Jersey Boys Gets a New Man in Town with Joseph Leo Bwarie as Frankie Valli
Star Files The current Broadway cast also stars Richard H. Blake as Tommy DeVito, Matt Bogart as Nick Massi and Drew Gehling as Bob Gaudio. The company also features Peter Gregus, Miles Aubrey, Erik Bates, Candi Boyd, Jared Bradshaw, Cara Cooper, Ken Dow, John Edwards, Russell Fischer, Katie O’Toole, Joe Payne, Mauricio Pérez, Nathan Scherich, Sara Schmidt and Katie Webber. Bwarie previously played the famous falsetto-singing frontman on Broadway and in the Las Vegas and first national tour productions of the hit musical. Jersey Boys tells the story of how Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons went from being unknown New Jersey kids to international pop superstars. The show features over 30 hit songs, including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Matt Bogart from $59.00 Just too good! Joseph Leo Bwarie takes over the role of Frankie Valli in the Tony-winning musical Jersey Boys on January 28 at the August Wilson Theatre. Bwarie succeeds Dominic Scaglione Jr., who played his final performance on January 26. View Comments Related Shows
Joseph Leo Bwarie Jersey Boys Richard H. Blake Drew Gehling Dominic Scaglione Jr. View All (5)
Check out Salonga and Go duet on “The Movie in My Mind” together below, then catch Miss Saigon, opening May 3 at the Prince Edward Theatre! Pop-singer Go opened up about the challenges of the role. “I’m a solo artist, so I can do what I want. But when it comes to performing with a group in a musical play, you can’t commit mistakes, there’s a script and you can’t do ad-libbing.” Rachelle Ann Go, who is to star as Gigi in the upcoming London revival of Miss Saigon, has revealed that it was the original Kim, Tony winner Lea Salonga, who was pivotal in her getting the gig. Go told Hola! Philippines, “it’s Miss Lea who really told me to go for the audition.”
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FRONTRUNNERS (By Capacity) 1. The Book of Mormon (102.63%) 2. A Raisin In The Sun (100.00)% ** 3. The Lion King (99.99%) 4. Aladdin (99.96%) ** 5. Matilda (99.96%) FRONTRUNNERS (By Gross) 1. Wicked ($1,861,649) 2. The Lion King ($1,733,679) 3. The Book of Mormon ($1,659,020) 4. Kinky Boots ($1,330,377) 5. Matilda ($1,105,243) Whether on a magic carpet or a broomstick, it’s a good week to be flying on Broadway. Aladdin, in its third week of previews, continued to bring in packed houses, while Wicked kept its spot as the top grossing show. Additionally, the revolting children of Matilda found their way back into the top five, and A Raisin in the Sun and The Book of Mormon once again played to houses of 100% or higher capacity. UNDERDOGS (By Capacity) 5. Once (74.33%) 4. Jersey Boys (73.29%) 3. Mamma Mia! (69.68%) 2. After Midnight (67.22%) 1. Mothers and Sons (66.68%)* * Number based on 8 preview performances **Number based on 7 preview performances *** Number based on 4 preview performances
UNDERDOGS (By Gross) 5. Outside Mullingar ($423,934) 4. After Midnight ($381,020) 3. Rock of Ages ($353,712) 2. The Realistic Joneses ($253,222) *** 1. Mothers and Sons ($222,265) * Here’s a look at who was on top—and who was not—for the week ending March 16: View Comments
Off-Broadway Top Fundraiser: Avenue Q – $28,577 First Runner-up: Heathers – $24,363 Also joining in the celebration and competition were Rory O’Malley, Michael Riedel, Newsies kids Luca Padovan and Zachary Unger, Mothers and Sons playwright Terence McNally and star Tyne Daly, Kim Zimmer, Joe Carroll and fellow Cinderella cast members, Nathan Madden, Phoebe Pearl, Violet’s Sutton Foster, BC/EFA Producing Director Michael Graziano and Executive Director Tom Viola. This years’ judges included Gregg Barnes, Christopher J. Hanke, Carly Rae Jepsen, Michael McKean, Jim Norton, Patrick Page, Annie Potts and Anthony Rapp, in addition to Broadway Flea Market & Grand Auction winners Eric Forst and Peg Wendlandt. The event, held at Minskoff Theatre on April 21 and 22, featured original presentations, songs, dances and bonnets designed by the companies of Broadway productions. 