News

Exclusive: Emmy- and BAFTA-nominated actor Paapa Essiedu has inked with WME for representation in all areas, Deadline has learned.

Essiedu notched a Supporting Actor Emmy nom in Limited or Anthology Series as well as a Lead Actor BAFTA TV nom for his turn as Kwame in Michaela Coel’s HBO series I May Destroy You. He also received a BAFTA Lead Actor TV nom for The Lazarus Project.

Other recent projects include the National Theatre’s The Effect, written by Lucy Prebble and directed by Jamie Lloyd, which is transferring to The Shed in New York this year; Season 6 of the cult anthology series Black Mirror (“Demon 79”); and Working Title/Universal Christmas movie The Genie, directed by Sam Boyd and written by Love Actually‘s Richard Curtis.

Essiedu starred opposite Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and based on Amy Liptrot’s bestselling memoir. The feature received...

Evan Cabnet will take over as artistic director of Second Stage Theater, one of Broadway’s major nonprofit theater companies.

Cabnet, currently artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3, will join the organization in September 2024 and will launch his first season of programming in fall 2025. He takes over from Carole Rothman, founder of Second Stage Theater, who will continue in her position through August 2024. Interim Artistic Director Bennett Leak will oversee the Company’s upcoming season.

Rothman, who founded the nonprofit theater company in 1979, had previously announced she would be stepping down. The upcoming season includes Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love and Donald Margulies’ play, Lunar Eclipse, which will premiere Off-Broadway and star Reed Birney and Lisa Emery.

Cabnet has served as the artistic director of LCT3, Lincoln Center Theater’s initiative to produce new works, since 2016. During his tenure, LCT3 produced 20 productions, including Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over,...

Evan Cabnet, currently Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3, will be Second Stage Theater’s new Artistic Director beginning in September, Second Stage trustees announced today. Cabnet will officially launch his first season of programming in fall 2025.

Carole Rothman, Second Stage’s current artistic director who in 1979 founded the renowned New York theater company that would eventually produce such acclaimed projects as Dear Evan Hansen, Next To Normal, This Is Our Youth and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, announced last September her plans to step down.

Rothman will continue in her position through August 2024. Interim Artistic Director Bennett Leak will oversee the Company’s upcoming 46th season.

“I think the audiences and creatives who make up the communities of Broadway, Off Broadway, and American theater at large have so much to celebrate in Evan’s appointment as the new leader of Second Stage,” said Jacobs-Jenkins, whose...

When Angelina Jolie announced nearly a year ago that she’d signed on as a producer of the Broadway-bound musical The Outsiders, folks in the theater community could be forgiven for assuming she was merely the latest in a long and ever-growing line of celebrities willing to either raise money or share fame in exchange for a credit in Playbill.

Those folks would have been wrong.

“Angelina was in the room a lot,” says Outsiders director Danya Taymor, explaining that the Oscar-winning actress offered creative notes, suggestions and even guidance and advice for the show’s young cast, many of whom were making their Broadway debuts.

“I’ve had successes and failures,” Jolie tells Deadline, “and I’ve been around a long time…”

Brody Grant, who has earned a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut as Ponyboy Curtis, told Deadline, “Danya and Angelina are two artists...

We Were the Lucky Ones author Georgia Hunter details one major change from the book that was necessary for the Hulu adaptation.

During an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Hunter detailed the one big change from the book:

Obviously, we had to make a few cuts here and there. We didn't have the luxury of telling a 400-page novel word for word, and it was challenging trying to tell some backstory, and portray thoughts and the things that I was able to use prose for. But our writers were so phenomenal, they somehow managed to pull this nine-year history together into eight beautiful episodes.

One change that we made that I love is that in the novel, we open in 1939, just before the war breaks out, and my grandfather is unable to return from France, where he is living, to Poland, where his family is. It's a story that he told my mom growing up,...

There’s almost nothing as powerful as a good redemption story, and Moses — yes, that Moses — has one of the most compelling redemption arcs in human history.

Testament: The Story of Moses is the new documentary series exploring his life, from his exile as an outcast and murderer to eventual prophet and liberator. The three episodes take the story of Moses far deeper than the conventional wisdom generated by history classrooms and Charlton Heston; in other words, even if you think you know Moses, you have no idea. The new three-part series is directed by Benjamin Ross.

“Anyone who has seen The Ten Commandments as a child was well aware of the more epic elements of the tale,” producers Emre Sahin and Kelly McPherson told Netflix. “The burning bush, the plagues, Passover, the Red Sea, and, of course, the Ten Commandments. What really drew us in was the mystery...

