Queen Size: The complete cast has been announced for the Broadway transfer of the Encores! presentation of Once Upon a Mattress. In addition to Sutton Foster as Princess Winifred and Michael Urie as Prince Dauntless, the cast will include Ana Gasteyer (“SNL,” The Threepenny Opera) as Queen Aggravain, Tony nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (Fame Becomes Me, Bullets Over Broadway), Tony nominee Daniel Breaker (Shrek) as the Jester, Tony nominee Will Chase (Kiss Me, Kate) as Sir Harry, Nikki Rene Daniels (Company) as Lady Larkin, David Patrick Kelly (Once) as King Sextimus, and Kara Lindsay (Wicked, Newsies) as Winifred’s standby. The role of the Minstrel has been eliminated from this version which features a revised book by Amy Sherman-Paladino (“Gilmore Girls,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) and direction by Lear deBessonet (Encores!’ Into the Woods). Mattress begins previews July 31 at the Hudson Theater with an Aug. 12 opening. A Los Angeles engagement at the Ahmanson Theater follows from Dec. 10-Jan. 5, 2025.
*
Group Think: The New Group has announced the 2024-25 season, its 30th. The season launches with the New York premiere of Babe by Jessica Goldberg (fall 2024), followed by Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class (winter 2024), and the world premiere of a new musical, The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse (spring 2025), with book by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, music and lyrics by Michael Breslin with additional music and lyrics by Patrick Foley; and as previously announced, the world premiere of by Nazareth Hassan’s Bowl EP, a co-production by Vineyard Theatre and National Black Theater in association with The New Group. The first three productions will play the Pershing Square Signature Center, and Bowl EP will play the Vineyard Theater.
Babe will star Oscar winner Marisa Tomei and centers on a husband-and-wife grunge and punk music producing team faced with a challenge from a new A&R hire. Curse of the Starving Class is Sam Shepard’s 1977 Obie-winning examination of a shattered American family dealing with encroaching creditors and internal dysfunction. The cast includes Calista Flockhart (“Ally McBeal,” “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans), Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Christian Slater. The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse follows a search for a missing pop icon. Bowl EP is about a rap group seeking a name and an identity.
The New Group’s Founding Artistic director Scott Elliott remarks, “Every milestone feels like a bit of a miracle, and we couldn’t be more grateful that our audiences and artists keep coming back to The New Group for our specific brand of risk and reimagining. For these three decades, we’ve set about presenting singular, intimate, theatrical ways of looking at our peculiarly American conundrums – and past our shared myths – through vivid characters and ensembles. Looking forward to the next 30.”
*
Hall of Fame: The Theater Hall of Fame has announced its 2024 inductees, voted on by members of the American Theater Critics Association and previous inductees. They include actors Elizabeth Ashley (Barefoot in the Park, Dividing the Estate), Boyd Gaines (Gypsy, Journey’s End), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences, Between Riverside and Crazy), and Donna Murphy (Passion, The King and I), playwright and performer Charles Busch (Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife), composer William Finn (Falsettos); playwright David Rabe (The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones, Hurlyburly), and, posthumously producer Todd Haimes.
The induction ceremony will take place on Nov. 18 at the Gershwin Theater where the names of the new honorees will be added to the walls of the theater. To be eligible, a candidate must have at least 25 years of theater experience or be a leader of Off-Broadway or regional theater. Terry Hodge Taylor produces the annual event.
*
here and there: Bobby Darin is the subject of a new bio-musical, Just in Time, whose reading will star Tony winner and “Doctor Who” heartthrob Jonathan Groff (Merrily We Roll Along). The musical, based on the life of crooner Bobby Darin, is to be directed by Alex Timbers. Deadline reports the show is bound for Broadway but does not list the author. The score will consist of Darin’s hits including the title tune from Bells are Ringing by Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green…
Tony winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, The King and I) is on board to direct the Dolly Parton musical, Hello, I’m Dolly, set for Broadway in 2026….
N/A, the Off-Broadway play about Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater has been extended to Sept. 1….
Dead Outlaw, the winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical and Outer Critics Circle winner for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical, is reportedly seeking a theater for a Broadway transfer.
[END]
