks make it into the cast. All right, let's get into last week's Broadway grosses again. There are 40 shows currently playing on Broadway, meaning that only Studio 54 is empty right now. But we know Call Me Izzy is going to be beginning performances this coming week, so we will have that venue filled. But the Nederlander Theater is now unoccupied because Redwood closed last week. So we're missing out on the full 41 right now. But hopefully that'll happen very, very soon. In total though, the GROSS is inched up 2% to come in at 44,351,676. Total attendance came in at 336,494 people and the average ticket price was at $131.81. No shows north of $4 million this week, although Good Night and Good Luck was very close and I know that they are having a ton of students come in right now towards the end of the school year, so that probably has an impact on it as well. But they brought in $3,955,968. Othello, also over $3 million at 3.2 million. Then there were two other shows that were above $2 million. Glengarry Glen Ross was at 2.4 million and Wicked was at 2.1. The rest of the shows north of seven figures in descending order are the Lion King, Hamilton, Death Becomes her, the Picture of Dorian Gray. They only did seven performances last week. They came out from six the previous week. Sunset Boulevard, Buena Vista, Social Club, the Outsiders, Just In Time, Moulin Rouge, Aladdin, mj, Gypsy O Mary, and maybe Happy Ending. Down at the other end of the scale, things are not looking good for some of these new shows. Real Women have Curves is really struggling to pick up any steam. Obviously not getting a Best Musical nomination probably hurt its chances and to be quite honest with you, I'm a little surprised that with numbers like this that it hasn't announced closing yet. I'm very glad that it hasn't because I thought it's a. I thought it was a really fun show as I talked about on my last Travelogue episode and I actually had a friend from Florida go see it last Friday, but they only brought in $351,281 last week and only played to 63.64% capacity. Next up is Boop in a similar boat, although it does have a little bit better grosses and capacity. Boop brought in $476,429 last week and played to just under 77% capacity. Pirates the Penzance Musical Limited run different situation here being a part of the Roundabout season, but it came in at just over $496,000 but at essentially 90% capacity. Dead outlaw, also an open ended commercial run, only had $504,000 playing to 85% capacity. It'll be interesting to see if those three shows taking Pirates out because again, limited run, not for profit theater. What happens with those before and immediately after the Tony Awards? Those are obviously shows that had hoped for long runs. I don't know that that's going to happen for either of them at this point, but we have seen things turned around for shows in the past. Generally that has to do with great showings at the Tony Awards. Obviously Boop and Real Women didn't have a Best Musical nomination. Maybe Jasmine Amy Rogers is able to steal the best actress and that gives a bump to Boop. Say that five times fast. Obviously we're hopeful that those shows can find an audience, but right now it is not looking great for either. In total, there were 22 of Broadway's 40 shows that played a 90% capacity or above. At exactly 100% were oh Mary Othello, the Outsiders and Wicked Buena Vista Social Club. This has to be just a thing where they put this in there just to be above them because it came in at 100.01% capacity. Picture of Dorian Gray was at 100.62 and then you had maybe happy ending at 101. John Proctor is the villain at 101.73 and good night, good luck at 101.96. Just in time is continuing to lead this category at 102.93% capacity. Alright, let's take a break real quick to talk about our sponsor for this week. Cash App. Despite the fact that for the past dozen or so years my job has been focused on working in digital media, I'm still a bit of an analog guy. So when I go out with friends or I owe somebody money to pay them back for something, my first inclination is always to just go to the atm, get cash cash and hand it to them. But that's not the way pretty much anybody else in my life wants things to be handled. So if I'm going to be sending money, I need an app that is easy, it's seamless, it doesn't confuse my small little shriveled geriatric millennial brain so that I can send and receive money without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. And that is where Cash App comes in. It is safe and easy and it is incredibly fast to send and receive money. You don't have to wait days or even hours to see if the check cleared. If it's in your account, it happens almost instantaneously. And what's also really important to me as somebody who is not great at handling online things like that, is that Cash App is incredibly safe and secure. They're also going to let you know that if you somehow try to send money to an account that looks a little fishy, they're going to send you a pop up that warns you that it might be a scam and you probably should be double checking to make sure that you are sending things to the proper places. As I said yesterday, I use Cash App to send payments to my accountant for doing my taxes every quarter. So while not exactly as much fun as splitting brunch with friends, I know how easy and simple it can be. Which honestly takes a load off my mind because taxes in general make my head spin. So the fact that paying for them is super easy obviously lessens my worry. Now, for a limited time only new Cash app users can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real. There's 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 then you'll get $10 dropped