57 Broadway, Off-Broadway and national touring companies participated in six weeks of fundraising. Menzel, Washington, Cranston and Drescher, who were introduced by Of Mice and Men stars James Franco, Chris O’Dowd and Leighton Meester, announced the final tally of donations at the conclusion of the competition. The company of The Lion King took home the top honor of best presentation, with After Midnight securing the runner-up spot. The special award for bonnet design was presented to the company of Once. The top fundraising award went to Kinky Boots, which raised $284,170. The full totals are as follows: National Touring Shows Top Fundraiser: The Book of Mormon – Latter Day Company – $405,009 First Runner-up: Wicked – Munchkinland Company – $277,109 Second Runner-up: The Book of Mormon – Jumamosi Company – $209,023 Third Runner-up: Wicked – Emerald City Company- $182,704 Broadway Plays Top Fundraiser: All the Way – $186,424 First Runner-up: Mothers and Sons – $100,102 Broadway Musicals Top Fundraiser: Kinky Boots – $284,170 First Runner-up: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical – $208,697 Second Runner-up: Cinderella – $206,941 Third Runner-up: The Book of Mormon – $181,065 The 28th Annual Easter Bonnet Competition, which featured a host of stars including Idina Menzel, Denzel Washington, Bryan Cranston and Fran Drescher, raised a record-breaking $4,532,129 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The event has raised over $58 million for the organization since it began in 1987. View Comments
Rifkin appeared in the original production of The Substance of Fire in 1991. He received his Tony for the 1998 revival of Cabaret. Other theater credits include Wrong Mountain, Broken Glass, and Proposals. His screen credits include The Negotiator, L.A. Confidential, the film adaptation of The Substance of Fire, Husbands and Wives and Manhattan Murder Mystery. The cast also features Halley Feiffer, Daniel Eric Gold, Carter Hudson and Charlayne Woodard. The Substance of Fire Related Shows The Substance of Fire follows the story of a family united by a proud past but facing an uncertain future. Isaac Geldhart, the volatile and brilliant patriarch of his family publishing house, is stubbornly holding on to his place at the head of the company while his three children try to convince him to publish a desperately needed best-seller. Confronted with a changing literary landscape and potential takeover of the company, the Geldhart children must either come to terms with their father and band together or break apart and forfeit the legacy he risked everything to build.
Ron Rifkin will join the company of Jon Robin Baitz’s The Substance of Fire off-Broadway May 20 through May 23. The Tony winner will be stepping in for John Noble, who is unable to perform certain performances due to a Sleepy Hollow filming conflict. Directed by Trip Cullman, the show is running at Second Stage Theatre. View Comments Show Closed This production ended its run on May 25, 2014
View Comments Star Files It’s Only a Play Show Closed This production ended its run on June 7, 2015 It’s Only a Play is set on the opening night of Broderick’s character Peter Austin’s new play, as he anxiously awaits to see if his show is a hit. With his career on the line, he shares his big First Night with his best friend, a television star (Lane), his fledgling producer (Mullally), his erratic leading lady (Channing), his acclaimed young director director (Grint), an infamous drama critic, and a wide-eyed coat check attendant on his first night in Manhattan. There’s no business like show business. Related Shows Stockard Channing
The play will run for a 17-week engagement through January 4, 2015. Micah Stock will also join the cast in his Broadway debut. Another wizard is heading to the Great White Way! Harry Potter star Rupert Grint will make his Broadway debut in the star-studded comedy It’s Only a Play. Grint, who will play the show-within-a-show’s wunderkind director Frank Finger, joins a cast that includes the previously announced Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, F. Murray Abraham and Megan Mullally. The newly-revised Terrence McNally play will begin performances this fall and open officially at the Schoenfeld Theatre on October 9. Jack O’Brien will direct. Grint said in a statement: “I’m thrilled to be making my Broadway debut alongside this amazing cast and creative team.” The star is best known for playing best friend Ron Weasley in the eight Harry Potter films. His additional screen credits include Into the White, Wild Target, Driving Lessons and Cherrybomb. He made his stage debut last year in London’s West End, starring in Jez Butterworth’s Mojo at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Matthew Broderick Nathan Lane
