News

Mia Farrow, who just opened with costar Patti LuPone in the hit comedy-drama The Roommate on Broadway, has tested positive for Covid, resulting in two canceled performances Saturday. At this afternoon matinee, actor Marsha Mason, an associate director of the play, stepped in for Farrow.

“I was called to step in by the producers while enjoying a lovely Sunday morning in Connecticut, and of course, came right to the City,” said Mason, who has played numerous roles on stage (The Prisoner of Second Avenue), film (The Goodbye Girl) and TV (The Middle). “These moments in the theater are equally exciting and terrifying, and the audience helped make it a fun ride. I was exhilarated to play opposite Patti and especially heartened to be able to pinch hit for my Connecticut dear friend and neighbor, Mia, who is quite marvelous in the role.”

The play, which opened this past Thursday night,...

Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone make for an appealing and very welcome stage duo in Broadway’s new comedy-drama The Roommate, a pairing that’s selling out the Booth Theatre in an engagement opening tonight.

Unfortunately, their third costar – a beige landline telephone that gets an implausibly large role for a play set in the current day – is required to pull more weight than it or the story can handle.

First produced in 2015 at a Louisville regional theater, Jen Silverman’s play shows its age with that wall phone – the superfluous presence of an iPhone suggests maybe there’s been some tinkering over the years, and, if so, not enough – while other details might have seemed dated even nine years ago.

And those aren’t the only flaws in this awkwardly paced, abruptly mood-shifting tale of two very...

At the start of Jen Silverman’s The Roommate, Sharon (Mia Farrow) has just invited Robyn (Patti LuPone) to stay in her Iowa home. This pair of near-strangers couldn’t be less alike. Sharon is a divorced mother who’s just joined a book club, while Robyn is a lesbian from the Bronx who may or may not be on the lam from a criminal past. Sharon wears a plaid shirt and Pippi Longstocking pigtails, while Robyn wears a leather jacket and sunglasses. And, most crucially, Sharon is a fully realized, sharply crafted human being, while Robyn is a fuzzily drawn sketch of a character that never comes into focus throughout the play.

That contrast lies, in large part, in the casting of Silverman’s 2015 buddy comedy, staged simply but efficiently by veteran Jack O’Brien in its New York premiere. Farrow, in her long-awaited return to Broadway, makes Sharon instantly specific and complex.

Update, with Mandalay statement: A feature film adaptation of Shucked, the corny (that’s a compliment) pun-filled Broadway musical comedy, is in development, with Mandalay Pictures on board to produce.

Shucked producer Mike Bosner made the announcement last night during the curtain call of Shucked‘s final performance, saying, “We’re all a little sad to say goodbye to this, but there’s some good news. We don’t have to say goodbye just yet, because we will be making a feature film of Shucked.”

Watch video of the announcement below.

Mandalay president and Air producer Jason Michael Berman, Alan Fox and Mandalay VP Jordan Moldo are on board as Producers, and David Zelon and Sandra R. Berman will be executive producers.

From the stage side, composers Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, book writer Robert Horn, and stage director Jack O’Brien are Executive Producers. Horn will write the screenplay.

In a joint statement to Deadline,...

The musical-comedy “Shucked” had its closing performance on Broadway Sunday night, but the show went out with an even louder set of whoops than expected, as the curtain call included the news that a feature film adaptation is in the works.

Show reps confirm to Variety that a movie version of “Shucked” is being set up with Mandalay Pictures.

The producers for Mandalay will be Jason Michael Berman (Air) and Jordan Moldo, along with Alan Fox.

“We’re all a little sad to say goodbye to this. But there’s some good news,” one of the Broadway production’s producers, Mike Bosner, said amid the cast’s final farewells. “We don’t have to say goodbye just yet. Because I’m happy to announce that we will be making a feature film of ‘Shucked,'” he said, as the crowd’s cheering began to drown him out.

Robert Horn, who wrote the show’s book,...