Exclusive: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has a warrant out, in a manner of speaking, for Broadway actors. Next week’s episode features Tony-nominated Hadestown actor Eva Noblezada and Beetlejuice himself Alex Brightman, and showrunner Warren Leight tells Deadline that’s just the beginning.
Last night, after the episode casting was announced, Leight tweeted, “We are trying to hire every Broadway actor we can while we and they wait for the curtains to rise again.” And he wasn’t joking.
“We know how hard the community has been hit here,” Leight said in an interview. “The goal is to get as many jobs to as many theater actors as we possibly can.”
The offer couldn’t come at a more opportune time. The National Endowment for the Arts recently released figures indicating that while the overall unemployment rate has averaged 8.5 percent, the average among actors was 52 percent.
The NBC New York-based L&o franchise has long been known as a steady source of employment for the city’s theater performers – rare is the stage actor whose Playbill credits don’t include at least one of the L&o series – but the pandemic has pushed Leight’s team to ramp up even those efforts for the current Season 22.
Stage actors already cast in parts for this season include the Tony-winning Adriane Lenox, Elizabeth Marvel, Jane Bruce (Jagged Little Pill), Jelani Alladin (Disney’s Frozen), Michael Mastro (Love! Valour! Compassion!), and Betsy Aidem (Steel Magnolias).
Even Raúl Esparza, a four-time Tony nominee known to the wider TV audience for his six-season Svu run as Assistant D.A. Rafael Barba, is making a temporary franchise comeback to reprise the role for this week’s episode “Sightless in a Savage Land.”
Leight says the Broadway-filled roles range in scope from one-day parts to more substantial turns, but have an important practical impact for the actors, adding to the work day minimums required for Actors Equity-Broadway League health insurance.
The casting offers a significant logistical benefit to the show as well: casting New York actors is the more practical and efficient option during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the prospect of long-distance flights from Hollywood and required quarantine protocols can complicate using Los Angeles-based actors.
“In the past we’ve done what you could call Hollywood stunt casting,” Leight says, “but a lot of those players aren’t going to be willing to get on a plane and quarantine right now. We realized early on that we’ll have to cast locally much more.”
The Broadway shutdown also allows the show to get around the planning issues that Broadway’s usual performance schedule demands: Coordinating a shoot around the identical eight-performance weeks of working stage actors like Noblezada and Brightman (who Leight says enact “a horribly failed virtual romance” in the Jan. 14 episode) is daunting. There’s only so much guest-starring that can be crammed into a dark Broadway Monday.
Yet another plus for the production: Stage actors, accustomed to the tightrope walk of eight shows a week, are what Leight calls “money players,” guest stars who “hit their marks and can do it over and over” quickly. With pandemic safety precautions enforced on set – minimal personal contact, Covid testing, noisy stop-and-start ventilation, among other things – the production, he says, “doesn’t have time for actors who need to find it.”
“Our directors need to know that [guest actors] can do two scenes with Olivia and not be nervous,” he adds, referring to star Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson character.
Leight himself has an extensive stage background, including his 1998 Tony-winning Best Play Side Man, a Pulitzer finalist that starred the Tony-winning Frank Wood.
And yes, Wood will be popping up on Svu this season. Leight says Svu‘s medical examiners office has been “augmented” to include a role for his old friend.
Leight’s Tuesday night tweet was met with a quick response from New York stage actors. Jennifer Mudge, whose Broadway and Off Broadway credits include Into The Woods, Rocky and The Philanthropist, tweeted, “Warren, I feel like now is the time to tell you that only Svu is missing from my L&o trifecta completion. (Mothership twice!),” to which Leight responded, “On it.”
Three-time Tony nominee Carolee Carmello tweeted a simple, “Much appreciated,” while West Side Story actor Danny Wolohan wrote, “Broadway’s Officer Krupke says thank you!”
And Chris Orbach – actor, writer, musician and, as the son of the late Jerry Orbach, a member of an L&o royal family – weighed in. “God love you,” he responded to Leight’s tweet. “You cats are good like that.”
Law & Order: Svu, from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, airs Thursdays at 9 pm on NBC.
Thank you, @warrenleightTV! My last L&o stint was an episode staring John Ritter! I think it's time I came back for a visit! ❤️
— Erin Leigh Peck (@ErinLeighPeck) January 6, 2021
God love you, you cats are good like that ❤️
— Chris Orbach (@chrisorbach) January 6, 2021...
Last night, after the episode casting was announced, Leight tweeted, “We are trying to hire every Broadway actor we can while we and they wait for the curtains to rise again.” And he wasn’t joking.
“We know how hard the community has been hit here,” Leight said in an interview. “The goal is to get as many jobs to as many theater actors as we possibly can.”
The offer couldn’t come at a more opportune time. The National Endowment for the Arts recently released figures indicating that while the overall unemployment rate has averaged 8.5 percent, the average among actors was 52 percent.