Rodgers was also a successful children’s author, penning Freaky Friday, which she later adapted into the hit 1976 movie, and the books A Billion for Boris, Summer Switch, The Devil and Max Devlin. Though Rodgers had a vibrant career of her own, she was also well known as a director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, which handles the work of her father, as well as his frequent collaborator Oscar Hammerstein, Irving Berlin and others. Her Broadway career began as composer of the 1959 musical Once Upon a Mattress, starring Carol Burnett. The musical was later broadcast on network television. A 1997 Broadway production, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical Revival. Her other Great White Way credits included Working (for which she received a Tony nod), The Madwoman of Central Park West, Hot Spot and From A to Z. Her musicals have been celebrated in the revue, Hey, Love. At the time of her death Rodgers was chairman emeritus and served on the board of the Juilliard School. She served on the boards of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival and the Dramatists Guild Council. Tony-nominated composer, Freaky Friday author, screenwriter and celebrated Broadway patron Mary Rodgers Guettel died at her home in Manhattan on June 26 after a long illness, according to her son Alec Guettel. Rodgers, who was the daughter of legendary composer Richard Rodgers and his wife Dorothy, was 83.
She was married to the late Henry Guettel, who died in October 2013 at the age of 85. Rodgers is survived by her sister, Linda Rodgers Emory, five children, and seven grandchildren. View Comments
Holler If Ya Hear Me View Comments Related Shows Show Closed This production ended its run on July 20, 2014 Saul Williams stopped by Morning Joe on June 30 to discuss starring on Broadway in Holler If Ya Hear Me, the musical inspired by the work of Tupac Shakur. The award-winning slam poet reminded the MSNBC team that “drama club kid” Tupac was “a poet, an intellectual” and talked about how the show “feels like Shakespeare with music.” Music, of course, that “is the backdrop of the last 20 years.” Check out the interview below, then the innovative tuner with an energetic cast of 25, at the Palace Theatre.
Complete casting has been announced for The Heidi Chronicles, starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss, Jason Biggs, Bryce Pinkham and Tracee Chimo. Ali Ahn, Leighton Bryan, Elise Kibler and Andy Truschinski will join the Broadway revival of Wendy Wasserstein’s play. Directed by Pam MacKinnon, the show will begin performances on February 23 and officially open on March 19 at the Music Box Theatre. This will be the Broadway debut for Ahn and Truschinski, and, with the exception of understudy roles, this will also be the Great White Way debut for Bryan and Kibler. The Heidi Chronicles won both the Tony and the Pulitzer in 1989. This is the first revival since the original production shuttered in 1990. The show spans over 20 years, following Heidi Holland (Moss) from high school to her career as an art historian and how she copes with feminisim, men, politics and motherhood. The Heidi Chronicles Related Shows View Comments Show Closed This production ended its run on May 3, 2015
Darren Criss is headlining a private developmental reading of 17 Again, a musical based on the 2009 Zac Efron film, on March 6. Under the direction of Hairspray film director Adam Shankman, the Glee star will join Craig Bierko, Jackie Hoffman, George Wendt, Jennifer Damiano, Steve Rosen, Taylor Louderman, Leslie Kritzer and Andy Mientus in the New York reading, which features a score by First Date songwriters Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner and book by TV writer Marco Pennette.17 Again tells the story of Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry in the film), a former high school basketball player who regrets a choice he made to leave the most important game of his career to propose to his pregnant girlfriend, Scarlet. When the depressed Mike loses his job, he returns to his old high school, where a janitor asks him if he wishes he could be 17 again. Answering “yes,” he magically jumps back in time to his former self (Efron) and gets a second chance to fix his life.A Broadway.com Audience Choice Award winner for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Criss is headed back to Broadway as the star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch on April 29.This closed presentation is one of multiple projects Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures currently has in development to create new works for first class productions, professional and regional tours and amateur licensing. View Comments Star Files
Darren Criss