into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's Cash App. All right, let's head Off Broadway for some show and casting news and a press release that made me incredibly excited yesterday came from mcc where they announced that the world premiere of a new play called Caroline will be heading to the Off Broadway house beginning in September. Two reasons why this made me really excited. One, it comes from writer Preston Max Allen, who I know from the musical the Off Broadway musical a couple seasons ago called We Are the Tigers. I think that was like 2018, 2019, and Preston has since moved to Chicago and writes and works there. But that was a musical. This is a play which is a little interesting. I love Preston's songs. I still listen to We Are the Tigers quite a bit, but I'm interested to see what he can do in a play and it is being directed by one of my favorite directors and former Broadway radio guest David Cromer. The show follows Maddie, who is forced to seek help from her long estranged mother, a move that means she won't be able to shield her daughter, the titular Caroline, from the circumstances that led to the estrangement. We obviously don't know the casting of the rest of creative team at this point, but it is being produced with a special arrangement with Tom Kernehy Productions, which is always interesting when you have a commercial producer like that jumping in on a subscription house show. But it will begin performances on September 12th and it's currently slated to play through October 19th. This is one that I will be making sure that I have an opportunity to see at some point when I'm in town later this fall. Next up, we got information about the Off Broadway revival of the Brothers Size that'll be happening at the Shed this season. It had previously been planned for last year, but it is now getting worked into this season to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. Playwright Terrell Alvin McCraney will co direct this production alongside Bijan Shabani. It is going to play the Sheds Griffin Theater from August 30th through September 28th. And we now know who is going to be a part of this cast. Andre Holland, who of course was one of the stars of the film moonlight, which was based on a McCraney play and then he co wrote the screenplay for Andre, is going to be joined by Alani Elongwe and Malcolm Mays. Longwe and Mays are both reprising their performances from a revival that happened out in California at the Geffen Playhouse last year. And then finally this is news that is disappointing to me because it involves a friend. But yesterday it was announced that Brandon Espinosa is going to be replacing Mauricio Martinez in the Off Broadway show Joy, a new true musical that is scheduled to begin performances on June 21st at the Laura Pels Theater. I'm not sure why Mao is exiting the production, but he just said for personal reasons I'm unable to continue in this beautiful production. I'm truly honored and grateful to have been a part of this journey and surrounded by such an incredibly talented group of artists. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Don't miss this incredible show. All right, this is not show and casting news. I don't even really know what this is, but it is something to keep an eye on. There is a new Instagram account that has no posts, has nothing, doesn't even have an Avatar profile image, but the handle is Chess B Way. Now there have been rumors about a production of Chess coming to Broadway for a long time. You'll remember there was a one night only conc on Broadway a couple years ago that had Lena Hall, Darren Criss, Ramin Karimloo, Soleila Pfeiffer, Bryce Pinkham and we had heard that there was a potential for that to come to Broadway over the years. Who was attached has changed. I have heard that the last I heard and some of this is recent, some of it is not recent. But from what I understand, only one of the four major stars in that show has still been attached to it. But there is a spectacular spectacular Tony winner who is now attached. And while the show's leading lady Lena hall is currently busy doing film and tv, she can currently be seen on the Apple TV series starring Jon Hamm called you'd Friends and Neighbors. So she's not involved. But the one holdover star from that one night only concert who is currently available to be seen with barely a shirt on on Broadway right now is going to welcome a former co star who returned to Broadway a couple years ago to much fanfare and a little bit of controversy. So between those three, who I have heard are still a part of the show, that would probably be as close to a perfect vocal grouping as I could think of for the three main stars of this show. And. And based on track records, I think they would sell pretty well too. Now, I don't know what the role of Svetlana holds. I would think that perhaps Solea Pfeiffer is too big to play that princess track anymore. And I don't know about the Arbiter, which was Bryce Pinkham. I think Bryce would be great to have back. The role is much funnier than it was in previous incarnations and I thought Bryce handled that wonderfully in the one night only show that I saw. But it should be interesting to see what happens with this. I think this score is incredible. The show. I liked the book, which was revised by Danny Strong for that concert. I know some people didn't like it as much as I did. It's a little funnier than maybe Chess was originally. But if they can get Chess to Broadway, I will be very happy. All right, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram rodwayradio. Don't forget to Free a Mockingbird, Soho playhouse through Sunday, May 25th. All right, everybody, have a wonderful Wednesday and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.