The NBC New York-based L&o franchise has long been known as a steady source of employment for the city’s theater performers – rare is the stage actor whose Playbill credits don’t include at least one of the L&o series – but the pandemic has pushed Leight’s team to ramp up even those efforts for the current Season 22.
Stage actors already cast in parts for this season include the Tony-winning Adriane Lenox, Elizabeth Marvel, Jane Bruce (Jagged Little Pill), Jelani Alladin (Disney’s Frozen), Michael Mastro (Love! Valour! Compassion!), and Betsy Aidem (Steel Magnolias).
Even Raúl Esparza, a four-time Tony nominee known to the wider TV audience for his six-season Svu run as Assistant D.A. Rafael Barba, is making a temporary franchise comeback to reprise the role for this week’s episode “Sightless in a Savage Land.”
Leight says the Broadway-filled roles range in scope from one-day parts to more substantial turns, but have an important practical impact for the actors, adding to the work day minimums required for Actors Equity-Broadway League health insurance.
The casting offers a significant logistical benefit to the show as well: casting New York actors is the more practical and efficient option during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the prospect of long-distance flights from Hollywood and required quarantine protocols can complicate using Los Angeles-based actors.
“In the past we’ve done what you could call Hollywood stunt casting,” Leight says, “but a lot of those players aren’t going to be willing to get on a plane and quarantine right now. We realized early on that we’ll have to cast locally much more.”
The Broadway shutdown also allows the show to get around the planning issues that Broadway’s usual performance schedule demands: Coordinating a shoot around the identical eight-performance weeks of working stage actors like Noblezada and Brightman (who Leight says enact “a horribly failed virtual romance” in the Jan. 14 episode) is daunting. There’s only so much guest-starring that can be crammed into a dark Broadway Monday.
Yet another plus for the production: Stage actors, accustomed to the tightrope walk of eight shows a week, are what Leight calls “money players,” guest stars who “hit their marks and can do it over and over” quickly. With pandemic safety precautions enforced on set – minimal personal contact, Covid testing, noisy stop-and-start ventilation, among other things – the production, he says, “doesn’t have time for actors who need to find it.”
“Our directors need to know that [guest actors] can do two scenes with Olivia and not be nervous,” he adds, referring to star Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson character.
Leight himself has an extensive stage background, including his 1998 Tony-winning Best Play Side Man, a Pulitzer finalist that starred the Tony-winning Frank Wood.
And yes, Wood will be popping up on Svu this season. Leight says Svu‘s medical examiners office has been “augmented” to include a role for his old friend.
Leight’s Tuesday night tweet was met with a quick response from New York stage actors. Jennifer Mudge, whose Broadway and Off Broadway credits include Into The Woods, Rocky and The Philanthropist, tweeted, “Warren, I feel like now is the time to tell you that only Svu is missing from my L&o trifecta completion. (Mothership twice!),” to which Leight responded, “On it.”
Three-time Tony nominee Carolee Carmello tweeted a simple, “Much appreciated,” while West Side Story actor Danny Wolohan wrote, “Broadway’s Officer Krupke says thank you!”
And Chris Orbach – actor, writer, musician and, as the son of the late Jerry Orbach, a member of an L&o royal family – weighed in. “God love you,” he responded to Leight’s tweet. “You cats are good like that.”
Law & Order: Svu, from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, airs Thursdays at 9 pm on NBC.
Thank you, @warrenleightTV! My last L&o stint was an episode staring John Ritter! I think it's time I came back for a visit! ❤️
— Erin Leigh Peck (@ErinLeighPeck) January 6, 2021
God love you, you cats are good like that ❤️
— Chris Orbach (@chrisorbach) January 6, 2021...
- 1/6/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
In the cottage industry that was "Law & Order," one show remains: "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
And this alone proves procedural shows can shine. Stories make sense, writing is tight, and actors are sharp. The result is a gritty drama celebrating its 300th episode Wednesday, Oct. 24.
Though the show shoots all over New York, its home base is a cavernous studio on a Hudson River pier. Here, actors, directors and producers speak with Zap2it while shooting the milestone episode.
This plot, as expected, deals with an excruciating topic -- kidnapping. As a dad bends down to retrieve a $20 bill on a subway platform, a stranger snatches his 7-year-old son and jumps onto a departing train.
The cops are off and running, stopping at nothing until they find the perps. Three actors have starred on the show since the 1999 premiere: Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer and Dann Florek as Detectives Olivia...
And this alone proves procedural shows can shine. Stories make sense, writing is tight, and actors are sharp. The result is a gritty drama celebrating its 300th episode Wednesday, Oct. 24.
Though the show shoots all over New York, its home base is a cavernous studio on a Hudson River pier. Here, actors, directors and producers speak with Zap2it while shooting the milestone episode.
This plot, as expected, deals with an excruciating topic -- kidnapping. As a dad bends down to retrieve a $20 bill on a subway platform, a stranger snatches his 7-year-old son and jumps onto a departing train.
