JAGGED LITTLE PILL Producers Respond to Allegations of Mistreatment by Former Cast Member Nora Schell
The producing team of Jagged Little Pill has responded to recent allegations of mistreatment made by former cast member Nora Schell.
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: September 25
1928 Chee-Chee, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart‘s musical about castration in ancient China, opens to searing reviews and goes on to close after just 31 performances, the team’s shortest run.
1935 Winterset, Maxwell Anderson‘s verse drama about a man determined to find justice after his father was wrongfully executed, opens on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre. Starring Richard Bennett, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Burgess Meredith, it runs 179 performances before heading on a national tour, and returns to Broadway for an additional 16 performances after winning the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play. In response to the Pulitzer Prize being awarded to Idiot’s Delight over Winterset, New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson writes “If Winterset does not mean more to the arts and the thought of the theatre today and tomorrow than Idiot’s Delight—in short, if it is not a better play now and always—then, as John Anderson said in his celebrated renunciation of the Critics Circle award, ‘I am Admiral Dewey.'”
1945 Despite reports of bad acting and poor production quality, the new Tennessee Williams and Donald Windham play, You Touched Me, opens at the Booth Theatre, beginning a tepidly-reviewed run of 109 performances. Williams and Windham wrote the play based on a D. H. Lawrence story for stars Montgomery Clift, Edmund Gwenn, and Marianne Stewart.
1961 Frank Fay, the vaudevillian and star of Harvey, dies at age 69. The actor, who at one time was married to Barbara Stanwyck, was confined to a hospital the previous week in Santa Monica, California and deemed legally incompetent.
1963 John Osborne‘s Luther, the story of the priest who launched the Protestant Reformation, opens on Broadway, en route to a 211-performance run and the 1964 Tony Award as Best Play.
1963 Sammy Davis, Jr. is reported in Variety as having turned down Laurence Olivier‘s offer to be Iago to his Othello. Davis feels he is just not ready for the dramatic demands of the role.
1979 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice are the princes of Broadway as their new musical, Evita, opens at the Broadway Theatre. The very successful musical continues to run for 1,567 performances. Patti LuPone stars as Eva Peron, with Mandy Patinkin as Che Guevara, the quasi-narrator of the musical. Clive Barnes of the New York Post reports that “Evita is a stunning, exhilarating theatrical experience, especially if you don’t think about it too much.”
1997 Riverdance, the showcase of Irish dance and music that played sold-out engagements in Dublin and London in 1995, comes to New York for a third run at Radio City Music Hall. The show, which had two runs in 1996, returns to the Manhattan venue once more in 1998 before finally restaging itself for an official Broadway run March 16, 2000 to August 26, 2001.
2003 By a macabre coincidence, Edward Said, the Palestinian-born Columbia University professor who was the likely model for a character in the play Omnium Gatherum, dies, the same day the Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros drama opens Off-Broadway. Said was 67, and suffered from leukemia.
2008 Harry Potter film star Daniel Radcliffe makes his Broadway debut opposite Tony and Olivier Award winner Richard Griffiths in a revival of Equus. Peter Shaffer‘s Tony-winning drama tells the story of a psychiatrist (Griffiths) who becomes absorbed in the strange case of a young man (Radcliffe) who blinds a stable of horses.
2011 Perfect Crime, Warren Manzi’s long-running thriller that opened in 1987, celebrates its 10,000th performance Off-Broadway. The cast includes original cast member Catherine Russell, who has been with the show for 24 years, securing herself a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
2018 The world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s Bernhardt/Hamlet opens on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre. Janet McTeer stars as trailblazing 19th-century French actor Sarah Bernhardt, who famously took on the title role in Hamlet in 1899.
2018 Merle Debuskey, one of the most prominent press agents ever to ply his trade on Broadway, and Joe Papp‘s right-hand man during the New York Shakespeare Festival‘s first decades, dies at age 95. He represented more than 500 Broadway and Off-Broadway shows over the course of his career, and was president of the press agents’ union ATPAM for 25 years.
More of Today’s Birthdays: Charles B. Cochran (1872-1951). Harriet Hoctor (1905-1977). Robert Wright (1914-2005). Mark Hamill (b. 1951). Christopher Reeve (1952-2004). Jayne Houdyshell (b. 1954). Michael McGrath (b. 1957). Tate Donovan (b. 1963). Catherine Zeta-Jones (b. 1969).
Look Back at Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin in Evita on Broadway
Back On Broadway: Caitlin Houlahan on Returning to WAITRESS, Her Favorite Moment in the Show, and More!
BroadwayWorld’s new interview series Back on Broadway is taking readers on the exciting journey of Broadway’s return to the stage Next up in the series is Caitlin Houlahan, who is returning to the role of Dawn in Waitress
Cast Complete for Return of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical North American Tour
Casting is complete for the return of the North American tour of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, which will have technical rehearsals at the Pullo Center in York, Pennsylvania, followed by an official opening November 16–21 at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center. The tour will subsequently visit more than 40 cities during the 2021–2022 touring season.
Sharing the role of the late, multiple Grammy winner Donna Summer will be Brittny Smith as Diva Donna, Charis Gullage as Disco Donna, and Amahri Edwards-Jones as Duckling Donna. The non-Equity tour will also feature Porter Lee Anderson III as Andrew Gaines, John Guaragna as Bruce Sudano, and Christopher Lewis as Neil Bogart.
The ensemble includes Robert Peter Ayala, Layla Brent-Tompkins, Mia Davidson, Kayleigh Hegarty, Ciara Jones, Lily Kren, Marisel Lopez, Diane Meck, Francisco Risso, Lathan A. Roberts, Nissi Shalome, David Tanciar, Meridien Terrell, Emilee Theno, Stephen Vaught, Lamont Whitaker, and Aubrey Young.
Summer has a book by Tony nominee Colman Domingo, Robert Cary, and Tony winner Des McAnuff, with songs by Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Paul Jabara, and others.
This new touring production is directed by Lauren L. Sobon and choreographed by Natalie Caruncho, based on the original direction by Tony winner McAnuff and original choreography by Tony winner Sergio Trujillo.
The tour also has associate choreography by Angelica Beliard, musical supervision by JP Meyer, music direction by Erika R. Gamez, scenic design by Robert Andrew Kovach, costumes by Tony winner Paul Tazewell, lighting by Russell A. Thompson, sound by David Temby, and projections by Chris McCleary.
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, which opened April 23, 2018, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, ended its Broadway run December 30, 2018, after 27 previews and 288 performances. The Broadway company starred Tony Award winner LaChanze (The Color Purple), Ariana DeBose (Hamilton), and newcomer Storm Lever. LaChanze and DeBose were Tony-nominated for their performances.
Summer includes more than 20 of Summer’s well-known hits, including “Love to Love You, Baby,” “Hot Stuff,” and “MacArthur Park.” The production arrived on Broadway after a developmental world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in late 2017.
The tour is produced by APEX Touring.
For additional information visit TheDonnaSummerMusical.com.
Jennifer Nettles Will Join WAITRESS on Broadway as Jenna
The Ethel Barrymore Theatre will soon be opening up with a new leading lady. BroadwayWorld has learned that Jennifer Nettles will take over in the role of ‘Jenna’ in Waitress on Broadway starting October 19. Sara Bareilles will play her final performance on October 17.
SEX AND THE CITY Star and Stage Actor Willie Garson Passes Away at 57
BroadwayWorld is saddened to report the passing of actor Willie Garson. He was 57 years old.