It’s time to dance—again! The national tour of The Prom will officially launch at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, Ohio with performances running November 2–21.
Starring in the musical will be Kaden Kearney (who uses they/them pronouns) as Emma, Kalyn West as Alyssa Greene, Courtney Balan as Dee Dee Allen, Patrick Wetzel as Barry Glickman, Emily Borromeo as Angie Dickinson, Bud Weber as Trent Oliver, Sinclair Mitchell as Mr. Hawkins, Ashanti J’Aria as Mrs. Greene, and Shavey Brown as Sheldon Saperstein. Both West and Balan were a part of the original Broadway cast.
Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Rounding out the ensemble are Jordan Alexander, Gabrielle Beckford, Ashley Bruce, Olivia Rose Cece, Maurice Dawkins, Jordan De Leon, Shawn Alynda Fisher, James Caleb Grice, Megan Grosso, Chloe Rae Kehm, Braden Allen King, Brandon J. Large, Christopher McCrewell, Adriana Negron, Lexie Plath, Brittany Nicole Williams, Thad Turner Wilson, and Josh Zacher.
Featuring a book by Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin and a score by Beguelin and Matthew Sklar, and based on an original concept by Jack Viertel, the musical tells the story of an Indiana high schooler barred from bringing a girlfriend to the prom—and the group of eccentric Broadway folk who infiltrate the town in an earnest, misguided attempt to fight the injustice.
Following Cleveland, the tour will make over 20 stops around America, including The Broward Center for the Performing Arts (December 14–19) in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; The Kennedy Center (January 4–16, 2022) in Washington, D.C.; Cadillac Palace Theatre (April 19–24) in Chicago, Illinois; and Centre Theatre Group (August 9–September 11) in Los Angeles, California.
Isabelle McCalla and Kalyn West Joseph Marzullo/WENN
The producing team for The Prom includes Bill Damaschke, Dori Berinstein, Jack Lane, NETworks Presentations, Natasha Davison, Merry & Jim Mosbacher, Terry Schnuck, Liz Armstrong, Elizabeth L. Green, Pamela Hurst-Della Pietra & Stephen Della Pietra, Seth A. Goldstein, Jane Dubin, Smedes-Stern-Palitz, Fahs Productions, Joe Grandy, Don and Nancy Ross, Three Belles and A Bob, Instone Productions, Fakler-Silver, ArmentTackel, Cliff Hopkins, Larry and Elizabeth Lenke Christopher Ketner, The John Gore Organization, Nancy and Ken Kranzberg, Independent Presenters Network, Mark Lonlow and JoAnne Astrow, Iris Smith, WallaceATxRandomProductions, Garris-Morris-Masie Productions, Judith Manocherian, The Shubert Organization, Karen DeVerna and Jeremiah J. Harris, Fox Theatricals, Adrienne Blackman and Heidi & Stephen Distante.
1921 The operetta Blossom Time opens on Broadway. With a score of Franz Schubert themes rearranged by Sigmund Romberg, the show reaches a then-epic run of 576 performances and spawns four simultaneous touring companies, becoming a perennial moneymaker for the Shubert Brothers.
1960 A jealous man disguises himself to serve as his girlfriend’s paramour—and thereby as his own rival—in the popular musical comedy Irma La Douce, which opens on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre. Elizabeth Seal wins a Tony Award for her performance in the title role.
1962 After six-and-a-half years, the musical hit My Fair Lady closes on Broadway. It played a record 2,717 performances, and its gross receipts were $20,257,000—a record at that time for a musical.
1983A Chorus Line becomes the longest-running musical in Broadway history. After 3,389 performances, it surpasses Grease. The show continues on for a few more years with 6,137 performances as the final total.
1985Eugene O’Neill‘s classic, The Iceman Cometh, is revived at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. The play, about a group of hopeless denizens in a Lower East Side bar, was originally produced in October 1946 but was overshadowed by Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. It did not receive major recognition until it was produced at the Circle in the Square Theatre in 1955. The cast of that version included Jason Robards, Jr. as Hickey, the traveling salesman, and was directed by José Quintero. The same actor in the same role with the same director make up the new production.
1975 A work by a new-to-New York playwright opens Off-Off-Broadway at the St. Clement’s Church, called Sexual Perversity in Chicago. The play wins the season’s Obie Award for Best New American Play and playwright David Mamet goes on to become a fixture in both Off-Broadway and Broadway theatre.
1999 The Atlantic Theater Company celebrates its 15th season by honoring the work of playwright and co-founder David Mamet. The season begins today with a double bill of The Water Engine and Mr. Happiness. Productions of Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Duck Variations continue the season, and the topper comes with American Buffalo starring the other Atlantic co-founder William H. Macy.
2001Gloria Foster, the African-American actor who specialized in classical roles including Medea, Madame Ranevskaya, Mary Tyrone, Clytemnestra, and Titania, dies in New York. She had a late-career success in 1995’s Having Our Say.
2003 Nearly 80 years of theatregoers’ confusion come to an end when Greenwich Village’s Commerce Street is officially renamed Cherry Lane after the Cherry Lane Theatre, which has stood on the short, curved thoroughfare since it was founded by poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1924.
2009Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig co-star in Keith Huff‘s two-character police drama, A Steady Rain, which opens on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. John Crowley directs the play about a pair of Chicago cops whose willingness to blink at corruption leads to disaster.
2016 Simon McBurney‘s The Encounter, based on the true story of a National Geographic photographer who was lost in the remote Javari Valley in Brazil, opens at the Golden Theatre. During the performance, the audience wears headphones and becomes immersed in a world created almost entirely by McBurney’s voice and a virtual radio station full of sound effects. The production’s two sound designers, Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, receive Special Tony Awards for their work.
