The Tony Awards Administration Committee met on April 26 to confirm the eligibility status of 12 Broadway productions for the 2023-2024 season. This was the fourth and final time the Tony Awards Administration Committee met to decide the eligibility for the 77th Annual Tony Awards. The productions discussed were: The Wiz, Suffs, Stereophonic, Hell’s Kitchen, Cabaret, The Heart of Rock and Roll, Patriots, Mary Jane, Illinoise, Uncle Vanya, Mother Play and The Great Gatsby. The committee made the following determinations: Nichelle Lewis will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical category for her performance in The Wiz. Hannah Beachler and Daniel Brodie will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Musical category for their work on The Wiz. Joseph Joubert will be considered eligible in the Best Orchestrations category for his work on The Wiz. Shaina Taub will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical category for her performance in Suffs. Will Butler and Justin Craig will be considered jointly eligible …

What was your favorite new musical? Who gave your favorite breakthrough performance? Who was your favorite onstage pair? It's time for you to pick the nominees of the 2024 Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards. The Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards are the only major theatrical awards where the nominating jury and voting committee is made up entirely of regular Broadway fans—like you. Awards are presented in traditional categories as well as several unique to the Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards, including Favorite Diva Performance, Favorite New Song, Favorite Breakthrough Performance, Favorite Funny Performance and Favorite Onstage Pair. In addition, an award is presented for national tours to encourage the participation of Broadway fans across the country. Nominations will be accepted from April 26 until 11:59 PM ET on May 2. On May 3, Broadway.com will unveil the shortlist of nominees and kick off the final round of voting for the awards. The winners will be revealed on May 20, followed by a celebratory cocktail reception on June 6. Make your voice heard and select your nominees here!

The previously announced summer arrival of Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song has been indefinitly postponed. Directed by creator Gerard Alessandrini, performances were scheduled to begin at the Hayes Theater on July 25 ahead of an August 5 opening, with plans to run through November 1. Producers Ryan Bogner, Victoria Lang and Tracey McFarland released the following statement: “We made the difficult decision today to postpone the upcoming Broadway production of Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song. The Broadway landscape is enormously crowded at this moment, and while we adore Forbidden Broadway, we are disappointed that the show will not open at the Hayes on Broadway this summer. New programming for the Hayes Theater this summer will be announced soon.” Created in 1982, when it played to Palsson’s Supper Club on 72nd Street, Forbidden Broadway has spawned several editions, gone on to play in over 200 cities around the world and given rise to such classic numbers as “Be Depressed” (sung to the tune of “Be Our Guest), “You Can't Stop the Camp” (sung to the tune of “You Can’t Stop the Beat”) and “Ladies Who Screech” (to the tune of “Ladies …

The Original Broadway Cast Recording for Broadway’s Water for Elephants, with a score by the musical collective PigPen Theatre Co., will be released by Ghostlight Records on May 17. Two new singles, “Wild” and “Silver Stars,” are already available. A physical CD is being planned for later this year. Water for Elephants, directed by Jessica Stone with a book by Rick Elice adapted from the bestselling novel by Sara Gruen, is now playing at the Imperial Theatre. It follows Jacob Jankowski (Grant Gustin in his Broadway debut), who finds a new home with a traveling circus during the Great Depression. Gustin performs alongside Isabelle McCalla as Marlena, Gregg Edelman as Mr. Jankowski, Paul Alexander Nolan as August, Stan Brown as Camel, Joe De Paul as Walter, Sara Gettelfinger as Barbara and Wade McCollum as Wade. Rounding out the ensemble are Brandon Block, Antoine Boissereau, Rachael Boyd, Paul Castree, Ken Wulf Clark, Taylor Colleton, Gabriel Olivera de Paula Costa, Isabella Luisa Diaz, Samantha Gershman, Keaton Hentoff-Killian, Nicolas Jelmoni, Caroline Kane, Harley McLeish, Michael Mendez, Samuel Renaud, Marissa Rosen, Alexandra Gaelle Royer, Asa Somers, Charles South, Sean Stack, Matthew Varvar and Michelle West.  PigPen Theatre Co. is Alex Falberg, Arya Shahi, Ben Ferguson, Curtis …