Madison Wells Live will present a private industry reading of “The Thing About Jellyfish,” a new play by Keith Bunin based on the best-selling novel by Ali Benjamin.

The reading will take place on Oct. 6 in New York City. It will be directed by Tyne Rafaeli and feature Matilda Lawler, star of Max’s “Station 11.” The ensemble will also include Mia Williamson, Lexi Perkel, Antonio Watson, April Matthis, Mateo Castel, Zak Orth, Stephanie Janssen and Robert Stanton. Madison Wells holds the exclusive film rights to “The Thing About Jellyfish.”

According to the official plot description, Suzy Swanson’s world is shattered when she learns of her best friend’s drowning, just days before starting seventh grade. Convinced that the true cause of the tragedy must have been a rare jellyfish sting, she vows to solve the mystery of what really happened, no matter the costs. Retreating into a silent world of imagination,...

Exclusive: Entertainment company Madison Wells Live, Lachanze and Taraji P. Henson have joined the producing team of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, a world premiere play written by Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Whitney White heading to Broadway this fall.

The partnerships were announced today by Mtc’s Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Chris Jennings (Executive Director).

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding will begin previews on Tuesday, September 12 and open on Tuesday, October 3, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

The play is set at a hair braiding salon in Harlem where a lively and eclectic group of West African immigrant hair braiders create “masterpieces on the heads of neighborhood women.” According to the synopsis, “During one sweltering summer day, love will blossom, dreams will flourish and secrets will be revealed.”

Both Bioh, the Ghanaian-American playwright of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, and White...

Ready for your next big movie night? No matter what you are in the mood for, Amazon’s Prime Video has got you covered. From the comfort of your own home cinema (or maybe just on your phone in bed), you can stream dozens of award-winning original films, as well as rent or buy recent theatrical releases or choose from thousands of list-toppers, cult classics, and more.

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Amazon Studios has released many incredible original movies like 2016’s “Manchester by the Sea,” 2020’s “Sound of Metal,” this spring’s “Air,” and more. Below, we run through our 10 favorite original films available on Prime Video.

How Do You Sign Up For Prime Video?

If you’re wanting to catch up on your to-watch list but you’re not yet a Prime member, the service makes it easier than ever to get signed up and offers a 30-day free trial for new users,...

Zachary Zane has never shied away from discussing his own sexual exploits in (extremely) graphic detail, but it’s not just for the shock value. The Men’s Health sex advice columnist is on a mission to de-stigmatize sex for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, and he argues there’s one way to do that: to get loud and explicit.

As Zane writes in his new book, Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto, “We need to be able to talk about [sex] openly. Recently I’ve seen a de-emphasis on sex when discussing sexuality,...

This Post Contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Mandalorian, “The Pirate.”

Well, that was a mostly welcome change of pace.

In a broad sense, “Guns for Hire” fits the Mission of the Week mode that The Mandalorian does so well, but it does it in a couple of unusual ways. It is both as comedic as the series seems capable of (or, at least, interested in) going, and it is basically a buddy cop show, with Mando and Bo-Katan making like Lennie Briscoe and one of his many partners.

In the thriller series “Euer Ehren,” a German-Austrian adaptation of the Israeli series “Your Honor” (“Kvodo”), Sebastian Koch plays Michael Jacobi, a judge caught up in his own web of deception as he struggles to protect his son. The project was brought to Koch by Al Munteanu, producer and founder of SquareOne Entertainment, and the pair worked together to bring the project to screen.

Munteanu and Koch have proved a convincing combo, winning the interest of producer Christoph Pellander at Ard Degeto. “‘Euer Ehren’ is thrilling entertainment at its best,” said Pellander. “The script producer Al Munteanu and leading actor Sebastian Koch have electrified us from the first moment; hence we absolutely wanted to produce the thriller series collectively. In our version, co-produced with Orf and produced by SquareOne Productions and Mona Film, we shifted the story to Austria to bring it closer to our viewers’ environment and thereby managed to produce something truly unique.

If you're eyes rolled when you saw this headline that means you still need more recovery time from the fiasco that was the 2021/2022 awards season. But time marches on and now we must draw our attention to the next wave of awards shows. We'll update this post periodically and republish.

April 2022

28th Tony Eligibility Ends

If a show hasn't officially opened by this date, it's not eligible until 2023. The following shows are expected to be eligible: 13 original plays, 7 play revivals, 7 original musicals, and 4 musical revivals. It is our dream to one day get press invites to ample theater so we can do a once weekly column on that as a cultural sidebar.

May 2022

3rd Tony Award Nominations Announced

31st Emmy Eligibility Ends

The eligibilty period began on June 1st, 2021 and ends on this date. If a show has aired enough episodes (six) to be considered a series by May 31st,...