The cops are off and running, stopping at nothing until they find the perps. Three actors have starred on the show since the 1999 premiere: Mariska Hargitay, Richard Belzer and Dann Florek as Detectives Olivia...
- 10/24/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
An old case is coming back to haunt Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) in the 300th episode of "Law & Order: Svu." How old? It's from the show's first episode thirteen years ago.
"Svu" is celebrating the milestone by remembering the past. The episode will be focused on original players Hargitay, Richard Belzer and Dann Florek.
“I thought, if we’re doing a 300th episode, it’d be nice to have some callbacks to the first episode. So we tried to do that a couple of different ways,” Leight told TVLine.
The episode will also feature many actors who appeared in the series' first episode, but they'll be playing different roles. Here's how NBC describes the episode:
In The Series' 300Th Episode, A Child Abduction Investigation Re-opens The Thirteen Year-old Cold Case Of Another Missing Boy In the series' landmark 300th episode, a young boy from Morningside Heights is kidnapped while in the care of his father,...
"Svu" is celebrating the milestone by remembering the past. The episode will be focused on original players Hargitay, Richard Belzer and Dann Florek.
“I thought, if we’re doing a 300th episode, it’d be nice to have some callbacks to the first episode. So we tried to do that a couple of different ways,” Leight told TVLine.
The episode will also feature many actors who appeared in the series' first episode, but they'll be playing different roles. Here's how NBC describes the episode:
In The Series' 300Th Episode, A Child Abduction Investigation Re-opens The Thirteen Year-old Cold Case Of Another Missing Boy In the series' landmark 300th episode, a young boy from Morningside Heights is kidnapped while in the care of his father,...
- 10/18/2012
- by Chris Harnick
- Huffington Post
Orbach's First Wife Defends Son's Attack On Widow
Latest: The first wife of late actor Jerry Orbach has rushed to the defence of her son after he lashed out at his father's widow over claims she cut him out of a multi-million dollar inheritance.
The actor's 39-year-old son, Chris Orbach, launched an attack against his stepmother Elaine Cancilla-Orbach on Monday.
In a scathing letter, which was made public, he accuses her of manipulating his father into cutting his children out of his $10 million (GBP5 million) estate - which will be held in a trust until her death.
Cancilla-Orbach refuted the claims telling the New York Post "I don't hate Chris but I don't understand why he's doing this. Everything he says is untrue."
And now Orbach's first wife Marta Curro - who shared two sons with the late actor - has stepped in to defend her son's claims admitting she advised him to write the letter.
She says, "I said be careful because she's not very smart. I said it may be best to write it and not send it. He sent me a copy of it. I was shocked by half the stuff in there. I know his feelings were very badly hurt. You know how people can equate money with love. I'm really thrilled that Chris is not a hypocrite. He was having a hard time sucking up to her."
And Curro added of her shock to discover her ex-husband's eyes had been donated to the Eye Bank of America - a decision Chris has publicly denounced.
She says, "I was sitting on the subway one time and I looked up and saw a picture of Jerry and it was the Eye Bank ad and I thought 'Nobody on this train knows how freaked out I am.'"
Orbach and Curro divorced in 1975 after 17 years together, though she insists the pair remained close despite his second marriage to Cancilla-Orbach in 1979: "He used to call me every Friday when she went out. Jerry and I were friends and I always laughed at this person (Cancilla-Orbach). But I stopped laughing when she started hurting my kids."
Orbach died of prostate cancer in 2004 at the age of 69.
The actor's 39-year-old son, Chris Orbach, launched an attack against his stepmother Elaine Cancilla-Orbach on Monday.
In a scathing letter, which was made public, he accuses her of manipulating his father into cutting his children out of his $10 million (GBP5 million) estate - which will be held in a trust until her death.
Cancilla-Orbach refuted the claims telling the New York Post "I don't hate Chris but I don't understand why he's doing this. Everything he says is untrue."
And now Orbach's first wife Marta Curro - who shared two sons with the late actor - has stepped in to defend her son's claims admitting she advised him to write the letter.
She says, "I said be careful because she's not very smart. I said it may be best to write it and not send it. He sent me a copy of it. I was shocked by half the stuff in there. I know his feelings were very badly hurt. You know how people can equate money with love. I'm really thrilled that Chris is not a hypocrite. He was having a hard time sucking up to her."
And Curro added of her shock to discover her ex-husband's eyes had been donated to the Eye Bank of America - a decision Chris has publicly denounced.
She says, "I was sitting on the subway one time and I looked up and saw a picture of Jerry and it was the Eye Bank ad and I thought 'Nobody on this train knows how freaked out I am.'"
Orbach and Curro divorced in 1975 after 17 years together, though she insists the pair remained close despite his second marriage to Cancilla-Orbach in 1979: "He used to call me every Friday when she went out. Jerry and I were friends and I always laughed at this person (Cancilla-Orbach). But I stopped laughing when she started hurting my kids."
Orbach died of prostate cancer in 2004 at the age of 69.
- 8/12/2008
- WENN
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