Isabelle McCalla has been flying high at the Imperial Theatre where she stars—and trapezes—as Marlena in the new Broadway musical Water for Elephants. Now, she's giving audiences an inside look at Broadway's most death-defying production, filled with circus tricks, love triangles and backstage bromances. McCalla returns with episode seven of Step Right Up after a weeklong hiatus from both vlogging and performing. Healing from an injury, she takes a moment at the top of the episode to share her thoughts on the rigors of a Broadway schedule and the hurdles that come with the many magical moments of a career on stage. Of course, it wouldn't be "Izzy's Little TV Show" if she kept it serious the whole time. By the end, she's successfully pranked her beloved castmate Sara Gettelfinger twice and has the whole Broadway ensemble participating in a Beyoncé riff challenge. After all, to quote our vlogstress, "shenanigans are important."

Christopher Ryan Grant, Van Hughes and Patti Murin will lead La Jolla Playhouse's world premiere of the new musical The Ballad of Johnny and June, about the country music stars Johnny Cash and June Carter. Tony winner Des McAnuff will direct the production, which begins performances at the Mandell Weiss Theatre on May 28. The limited engagement will run through July 7. Stepping into the role of Johnny Cash, Grant served as an understudy for The Thanksgiving Play and The Iceman Cometh on Broadway. Murin, who starred as Princess Anna in Frozen on Broadway, plays June Carter. Hughes plays Johnny and June’s son John Carter Cash; he has performed in the Broadway casts of Almost Famous, Spring Awakening, American Idiot 9 to 5 and Hairspray. The show will also star Maddie Shea Baldwin as Anita, Paula Leggett Chase as Carrie, Drew Wildman Foster as Carl Smith/Jack Cash/Marshall Grant, Gabriella Joy as Vivian, Bart Matthew Shatto as Ray Cash/Sam Phillips/W.S. Holland and Correy West as Luther Perkins/Rip Nix. Understudies include Summer Broyhill, Michael Louis Cusimano, Cody Ingram and Baily Day Sonner. The Ballad of Johnny and June features a book by Robert Cary (Summer: The Donna Summer …

In his novel The Great Gatsby, amid intoxicating prose about glowing lights, copious drinks and too-eager laughter, F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates a discerning eye for clothes and what they can reveal about their wearer. Enigmatic party host Jay Gatsby—shockingly—wears a pink suit, as no true Oxford man would. The reader is introduced to Daisy and Jordan’s rippling, fluttering dresses before properly meeting the characters themselves. Poor naive Myrtle squeezes into a brown muslin number. As the costume designer for The Great Gatsby on Broadway, Linda Cho was tasked with bringing the sartorial splendor of the Jazz Age to vivid life on stage. She and her team created designs for more than 350 costumes for the show. “You don't get a lot of opportunities to do a giant period musical with seemingly endless resources and just sort of design the dream,” Cho told Broadway.com Managing Editor Beth Stevens on The Broadway Show. The character of Daisy alone promises to be a constantly shifting vision. In the role, the actress Eva Noblezada gets 10 costume changes over the course of the show. “We definitely wanted her to be a fashion show,” said Cho. “Every time she comes on, it should …