Broadway’s pre-Omicron autumn might best be described using a song lyric sung on stage every night by American Utopia‘s David Byrne: “Same as it ever was.”

As disappointing but hardly surprising private box office data obtained by The New York Times indicates, Broadway audiences returned from the 18-month pandemic shutdown last fall with old habits intact. Ticket-buyers chose big, brand-name musicals and some equally high-profile plays while largely ignoring plays that were unfamiliar (Chicken & Biscuits) and/or experimental.

New musicals did not go unscathed: The critically panned Diana played to half-empty houses during the week that ended Dec. 12, while musicals that were acclaimed (Girl From the North Country) or received mixed reviews (Flying Over Sunset) didn’t seem to fare much better,...

Ten days after her first Broadway show ended an acclaimed run, playwright Dominique Morisseau has just opened another. The Tony-nominee penned the libretto for musical “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” which closed after nearly 500 performances on Jan. 16, and her drama “Skeleton Crew” has now finally made the leap from Off-Broadway to the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Jan. 26. Set in Detroit in 2008, the play is about the impact of the looming closure of a steel plant on four of its workers.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson directs the production, returning to the Friedman just two months after he wrapped performances of his own play “Lackawanna Blues” at the venue. Phylicia Rashad stars as Faye, a factor worker and union rep on the cusp of her thirtieth anniversary working at the plant; the play marks Rashad’s return to Broadway after over a decade away. Chanté Adams, Joshua Boone,...

Chris Evans and Adam Kersh have launched Fusion Management, an artist-driven management company that will focus on actors, filmmakers and creators.

Their initial management roster features a number of notable clients with a particular focus on indie multi-hyphenates and auteurs. The list includes Sean Baker, who earned raves for “Red Rocket”; filmmaker and actor Amy Seimetz, the co-creator of “The Girlfriend Experience” on Starz and the star of “No Sudden Move”; Cooper Raiff, a writer, director, producer and actor whose film “Cha Cha Real Smooth” premiered at Sundance this week to critical acclaim; and Kelly O’Sullivan, the writer and star of the award-winning “Saint Frances.”

Evans, formerly a manager at One Entertainment, and Kersh, co-founder of Brigade Marketing, bring more than two decades of combined experience within the entertainment industry. The two want Fusion to be a landing ground for both established creators and emerging talent both in front of and behind the camera.

The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the first time during the 2021-2022 Broadway season to discuss eligibility of twelve productions for the 75th Annual Tony Awards in 2022. The Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing.

The productions discussed were: “Girl from the North Country,” “Pass Over,” “Lackawanna Blues,” “Six,” “Chicken & Biscuits,” “Is This A Room,” “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “The Lehman Trilogy,” “Dana H.,” “Caroline, or Change,” “Diana, The Musical” and “Trouble in Mind.” No word yet on when the ceremony will take place, nor was there any announcement of a firm eligibility cut-off date.

The following determinations were made:

Jay O. Sanders and Mare Winningham will be considered eligible in the Lead Actor/Actress in a Musical categories for their respective performances in “Girl from the North Country.”

Colin Bates will be considered eligible in the Featured Actor in a Musical...

It has been almost five years since playwright Lynn Nottage made her Broadway debut with “Sweat” and almost 10 since Uzo Aduba last appeared on a Broadway stage. They both return, triumphantly, in Nottage’s “Clyde’s,” a new play with a connection to “Sweat,” which earned three Tony Award nominations and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. “Clyde’s” opened at the Second Stage Theater’s Hayes Theater on Nov. 23.

“Clyde’s” stars Aduba in the title role, the proprietor of a roadside sandwich shop in Pennsylvania who hires former convicts as kitchen staff. The comedy ascends to Biblical proportions as Clyde’s employees navigate their boss’ viciousness and strive for personal redemption through the art of making the perfect sandwich. The ensemble also boasts two-time Emmy-winner Ron Cephas Jones, Edmund Donovan, Reza Salazar, and Kara Young under the direction of Nottage’s frequent collaborator Kate Whoriskey.

See ‘Trouble in Mind’ reviews: Alice Childress’ ‘exemplary,...

Gigi Prtizker’s Madison Wells banner has a new look, intended to reflect the company’s commitment to “spotlighting stories for, by and about badass women, as well as people who love pushing boundaries.”

Founded in 2015 by Pritzker, Madison Wells’ focus has been on bringing meaningful stories to life via film, television, theatre and podcasting, with projects that have ranged projects have ranged from Broadway musicals “Million Dollar Quartet” and “Hadestown” to National Geographic’s limited series “Genius” to the immersive art experience “Nevermore Park.”

