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Amazing Grace Finds Home On Broadway

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The new Broadway-bound musical, Amazing Gracewhich had its out-of-town tryout in Chicago this past fall, has found its home on Broadway. The show will take up residence at the Nederlander Theatre, recently home to the now closed Honeymoon In Vegas. The show features music and lyrics by Christopher Smith with book and lyrics by Smith and Arthur Giron with direction by Gabriel Barre (Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party) and choreography by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli (Newsies).

Here is how producers are billing the biographical new musical:

“A new original musical based on the awe-inspiring true story behind the world’s most beloved song. A captivating tale of romance, rebellion and redemption, this radiant production follows one man whose incredible journey ignited a historic wave of change. John Newton (Tony Award nominee Josh Young), a willful and musically talented young Englishman, faces a future as uncertain as the turning tide. Coming of age as Britain sits atop an international empire of slavery, he finds himself torn between following in the footsteps of his father – a slave trader – or embracing the more compassionate views of his childhood sweetheart (Erin Mackey). Accompanied by his slave, Thomas (Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper), John embarks on a perilous voyage on the high seas. When that journey finds John in his darkest hour, a transformative moment of self-reckoning inspires a blazing anthem of hope that will finally guide him home.”

Also featured are Chris Hoch (Mailtda), Stanley Bahorek (Big River), Harriett D. Foy (Mamma Mia), Laiona Michellev (Book of Mormon nat’l tour), Rachael Ferrera (Broadway debut) and Elizabeth Ward Land (Scandalous).

The ensemble will feature Leslie Becker, Sara Brophy, Rheaume Crenshaw, Miquel Edson, Mike Evariste, Sean Ewing, Savannah Frazier, Christopher Gurr, Allen Kendall, Michael Dean Morgan, Vince Oddo, Oneika Phillips, Clifton Samuels, Gavriel Savit, Dan Sharkey,Bret Shuford, Evan Alexander Smith, Uyoata Udi, Charles E. Wallace, Toni Elizabeth White and Hollie E. Wright.

The creative team for Amazing Grace will include sets by Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce, costumes by Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by Ken Billington and Paul Miller, sound design by Jon Weston and fight/military movement by David Leong.

To purchase tickets to Amazing Grace visit Ticketmaster.com or call (877) 250-2929. Tickets can also be purchased in person at the Nederlander Theatre box office (208 W. 41st St) starting June 1, 2015. Ticket prices range from $65-$139 (all prices include a $2.00 facility fee).

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  1. Pingback: Eddie Cooper Replaces Father Chuck Cooper in Little Shop of Horrors With Jake Gyllenhaal

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Broadway Bound

Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play Will Transfer To Broadway & Put Him in the History Books

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Jeremy O. Harris photo by Jenny Anderson via NYTW
Jeremy O. Harris photo by Jenny Anderson (via NYTW)

Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris will transfer to Broadway making the 30-year-old playwright the youngest black man in history to have a play produced on Broadway and only the sixth Black writer to have a new play on Broadway in the last decade.

A recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Harris wrote Slave Play his first semester in the graduate playwriting program there. New York Theatre Workshop produced the world premiere in 2018 that lead to controversy and critical acclaim from those who had and hadn’t seen it.

Producers Greg NobileJana Shea, Troy CarterLevel Forward and Nine Stories Productions announced the play will transfer to the Golden Theatre this fall.

The limited 17-week engagement beginning performance previews September 10th with an official opening scheduled for October 6th. Robert O’Hara will reprise his role as director with casting for the Broadway run announced at a later date.

The Old South lives on at the MacGregor Plantation — in the breeze, in the cotton fields…and in the crack of the whip. It’s an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master’s House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip’s fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary’s big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.

You can currently read the published play in the July/August issue of American Theatre Magazine

The creative team for the production includes Clint Ramos (scenic design), Dede Ayite (costume design),  Jiyoun Chang (lighting design), Lindsay Jones (sound design and original music), Byron Easley (movement), Claire Warden (intimacy and fight director), Doug Nevin (production counsel), and Taylor Williams (casting director). Mark Shacket serves as Executive Producer.

Harris said, “During my very short time being a professional writer, the world I thought I’d inhabit was one at odds with a commercial theatrical landscape; so to see that this play, Slave Play, that interrogates the traumas Americans have inherited from the legacy of chattel slavery and colonization has a place in the canon of work that has made its way to the Great White Way is both exhilarating and humbling. It also articulates that the leaps the community made in the past Broadway season might not have been a fad but the beginning of a new moment for the theatre to once again attempt to represent discursive American theatrical expression not situated solely within the imaginaries of cis white men, but the imaginaries of all Americans.”

Jeremy O. Harris & Robert O'Hara photo by Jenny Anderson

Jeremy O. Harris & Robert O’Hara photo by Jenny Anderson

O’Hara said, “I’m thrilled as a black queer artist to be collaborating with another black queer artist on what will be both of our Broadway debuts. I think the idea that I can say that openly and proudly is rather profound given the history of our country and of the American theater, but more specifically Broadway which has had and continues to have a general lack of diversity and diverse stories. I feel that Jeremy is joined today by a whole host of exciting young artists who are telling stories outside the main stem which can now hopefully be presented on the main stem. As the margin slowly becomes the center, I believe a cavalcade of voices one would never expect to be heard on Broadway can be and should be demanded. Slave Play is a complex, challenging and exhilarating piece of work and I look forward to presenting it this fall on Broadway.”

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Broadway Bound

Michael Jackson Bio-Musical Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough Will Open in Chicago Ahead of Broadway

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The musical inspired by the life of the deceased pop icon Michael Jackson has found its title, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough. Still in development after a reading in June of last year, the musical, named after Jackson’s classic song from the 1979 album Off The Wall, will incorporate the Jackson music catalog.

Focusing on Jackson’s career in his 20s–30s, Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage is attached as the book writer and Christopher Wheeldon will direct and choreograph.

Announced by the Michael Jackson Estate and Columbia Live Stage, the highly anticipated musical will have an out of town run in Chicago starting October 29th and running through December 1st, 2019 at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre (formerly the Oriental Theatre) before transferring to Broadway in 2020.

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