The Wiz, now running at the Marquis Theatre, will release a 2024 Broadway Cast Recording on July 12 through Immersive/Interscope Records. The Broadway revival, directed by Schele Williams, opened April 17 following a 13-city North American tour.  An all-Black retelling of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Wiz debuted on Broadway in 1975. The revival presents Tony nominee Joseph Joubert's arrangements and orchestrations of Charlie Smalls' original Tony-winning score, with music and vocal arrangements by Allen René Louis. Tony nominee Amber Ruffin lends new material to the original book by William F. Brown. Choreography is by JaQuel Knight. Featuring such beloved numbers as “Ease On Down the Road,” “Be A Lion,” “Home” and “Brand New Day,” the show stars Nichelle Lewis as Dorothy, Deborah Cox as Glinda, Melody A. Betts as Aunt Em/Evillene, Kyle Ramar Freeman as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tinman, Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow and Wayne Brady as The Wiz. The ensemble includes Lauryn Adams, Maya Bowles, Shayla Alayre Caldwell, Jay Copeland, Allyson Kaye Daniel, Judith Franklin, Michael Samarie George, Collin Heyward, Amber Jackson, Olivia Jackson, Christina Jones, Polanco Jones, Kolby Kindle, Mariah Lyttle, Kareem Marsh, Alan Mingo, Jr., Anthony Murphy, Dustin …

In 2015, the British Medical Journal published a study on a phenomenon that the researchers observed among highly ranked Russian political figures and officials, including President Vladimir Putin: a distinctive gait characterized by a reduced swinging of the right arm. The researchers attributed the movement to K.G.B. weapons training, which enables the trainee to swiftly access a firearm. The researchers called it “gunslinger’s gait.” That very specific way of walking, with its eerie combination of swagger and stillness, is just one of the physical trademarks that the British actor Will Keen mastered in order to play Vladimir Putin on stage. “It’s a strangely empowering kind of walk,” he said. A tense political thriller written by The Crown creator Peter Morgan and directed by Rupert Goold, Patriots charts the rise of the man who was, seemingly overnight, handed the reins of power to Russia. It also tells the story of billionaire oligarch-turned-Kremlin insider Boris Berezovsky, played by Michael Stuhlbarg on Broadway, who orchestrates Putin’s rise, only to seriously regret it. The play premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London before a run on the West End in 2023. Keen won an Olivier Award for his performance. Keen channels the Russian president …

Tony Award winners Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jesse Tyler Ferguson will announce the nominations for the 77th Annual Tony Awards. The announcement will air live from Sofitel New York on the Tony Awards' official YouTube page on April 30 beginning at 9:00 AM ET, with announcements for select categories broadcast live on CBS Mornings beginning at 8:30 AM ET. A complete list of the 2024 nominations will be available at TonyAwards.com immediately following the announcement. Goldsberry is currently starring in the Netflix comedy Girls5eva. She won her Tony Award in 2016 for originating the role of Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton. A documentary about her life, Satisfied, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. Ferguson’s Broadway credits include On the Town, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and, most recently, Take Me Out, for which he earned his Tony Award in 2022. As previously announced, the 77th Annual Tony Awards ceremony will be broadcast live from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on June 16, hosted by Ariana DeBose. The ceremony will air on the CBS Television Network and stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.  

Phillip Johnson Richardson goes on a quest for a heart eight times a week at the Marquis Theatre as The Wiz's beloved Tinman. The role marks Richardson's Broadway debut, and a star-making one at that given the classic Charlie Smalls number he croons to the back row to showstopping effect. "What Would I Do If I Could Feel" is the Tinman's yearning ballad for human emotion—something Richardson has plenty of in his rendition. Take a look below at his performance inside the Broadway.com studio, accompanied by Paul Byssainthe, Jr. on piano, and see if you don't feel your own heart grow a few sizes.