The veteran producer — whose personal resume also includes “Drive,” ”Green Street Hooligans,” “Ender’s Game” and “Hell or High Water” — tells Variety that the need for a fresh start was inspired by the happenings of the last 18 months, which she notes have been a period of “thoughtful reflection.”

“I wanted to take this opportunity to more sharply focus and articulate our purpose as storytellers,” Pritzker explained.

“The Lehman Trilogy” has had a protracted journey to Broadway. Not quite as long as the nearly two centuries of history that the play chronicles, of course, but what began in London in 2018 and made a splash Off-Broadway in 2019 has finally arrived at the Nederlander Theatre, opening on Oct. 14. Ben Power’s adaptation of Stefano Massini’s play originally began previews on March 7, 2020, but played less than one week before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered theaters.

Beginning in 1844 when the first of the three Lehman brothers arrived in New York from Bavaria, “The Lehman Trilogy” chronicles this notorious family’s insatiable quest for wealth and capital accumulation through the 2008 stock market crash that toppled the firm. Tony-winner Sam Mendes directs a cast of three actors – Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley, and Adrian Lester – who play the innumerable characters needed to tell the tale of generations of Lehmans and centuries of global capitalism.

Back in February, the new play “Thoughts of a Colored Man” installed its marquee at the Golden Theatre, an encouraging sign almost a year into the coronavirus pandemic that the frost on Broadway was about to thaw. Keenan Scott II’s allegorical drama has finally arrived, debuting at the Golden on Oct. 13 under the direction of Steve H. Broadnax III.

Featuring an ensemble of seven actors – each representing a different emotion from happiness to depression, love, anger, and beyond – “Thoughts of a Colored Man” unfolds as a series of vignettes of prose, poetry, and song set over the course of a day in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood. Those seven actors are Dyllón Burnside, Bryan Terrell Clark, Da’Vinchi, Luke James, Forrest McClendon, Esau Pritchett, and Tristan ‘Mack’ Wilds. Its form has drawn comparisons to Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” a landmark...

This Broadway season, as stop and start as it has been, has been blessed with some truly stellar moments – and spotted with blessedly fewer disappointments. The vibrant Pass Over was an ideal curtain raiser for an industry waking up. Lackawanna Blues felt like a tonic, and Is This A Room is as wrenching a work of art as any with roots in the Trump era to date.

And as worthy of applause as those productions were and are, all feel a bit like preamble to Keenan Scott II’s remarkable Thoughts of a Colored Man opens, the first fully realized reflection of the shutdown era. A play of immense compassion and keen insight, with a vise-grip on the dreams and disappointments of its characters, Thoughts of a Colored Man is a paean to life as both survival and celebration, a tribute and exploration of the Black men who find beauty,...

The long-awaited reopening of Broadway has just welcomed one of its most unique offerings of the season with the debut of new drama “Is This a Room.” One of a duo of transcript plays to bow this fall, “Is This a Room” uses the verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation of Reality Winner – an Nsa employee incarcerated for leaking classified information about Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election to the press – as the basis for this spartan and experimental play. “Is This a Room” opened at the Lyceum Theatre on Oct. 11.

Conceived and directed by Tina Satter, “Is This a Room” stars a quartet of actors who reenact the June 3, 2017 interrogation and arrest of Winner, played by Emily Davis in her Broadway debut. Pete Simpson and Will Cobbs play FBI agents, and Becca Blackwell rounds out the cast. “This Is a Room” has had two prior incarnations in 2019 at...

Ten years after making his Broadway debut as an actor in “The Book of Mormon,” Douglas Lyons just took his first bow as a playwright with “Chicken & Biscuits,” which opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Oct. 10. The comedy centers on the funeral of a pastor, which brings together two at-odds sisters and raises a whole host of family foibles.

Directed by Zhailon Levingston, “Chicken & Biscuits” features an eight-person ensemble, with the majority of the cast making their Broadway debuts. Cleo King and Ebony Marshall-Oliver play sisters Baneatta and Beverly, respectively, and are joined by Broadway stalwarts Norm Lewis, Michael Urie and NaTasha Yvette Williams.

See ‘Lackawanna Blues’: Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s ‘vibrant’ play and performance are a ‘master class’

In a rave review, Ayanna Prescod (Variety) calls the play “a portrait of Black joy, love and laughter” that features “a brilliant script that’s fresh, relatable and laugh-out-loud funny.

