Broadway Bound
NFL Legend Eddie George Will Join Chicago Musical In January
The NFL Legend and Heisman Trophy winner, Eddie George, will surprisingly make his Broadway debut in the new year. The revival company of Chicago, now in it’s 19th year, will welcome George as “Billy Flynn” beginning Tuesday, January 11, 2016. He will play a 7-week limited engagement at the Ambassador Theatre (219 W. 49th St., NYC) through Sunday, February 28, 2016.
Now, we say that it’s surprising because if you haven’t been closely watching George’s career then you would have no idea that he is no stranger to the theatre. Like, at all. He has actually done some great works that include a range from Shakespeare to Suzan Lori-Parks. Need more details? Yeah. We did, too. It’s actually quite impressive but we’ll hold out to see his work in January before we make any judgements. Below you’ll find his bio. (Oh, & FYI George is also the husband of Taj George who is known as 1/3 of hit R&B group SWV)
Eddie George makes his Broadway debut in Chicago following stage appearances in such works as Matthew Lopezs The Whipping Man (Nashville Repertory Theatre), Suzan-Lori Parks Topdog/Underdog(Amun Ra Theatre) and in the title roles of both Othello and Julius Caesar at the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. His transition to the stage completes the journey that he began following the conclusion of his NFL playing career, which saw him providing commentary and analysis for the Tennessee Titans and FOX’s college football coverage. George won screen time in such TV series as NBC’s “American Dream Builders” and in such films as “Best Man Holiday” and “The Game Plan.” Since then, George has worked to refine his craft onstage, including not only the credits indicated above, but also work with his Nashville-based theatrical troupe, Actors By George, which he founded in 2012. Eddie George won the Heisman Trophy in 1995 while playing for the Ohio State University. That honor served as the prelude to a nine-year career in the NFL, which saw him lead the Tennessee Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV and selected to the Pro Bowl for four consecutive years, finishing his career with the Dallas Cowboys under legendary coach Bill Parcells. Since the conclusion of his playing career, George has additionally received his MBA from Northwestern University and founded Edward George Wealth Management Group. He resides in Nashville with his wife of 11 years, Tamara Johnson, and his family. He is on the board of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville.
We previously reported that reality television star NeNe Leakes would be joining the show as well. However, she will join as “Matron ‘Mama’ Morton” and will complete her run before George joins in January. So, it’s a good reason to see the show at the end of the year and at the beginning, it seems.
With a legendary book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, Chicago is now the #1 longest-running American musical in Broadway history. The winner of six 1997 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Cast Recording. Set amidst the razzle-dazzle decadence of the 1920s, Chicago is the story of Roxie Hart, a housewife and nightclub dancer who murders her on-the-side lover after he threatens to walk out on her. Desperate to avoid conviction, she dupes the public, the media and her rival cellmate, Velma Kelly, by hiring Chicagos slickest criminal lawyer to transform her malicious crime into a barrage of sensational headlines, the likes of which might just as easily be ripped from today’s tabloids.
Broadway Bound
Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play Will Transfer To Broadway & Put Him in the History Books
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 Nobile, Jana Shea, Troy Carter, Level 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
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.”
Broadway Bound
Michael Jackson Bio-Musical Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough Will Open in Chicago Ahead of Broadway
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.