The world-premiere musical Millions, inspired by Frank Cottrell Boyce’s 2004 novel and film, will be the final production of the Alliance Theatre's 2024-25 season. Described as a modern-day fable, the musical features a creative team of Tony Award winners, with a book by Bob Martin, a score by Adam Guettel and direction by Bartlett Sher. Performances will run from May 10 through June 15, 2025 on the Atlanta theater's Coca-Cola Stage. Millions tells the story of two brothers, their newly widowed father, a train robber and (possibly) a miracle. Damien and Anthony are dealing with the loss of their mother in very different ways. So, when a duffel bag of cash falls out of the sky, Damien thinks it’s a miracle from his mom, sent to test their goodness. But Anthony knows the truth. Martin earned a 2006 Tony Award for his book for The Drowsy Chaperone, and earned another nomination in 2019 for penning the book for The Prom. Guettel was represented on Broadway this season by his score for Days of Wine and Roses. It was his second Broadway musical, following his 2005 Tony-winning Broadway debut as composer of The Light in the Piazza. Sher, a nine-time Tony nominee …

Mary Jane, starring Academy Award nominee Rachel McAdams in her Broadway debut, has extended its run at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre by two weeks. The show, which had its official opening on April 23, will now conclude its run on June 16. The affecting play is the story of a single mother who faces an impossible family situation with unflagging optimism and humor while drawing on the wisdom of the women around her. The play is written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog, who also adapted this season’s An Enemy of the People, and directed by Anne Kauffman. McAdams is joined on stage by April Matthis, Susan Pourfar, Lily Santiago and Brenda Wehle. The show features scenic design by Lael Jellinek, costumes by Brenda Abbandandolo, lighting design by Ben Stanton and sound design by Leah Gelpe.

Merrily We Roll Along, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s reverse chronological musical about the heartbreak of growing up, is often touted as a piece for a trio. Katie Rose Clarke, however, makes for a powerful fourth in the Mary-Frank-Charley unit, taking on the role of Frank’s wife Beth—the one who gets to pull Broadway audiences’ heartstrings nightly with the ballad “Not a Day Goes By.” Clarke made her Broadway debut nearly 20 years ago as Clara in The Light in the Piazza, assuming the daunting responsibility of replacing Kelli O’Hara in her star-making role—and all before she even graduated college. It clearly went well enough: To this day, she holds the title of Wicked’s longest-running Glinda (a show in which she got to perform opposite her current Merrily castmate Lindsay Mendez). She also originated the role of Hannah Campbell in the 2015 musical Allegiance, which starred Miss Saigon’s original Kim, Lea Salonga—a portent of Clarke's performance as Ellen in Miss Saigon's 2017 revival. It’s been an eventful 20 years in the Broadway community, and Clarke marked the milestone with a special appearance on The Broadway Show. Watch as she takes Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek …

Over the course of her Broadway career, the actress Jessica Lange—displaying what seems like the single-minded methodicalness of an assassin—checked off the classics of the American stage, one after the other. After her Broadway debut in 1992, playing Blanche DuBois opposite Alec Baldwin's Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, she played Amanda in The Glass Menagerie in 2005 and Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night in 2016. Lange won a Tony Award for the latter. "Lange is entirely free onstage," the New Yorker said of that performance. Making her return to the stage after a seven-year absence, she’s excited to try something new: the world premiere of a newly written play. “That, coupled with what a great play I think it is, was what attracted me to doing it,” Lange told Tamsan Fadal for The Broadway Show on a break during the final week of rehearsals. “Creating something nobody's seen before, there'll be no way to compare it to anything. So that in itself, it's exciting.” Written by Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel, Mother Play covers four decades' worth of history, including five evictions, in the lives of a single family. Lange plays the hardened …

The search for Broadway's Biggest Fan is over. After the Broadway.com staff watched all of the video submissions, former Broadway.com vloggers Michael James Scott and Casey Likes, along with current Broadway.com vlogger Isabelle McCalla, convened to select the winner. They selected Molly Carter from Fort Pierce, Florida, who’ll be visiting Broadway in person for the first time. Molly wins roundtrip airfare for two to New York City, two tickets to three current Broadway shows (Aladdin, Back to the Future and Water for Elephants), a three-night hotel stay at a 4-star Midtown hotel in New York City and a prize bag filled with Broadway merchandise. She'll also feature in an upcoming segment on The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal. Watch the video below to see Iglehart, McCalla and Likes deliberate over the final five contestants. And check out Molly's winning submission below.