Twenty years after Ruben Santiago-Hudson first brought the town of Lackawanna, New York to life Off-Broadway, his autobiographical play “Lackawanna Blues” has arrived on Broadway. The solo show features playwright and director Santiago-Hudson inhabiting 25 different characters from the steeltown in the 1950s as he brings the memorable figures of his childhood to life. At the center of the play is Rachel Crosby, or “Nanny,” the boarding-house proprietor who takes these unforgettable characters under her wing. The play opened on Oct. 7 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

“Lackawanna Blues” marks Santiago-Hudson’s first Broadway performance in nearly a decade. He last starred on Broadway in “Stick Fly” (2011) and won a Tony Award for his featured role in August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars” (1996). In recent years, he has gravitated toward directing works on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination for his mounting of Wilson’s “Jitney” (2017). He will also helm Dominique Morisseau’s “Skeleton Crew” later this season.

BBBFor the grand finale. we're going behind the scenes of some of the biggest shows in town Come with us as we step inside the stage doors of shows like Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera, Pass Over and more to chat with the actors, artists, and technicians tasked with getting Broadway back on its feet...

Waitress, the Broadway hit that, along with Hadestown, brought music back to the New York stage last night after many dark months, grossed $197,878 in tickets sales today, breaking the single-performance house record at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

The previous record – $184,476 – was set by the 2013 production of Betrayal starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, back when the top ticket price was around $185, roughly the median price for the $89-$350ish Waitress seats.

Still, with the Thursday night performance a sell-out, and today’s stellar box office response, the numbers are a solid bit of good news for an industry (and a city) that can most definitely use it.

Both Waitress and Hadestown returned to enthusiastic and more-than-appreciative audiences, with standing ovations and tears and full houses setting the tone. At Waitress, the cast led by star and composer Sara Bareilles was joined onstage at curtain by Amanda Kloots, co-host of The Talk...

The three-day Curtain Up! festival in Times Square later this month will culminate in a big Sunday concert featuring performers from 18 Broadway musicals and five plays, with shows represented from Ain’t Too Proud, Hadestown and Jagged Little Pill to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Pass Over and To Kill a Mockingbird.

The night before the Sunday, Sept. 19 daytime concert, an early evening concert dubbed “¡Viva! Broadway When We See Ourselves” will celebrate diversity and the contributions of Latin and Hispanic Broadway artists with performances by Daphne Rubin-Vega, Robin de Jesús, Bianca Marroquín, Ana Villafañe and more to be announced.

The free, three-day Curtain Up! festival in the Times Square area will feature about 22 unique outdoor events from Friday, Sept. 17 to Sunday, Sept. 19. The previously announced fest, designed to celebrate the reopening of Broadway after the 17-month pandemic shutdown, is being presented by Playbill in partnership with The Broadway League,...

The standing ovation was inevitable.

Not just because audiences getting to their feet and applauding has felt perfunctory and expected for decades. Pass Over is being lauded as the first play staged on Broadway since the coronavirus pandemic forced all live performances to stop in March 2020. And at the top of this performance during the official opening Sunday matinee at the August Wilson Theatre on August 22nd, the thousand or so people in attendance were greeted and welcomed and congratulated for being “one of the first audiences back to see a real Broadway play.

Almost 18 months after the last new show opened on Broadway – the musical “The Girl from the North Country,” which bowed on March 5, 2020 – the New York theatre community celebrated the rialto’s return with the premiere of “Pass Over.” Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s play opened at the August Wilson Theatre on August 22 under the direction of Danya Taymor.

Inspired by both Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and the book of Exodus, “Pass Over” occurs under the glow of a single streetlight. With a deft balance of comedy and horror, joy and sorrow, Nwandu explores centuries of systemic racism, including the plantation and the present, through the conversations between the indefatigably optimistic Moses (Jon Michael Hill) and Kitch (Namir Smallwood), which are punctuated by the two different white men (both played by Gabriel Ebert) who disrupt their space.

Watch 2021 Tony Awards slugfest: Who has the edge in the incredibly competitive Play races?...

This summer’s big New York City performances have lugged considerable metaphorical baggage, from the giddy, vaxxed-but-maskless return of the Springsteen on Broadway concert during the pre-Delta shine of June, the resurgent Covid delays of Shakespeare in the Park and finally last night’s aborted, starry concert in Central Park, when the sky itself seemed to tell pop’s mightiest stalwarts, eh, not quite yet.

Tonight’s performance at the August Wilson Theatre of Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s thrilling Pass Over, the first Broadway play of the post-shutdown era, will, happily or not, carry some weighty burdens of its own. Forget the random media reports of the production’s maybe, maybe-not financial struggles – seriously, who isn’t struggling financially these days?

Equally unfair is asking Pass Over, or any other single Broadway production, to somehow reflect or embody all that’s happened in our world over the last 17 months of illness and death,...

