After Midnight (a new production of Cotton Club Parade, conceived by Jack Viertel, which played two smash-hit, sold-out engagements at City Center) will open on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre this fall. Director/choreographer Warren Carlyle and superstar fashion duo Isabel and Ruben Toledo will join nine-time Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis and The Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars to bring the lavish shows of the hip Harlem nightclub to a whole new generation of theatergoers. After Midnight will begin preview performances on Friday, October 18, 2013 with an official opening night set forSunday, November 3, 2013.
In its heyday, the Cotton Club featured a cavalcade of guest stars each week, known then as “Celebrity Night,” including the likes of Jimmy Durante, George Gershwin, Sophie Tucker, Al Jolson, Judy Garland and many others. After Midnight will reintroduce this exciting tradition by presenting stars of today in limited engagement appearances throughout the musical’s run. Grammy Award-winning recording artist Fantasia Barrino, who was last seen on Broadway in her stunning and universally praised star turn in The Color Purple, will kick off the excitement as the first such guest star in After Midnight. Barrino will play performances through Sunday, February 9, 2014. Emmy Award-nominated actor Dulé Hill will return to the stage with his own unique song and dance style as “The Host” of the evening, leading the audience through the heat and glamour of the Harlem Renaissance using the words of Langston Hughes.
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Following critically acclaimed, smash-hit runs at Hartford Stage and San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder will open on Broadway in the fall of 2013. Starring Tony®Award–winner Jefferson Mays in a highly acclaimed, tour de force, multi-character performance, with Bryce Pinkham, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder features a book by Robert L. Freedman, music by Steven Lutvak, and lyrics byRobert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak. Darko Tresnjak directs and Peggy Hickey choreographs. The production will begin performances on Tuesday, October 22, 2013 at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre. The opening night is set for Sunday, November 17.
When Monty Navarro, a disinherited relative of the rich and powerful D’Ysquith clan, learns he’s ninth in line to inherit the earldom, he sets out to secure his future by, er, process of elimination. Each of the eight heirs perilously standing in the way of Monty’s fortune are played by Tony® Award-winner Jefferson Mays, in one of the most tireless, whiplash-inducing performances ever attempted on the American stage. Based on the novelIsrael Rank by Roy Horniman and set in England’s elegant Edwardian era, this uproarious new musical comedy shows just how low we’ll go to make it to the top.
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MCC will partner with Manhattan Theatre Club to co-produce the world premiere Broadway production of The Snow Geese by Sharr White and starring Tony® and Emmy Award-winning Mary Louise Parker, set for an 11-week strictly limited engagement at the Samuel Friedman Theatre. Tony® Award winner Daniel Sullivan is set to direct, having previously worked with Parker on David Auburn’s Proof. The Snow Geese begins previews on Tuesday, October 1st, and opens on Thursday, October 24th. This production marks the second collaboration between MTC, MCC, and playwright Sharr White. In Winter 2013, MTC produced the acclaimed Broadway premiere of White’s play The Other Place, starring Laurie Metcalf, which had its world premiere at MCC Theater in 2011.
The Snow Geese begins with World War I raging abroad. Newly widowed Elizabeth Gaesling (Mary-Louise Parker) gathers her family for their annual shooting party to mark the opening of hunting season in rural, upstate New York. But Elizabeth is forced to confront a new reality as her carefree eldest son comes to terms with his impending deployment overseas and her younger son discovers that the father they all revered left them deeply in debt. Together, the family must let go of the life they’ve always known.
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Tony® Award-winning playwright Rupert Holmes’ stage adaptation of A Time to Kill, John Grisham’s best-selling novel, will open on Broadway on Sunday, October 20, 2013, at the John Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street). This new Broadway play holds the distinction of being the first-ever John Grisham property to be adapted for the stage. Ethan McSweeny will direct, with previews beginning Saturday, September 28th. Sebastian Arcelus, Chike Johnson, Patrick Page, Tony Award® winner Tonya Pinkins, Fred Dalton Thompson, John Douglas Thompson, and Ashley Williams plus Dashiell Eaves, J.R. Horne, John Procaccino, Tijuana Ricks, and Lee Sellars will star, and additional casting will be announced shortly.
A Time to Kill, the popular courtroom drama, tells the emotionally charged, now-iconic story of a young, idealistic lawyer, Jack Brigance, defending a black man, Carl Lee Hailey, for taking the law into his own hands following an unspeakable crime committed against his young daughter. Their small Mississippi town is thrown into upheaval, and Jake finds himself arguing against the formidable district attorney, Rufus Buckley, and under attack from both sides of a racially divided city. This drama is a thrilling courtroom battle where the true nature of what is right and what is moral are called into question.
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MORE TO COME!
Pre Broadway Out of Town:
Beautiful—The Carole King Musical, about the life and career of legendary singer/songwriter Carole King, will have its world premiere at the San Francisco’s SHN Curran Theatre, from Tuesday, September 24, 2013, through Sunday, October 20, 2013, ahead of its Broadway run. The new musical, featuring a stunning array of beloved songs written by Gerry Goffin/Carole King and Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, a book by Academy® Award-nominated filmmaker Douglas McGrath, and direction by Marc Bruni, will be produced on Broadway by Paul Blake and Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
Her voice would define a generation, but first she had to find it. Long before she was Carole King: chart-topping music legend, she was Carol Klein: Brooklyn girl with passion and chutzpah. She fought her way into the record business as a teenager and, by the time she reached her twenties, had the husband of her dreams and a flourishing career writing hits for the biggest acts in rock ‘n’ roll. But it wasn’t until her fairytale life began to crack that she finally managed to find her true voice. Beautiful tells the inspiring true story of King’s rise to stardom, alongside husband and co-writer Gerry Goffin and fellow song writers Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil, set to the music that made her one of the recording industry’s most enduring icons.