Age: 29 Hometown: Houston, Texas Current Role: Trey Curtis plays Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton.  Credits: Curtis made his professional acting debut in the Facebook Watch series Five Points. He performed in the third national tour of Hamilton, which traveled to Puerto Rico and featured the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, in the title role. Before landing that role himself on Broadway, Curtis understudied a number of the principal roles at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, including John Laurens/Philip Hamilton, Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson and Hercules Mulligan/James Madison. Curtis records and releases his own music as TREY. Happiness Is... Raised an only child, Curtis regularly found himself with free time on his hands. “I would just play with my toys and make my own musicals, my own concerts, my own lore,” he says. His mother, who worked at Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars, naturally assumed the stage was the place for him. And yet, “It didn't translate smoothly for me—doing the real-life thing,” he recalls. “It was hard for me to make friends growing up in theater, because no one really looked like me. And as a young boy growing up, that was …

Opening-night celebrations abound this week on The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal. But amid all the carousing, we still found time to check in on old friends, peek inside Broadway’s glitziest new musical and enjoy an exclusive in-studio performance from a citizen of Oz. Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award winner Jessica Lange, star of Paula Vogel’s Mother Play, sits down with host Fadal for a conversation about her latest Broadway project. Hear how she’s settling in as matriarch of Paula Vogel’s challenging family story. On the opening-night front, it’s back-to-back red-carpet revels: Join the resistance with Hillary Clinton and the cast of Shaina Taub’s Suffs; ease on down the press line at the opening of The Wiz; get your pulse up on the pink carpet with the stars of The Heart of Rock and Roll; get to know the band at the Broadway opening of Stereophonic; join Alicia Keys for a joyous Broadway evening at Hell’s Kitchen; and hear from Cabaret stars Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin as they usher in the latest revival of Kander and Ebb’s musical masterpiece. Phillip Johnson Richardson (Photo by Luis Ferrá for Broadway.com) Katie Rose …

This year's instalment of Broadway Bares, the industry’s annual, one-night-only striptease event, is embracing a Las Vegas theme. Broadway Bares: Hit the Strip, created by director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, will take place on June 23 at Hammerstein Ballroom. There will be two performances, at 9.30pm and midnight. As previously reported, the Pride Month event will be directed by The Lion King dance captain and veteran Broadway Bares performer Kellen Stancil, with Paula DeLuise as associate director. Stancil will be joined by the choreographers John Alix, Mike Baerga, Phil Colgan, Karla Puno Garcia, Billy Griffin, Amber Jackson, Jonathan Lee, Leo Moctezuma, Rachelle Rak, Michael Lee Scott and Maleek Washington. Performers are yet to be announced. The event is produced by and benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Last year’s edition raised $1.88 million, bringing Bares’ lifetime total to more than $26 million.

A new musical comedy created by Marla Mindelle, the writer and original star of the off-Broadway hit Titanique, will open off-Broadway. The Big Gay Jamboree, directed and choreographed by Connor Gallagher, features a book by Mindelle and Jonathan Parks-Ramage, with music and lyrics by Mindelle and Philip Drennen. Performances will begin at the Orpheum Theatre on September 14 with an official opening night set for October 1. In The Big Gay Jamboree, Mindelle plays Stacey, who wakes up hungover in an off-Broadway musical. With no memory of how she got there, Stacey is forced to put her BFA in theater to use, belt her face off and figure out how to escape this 1940s Golden Age musical while a live audience watches. The creative team includes dots (set design), Sarah Cubbage (costume design), Brian Tovar (lighting design), Justin Stasiw (sound design), Aaron Rhyne (projection design), and Leah J. Loukas (hair/wig design). Musical supervision and arrangements are by David Dabbon. Further casting will be announced at a later date. Mindelle won the 2023 Lucille Lortel Award and Obie for her portrayal of Céline Dion in Titanique. On Broadway, she has starred in Cinderella and Sister Act. …