Reserve your spot today- a limited number of students are able to participate in each class. Students will get the opportunity to perform for their instructor, get personalized feedback on their piece, and to try out their song another time following critiques. Improve your performance and get the advantage at your next audition with feedback from working Broadway professionals
“We would not be here if it wasn’t for the arts educators in our lives,” said Josh Groban to his Carnegie Mellon University classmate Leslie Odom, Jr. in a bit from CBS’ Broadway’s Back! concert, the second half of the 74th Annual Tony Awards broadcast. The two sang “Beautiful City” from Godspell, dedicating it to teachers who have had to “work so hard this year to keep students inspired.”
In our yearly Schools of the Stars feature, Playbill takes a look at the colleges, universities, and arts conservatories where the Tony winners honed their crafts.
Best Book of a Musical Diablo Cody(Jagged Little Pill): University of Iowa
Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre Christopher Nightingale (A Christmas Carol): Magdalene College, Cambridge
Best Choreography Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge!): Wayne State University
Best Orchestrations Katie Kresek (Moulin Rouge!): Purchase College, The Mannes College of Music, and Columbia University Charlie Rosen (Moulin Rouge!): Berklee College of Music Matt Stine (Moulin Rouge!): University of Wisconsin Justin Levine (Moulin Rouge!): New York University
Best Scenic Design of a Musical Derek McLane (Moulin Rouge!): Harvard College and Yale School of Drama
Best Scenic Design of a Play and Best Costume Design of a Play Rob Howell (A Christmas Carol):Birmingham City University
Best Costume Design of a Musical Catherine Zuber (Moulin Rouge!):Yale School of Drama
Best Sound Design of a Play Simon Baker (A Christmas Carol):Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Best Sound Design of a Musical Peter Hylenski (Moulin Rouge!): Carnegie Mellon University
Best Lighting Design of a Play Hugh Vanstone (A Christmas Carol):Did not attend college.
Best Lighting Design of a Musical Justin Townsend (Moulin Rouge!):University of Massachusetts and California Institute for the Arts
Best Direction of a Play Stephen Daldry (The Inheritance):University of Sheffield and East 15 Acting School, University of Essex
Best Direction of a Musical Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!):Yale University
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play David Alan Grier (A Soldier’s Play): University of Michigan and Yale School of Drama
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play Lois Smith (The Inheritance): University of Washington and the Actors Studio
Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical Lauren Patten (Jagged Little Pill):The New School
Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical Danny Burstein (Moulin Rouge!):Queens College and University of California, San Diego (and High School of the Performing Arts)
Check Out Photos Inside the 74th Annual Tony Awards Presentation
Lincoln Center Theater under the direction of Andr Bishop has announced that it will produce Thornton Wilders Pulitzer Prize-winningTHE SKIN OF OUR TEETHthis spring at the Vivian Beaumont Theater 150 West 65 Street.
1911 William Brady’s Playhouse hosts the opening for Bought and Paid For, a new play by George Broadhurst about a wealthy man who eventually wins the love of his wife. During the show’s 431 performances, an actor in the show, Frank Craven, is elevated to stardom. Craven goes on to play the Stage Manager in the original 1938 Broadway production of Thornton Wilder‘s Our Town. Brooks Atkinson once commented that Craven was “[t]he best pipe and pants-pocket actor in the business.”
1933 The first major success of the Group Theatre, Men in White, opens at the Broadhurst Theatre. The show, written by Sidney Kingsley, is about a doctor who has to deal with decisions regarding love vs. duty. Issues include abortion and social reform—the theatre style for which the Group Theatre becomes known. Lee Strasberg directs a cast of what will become a group of very influential people in the theatre: Luther Adler, Clifford Odets, J. Edward Bromberg, and Ruth Nelson. Elia Kazan has only one line, “Hello, sweetheart.” It wins the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for drama and serves as the model for all the hospital dramas to come.
1957 “It all began tonight” at the Winter Garden Theatre as West Side Story opens. The Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents musical is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but has New York teenage gangs pitted against each other instead of Verona’s dueling families. It includes such classic songs as “I Feel Pretty” and “Somewhere.” The show is choreographed and staged by Peter Gennaro and Jerome Robbins, who came up with the show’s original 1949 concept: “East Side Story.” The piece evolved, with new music, a new location, and a new ethnicity to become what it is tonight. Larry Kert, Carol Lawrence, and Chita Rivera star. A film version starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, and George Chakiris (who was a member of the original London cast) is released in 1961.
1998Matthew Bourne‘s newly choreographed theatrical version of the ballet Swan Lake, a hit both in London and Los Angeles, begins its run on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre. The dance/theatre show, with men dancing the swan roles usually assigned to women, is co-produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Katharine Doré. Bourne wins two Tony Awards for the show (for Director of a Musical and Choreographer of a Musical) despite the show’s ineligibility as a musical. “I am absolutely astonished,” says Bourne in his acceptance speech. “Best director of a musical that’s not even a musical.”
2021 Fifteen months after the originally scheduled date, the 74th Annual Tony Awards are held at the Winter Garden Theatre, the ceremony’s first time back in a Broadway theatre since 1999. Audra McDonald hosts the awards, which stream on Paramount+—a Tony Awards first. Leslie Odom, Jr. hosts a concert celebrating Broadway’s return on CBS directly afterward. Reflecting a season cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, just 14 plays and four musicals are eligible for the night’s honors.