Signature Theatre, one of New York’s premiere Off Broadway venues, has postponed its fall production of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker’s Infinite Life due to “ongoing health and safety concerns.”

The production – the last of three plays in Baker’s residency with the company – was to have opened Oct. 5, but Signature announced the postponement today.

“Due to ongoing health and safety concerns, we and Annie Baker have made the difficult decision to postpone the upcoming production of Infinite Life,” the statement reads. “We and Annie agree that this is the best choice for this show at this time.”

The company is unsure whether the play will be staged later in the season.

Other productions planned for the Signature – a multi-venue complex located on West 42nd Street in Manhattan’s Theater District – will, for now, continue as scheduled. A new production of Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles,...

Life’s candy and the sun’s about to be a ball of butter for Beanie Feldstein, who will step into the role that made Barbra Streisand a star in a revival of the 1964 Broadway musical, Funny Girl.

The revival — the first on Broadway since the original run despite some close calls over the years — will be directed by Michael Mayer, who won a Tony Award for Spring Awakening and was nominated for the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The show is scheduled to premiere in spring 2022, Covid-19 restrictions allowing. A new play, Pass Over, successfully began previews on Aug....

Life’s candy and the sun’s about to be a ball of butter for Beanie Feldstein, who will step into the role that made Barbra Streisand a star in a revival of the 1964 Broadway musical, Funny Girl.

The revival — the first on Broadway since the original run despite some close calls over the years — will be directed by Michael Mayer, who won a Tony Award for Spring Awakening and was nominated for the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

The show is scheduled to premiere in spring 2022, Covid-19 restrictions allowing. A new play, Pass Over, successfully began previews on Aug....

The Broadway League announced today that the owners and operators of all 41 Broadway theaters in New York City will require vaccinations for audience members, as well as performers, backstage crew, and theatre staff, for all performances through October 2021.

Masks will also be required for audiences inside the theaters, except while eating or drinking in designated locations.

Charlotte St. Martin, President of the Broadway League said, said in a statement that a uniform policy across all New York City Broadway theaters “makes it simple for our audiences and should give even more confidence to our guests about how seriously Broadway is taking audience safety.”

The news comes as the first play of the Broadway season – Pass Over – begins rehearsals in advance of the start of preview performances on Aug. 4. The production was one of several that had already announced a mandatory vaccine policy for audience members.

Speaking on behalf of the theater owners,...

Actors’ Equity Association and the Broadway League have announced an agreement on safety protocols that includes mandated vaccines and weekly testing for the Broadway workforce.

“This is an important milestone on the path to getting all our members safely back to work,” said Mary McColl, executive director for Actors’ Equity Association, while League president Charlotte St. Martin called the “secure return of our casts, crews and employees” a “top priority” for the trade organization representing producers and theater owners.

The agreement on safety protocols covers Production Contract shows on Broadway and in sit-down productions across the country. Key provisions of the agreement include:

Improved Hvac standards; Mandated vaccines for the workforce, with the exception of those who cannot do so for reasons such as age or risks to their health; Weekly testing for employees; Allowance for modifications to the protocols where necessary for individual shows or locations.

This agreement comes as Pass Over,...

Though Broadway as an industry has yet to definitively rule on whether Covid vaccinations will be required of audience members this fall, a second production – Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Pass Over at the Jujamcyn-owned August Wilson Theatre – has announced that the policy will be enforced when the play begins previews next month.

With the announcement, Pass Over becomes the second Broadway production to require audience vaccinations, following the arrival in June of Springsteen on Broadway at the Jujamcyn-owned St. James Theatre. The two-show trend could suggest how Broadway, in general, will deal with the ongoing Covid situation when many more shows return in September.

The Pass Over production, which begins previews Aug. 4 and officially opens Sept. 12, indicated that producers will “revisit” the policy for possible revision in September “or sooner,” if necessary. The vaccination policy, for now, will be in effect for the month of August.

The policies...

Update, with full casting Chicken & Biscuits, the new comedy written by Douglas Lyons heading to Broadway this fall, has announced its full cast.

Joining the previously-announced Norm Lewis and Michael Urie are Cleo King (Deadwood) in her Broadway debut; NaTasha Yvette Williams (Waitress) and Devere Rogers (Ok Boomer) in his Broadway debut.

Reprising their roles from the play’s world premiere at Queens Theatre, and making their Broadway stage debuts, are Ebony Marshall-Oliver, Aigner Mizzelle and Alana Raquel Bowers. The casting announcement comes from producers Pamela Ross, Hunter Arnold, E. Clayton Cornelious and Leah Michalos.

Previous, June 24 Chicken & Biscuits, a new comedy written by Black playwright Douglas Lyons, with a largely Black cast and directed by Zhailon Levingston, who at 27 becomes the youngest Black director in Broadway history, will have its Broadway premiere this fall.

Beginning previews at Circle in the Square Theatre on Thursday, September 23, Chicken & Biscuits – which was...

In what could be a harbinger for Broadway’s post-Covid protocol, Springsteen on Broadway has announced that audience members must be vaccinated with an Fda-approved vaccine, a policy no doubt disappointing to the many Canadians and Europeans who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Producers of Springsteen on Broadway announced Tuesday night that the show, which will begin performances on June 26 to become Broadway’s first post-shutdown arrival, will require the Fda-approved vaccines. To date, the Fda has approved vaccines by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.

The news hasn’t gone over particularly well in the countries where AstraZeneca is in use. The Toronto Star headlined its Wednesday report “Burn in the U.S.A.”

Among the countries that have used the AstraZeneca vaccine are Canada, Australia, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Indonesia and Spain, among others.

The Springsteen on Broadway website, which lists the Covid protocols for the production at the St.

Bruce Springsteen will return to Broadway this summer for a limited run of Springsteen on Broadway at Jujamcyn’s St. James Theatre, with shows beginning Saturday June 26 and additional performances taking place through September 4.

Said Springsteen: “I loved doing Springsteen on Broadway and I’m thrilled to have been asked to reprise the show as part of the reopening of Broadway.”

Tickets for Springsteen on Broadway will go on sale Thursday, June 10, and proceeds from Opening Night will be donated to a group of local New York and New Jersey charities including the Boys and Girls Club of Monmouth County, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, Community FoodBank of New Jersey, Food Bank for New York City, Fulfill (Monmouth & Ocean Counties Foodbank), Long Island Cares, NJ Pandemic Relief Fund and The Actor’s Fund.

The surprise announcement puts the smash hit Springsteen show at the top of the Broadway Reopening schedule,...

The Lincoln Center Theater production of Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s award-winning play Pass Over will begin performances August 4 at the August Wilson Theatre, making it first Broadway show in line to hit the stage since the industry’s Covid shutdown in 2020.

As now planned, Pass Over will begin preview performances nearly a full month before the previous front-runner, Hadestown, returns on Sept. 2. The official opening night for Pass Over will be Sunday, Sept. 12; tickets go on sale Friday for performances through Oct. 10.

Directed by Obie Award winner Danya Taymor, Pass Over will star Jon Michael Hill, Namir Smallwood in his Broadway debut, and Tony Award winner Gabriel Ebert (Matilda). Pass Over will mark the Broadway debuts of writer Nwandu and director Taymor.

The play’s world premiere was produced and presented at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and was filmed by director Spike Lee for a film...

Flying Over Sunset, Lincoln Center Theater’s James Lapine-Tom Kitt-Michael Korie musical interrupted by the pandemic, will return for preview performances in November, marking the nonprofit theater company’s reopening after the shutdown.

Starring Harry Hadden-Paton, Carmen Cusack and Tony Yazbeck, the 1950s-set musical about three real-life celebrities experimenting with LSD begins performances at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater on Thursday, November 4, with an opening set for Monday, December 6.

Also at Lincoln Center, the Off Broadway production of Intimate Apparel in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater begins previews Thursday, January 13, 2022, opening Thursday, January 27.

Both productions were in previews when New York’s theater shutdown hit in March 2020.

“Ecstatic excitement barely begins to describe the feelings we have about reopening,” said Lincoln Center Theater Producing Artistic Director André Bishop, who called the productions “two wildly different musical works whose lives were cut short well over a year ago.

The Lincoln Center TheaterLCT3 production of Antoinette Chinonye Nwandus acclaimed, award-winning play Pass Over, directed by Obie Award winner Danya Taymor Daddy, Heroes of the Fourth Turning will reopen Broadways August Wilson Theatre 245 W 52nd Street, New York, NY for a limited engagement, with exact dates to be announced shortly. This will mark the Broadway debut of both Nwandu and Taymor. Pass Over will be produced on Broadway by Matt Ross, Jujamcyn Theaters, Lincoln Center Theater, Concord Theatricals, Renee Montgomery, Blair Underwood, Madeleine Foster Bersin and Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu.

Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s play Pass Over, which received the 2019 Lortel Award for Outstanding Play for its Off Broadway run, will open at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre for a limited engagement. Dates and cast have not been announced.

The play will be directed by Obie Award winner Danya Taymor.

The 2017 play, which was filmed at Chicago’s Steppenwolf theater by Spike Lee for a 2018 adaptation that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, will be updated and revised for its Broadway debut. The Broadway production will be “a new version that centers the health, hope and joy of our audiences, especially Black people,” said the playwright in a statement.

Pass Over, drawing inspiration from Waiting for Godot and the Exodus story, is set on a city street corner where Moses and Kitch “stand around – talking shit, passing the time, and hoping that maybe today will be different.” As they dream of their promised land,...

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama will be announced on April 15. American playwrights will surely hope to see themselves named as winner, not only for the prestige that comes with the Pulitzer, but for a boost in the hotly competitive Tony race for Best Play.

Not everyone is eligible for this sought after award. The Pulitzer is an American organization and gives out its award and $15,000 prize to “a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life.” That removes English playwright Jez Butterworth and his hit play “The Ferryman” from competition, despite his strong Tony odds.

Aaron Sorkin could gain momentum if the Pulitzer committee enjoys his “To Kill a Mockingbird” adaptation. After all, it is a uniquely American story that remains resonant in today’s society. Still, Harper Lee provides some big shoes to fill, and the Pulitzer is rarely awarded to an adaptation.

Exclusive: Amazon Studios has hired playwright Antoinette Nwandu to pen the film adaptation of Wash Clean The Bones, a short story from the Heads of the Colored People story collection by Nafissa Thompson-Spires. The collection, which was published by 37 Ink (an imprint of Atria Books), explores the concept of black identity in what is viewed as a post-racial society.

Marking Thompson-Spires’ debut, Heads of the Colored People was longlisted for the National Book Award (Fiction), is a finalist for the 2018 Kirkus Prize, and was listed in Chicago Review of Books’ Most Anticipated Books of 2018.

Wash Clean The Bones is dark comedy about a churchgoing nurse whose outlook on life – particularly that of her infant son – is upended after her side-gig as a funeral singer lands her at the graveside of several young boys who’ve fallen victim to gun violence.

Nwandu’s play Pass Over was live captured by Spike Lee and financed by Amazon,...

After snagging nominations at the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Awards, SAG Awards, BAFTAs and more, Spike Lee‘s “BlacKkKlansman” has emerged as one of the leading contenders in the Oscar race for Best Picture. It tells the true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), a black police detective who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s with the help of a Jewish officer (Adam Driver). Gold Derby recently spoke with Driver, screenwriters Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, cinematographer Chayse Irvin, production designer Curt Beech, film editor Barry Alexander Brown, composer Terence Blanchard and hair stylist Lawanda M. Pierre about their work.

See Will ‘BlacKkKlansman’ win Spike Lee his long overdue Oscar?

“There’s obviously an importance to the story overall that you want to get right,” says Driver. Though it’s set in the late 1970s, Lee makes direct references to both our past and present, from D.W. Griffith...

“The story’s totally absurd,” admits “BlacKkKlansman” cinematographer Chayse Irvin. When Spike Lee pitched him this tale about an African-American police officer (John David Washington) who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s, the Dp “couldn’t believe it when he said it was true.” Watch our exclusive video interview with Irvin above.

See Adam Driver: ‘BlacKkKlansman’ shows how racism ‘has been part of the conversation in this country for so long’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

The script, adapted from Ron Stallworth‘s 2014 memoir, “rode a line in-between the absurd and the very dark and racist.” But despite the varying tones in the screenplay, Irvin didn’t spend too much time in advance worrying about how to make it all work. It wasn’t until he was on set responding to Lee’s direction that he began thinking about what shots to grab. “It kind of works in my approach to cinematography,...

Each year Variety’s New Leaders feature profiles the most prominent up-and-comers in the entertainment business. To determine this year’s worthies, Variety looked across disciplines, from television, digital, music and film, to law and finance, as well as content creators. They were proposed by their bosses and peers who have worked with them and seen their rise. All are age 40 or under, and Variety has measured them by the progress of their career trajectories: do they take calculated risks? How fast have they risen in their companies? Are they innovative and employ solutions to problems that are creative? As part of the salute to the qualities that keep the town humming, filmmaker/producer Travis Knight, who founded Laika Studios and is finishing up the anticipated “Bumblebee” for Paramount, as well as Variety‘s 10 Assistants to Watch along with the New Leaders will be recognized Oct. 17, at the Jeremy Hotel rooftop in West Hollywood.

LCT3Lincoln Center Theater has announced that Gabriel Ebert, Jon Michael Hill, and Namir Smallwood will be featured in its upcoming production of Pass Over, a new play by Antoinette Nwandu, directed by Danya Taymor, at the Claire Tow Theater 150 West 65 Street. This New York premiere of Pass Over will begin performances Saturday evening, June 2 and run for six weeks only throughSunday, July 15. Opening night is Monday, June 18.