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Exclusive: Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) is a sensation as her voice soars through the London Palladium’s auditorium — and beyond — portraying Eva Perón in Evita, the classic Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd-Webber show directed by Jamie Lloyd. Also, Zegler, all 5-foot-2 of her, is the biggest star in town, with punters adding $200,000 and more to the box office daily since previews began a week ago, bringing the total advance, as of late Friday afternoon UK time, to in excess of $9 million for a 12-week summer run.

Broadway might get a taste of Zegler’s “highflying, adored” Evita, as one of the show’s songs puts it, in 2027, but more on that farther down the column.

Michael Harrison, who produces Evita for the Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals partnership along with the director’s Jamie Lloyd Company, declines to discuss the production’s box office figures, though he agrees that they’re “healthy.

Ann Morrison will lead the National Tour of Kimberly Akimbo, in the title role, beginning next month. Morrison will join the cast starting on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 in Cleveland, Oh. Carolee Carmello will play her final performance on Sunday, July 27, 2025. Ann Morrison is best known for originating the role of Mary Flynn in the legendary Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway, directed by Hal Prince—a performance that earned her a Theatre World Award. Her Broadway credits also include Hal Prince’s LoveMusik and Children and Art. In London’s West End, she starred as Peg in the original musical Peg. Off-Broadway, she received a Drama Desk nomination for her performance as Lizzie in the original...

At last year’s Tony Awards, Danya Taymor took Broadway’s biggest night by surprise with her victory for directing Best Musical winner The Outsiders. Only 18 Gold Derby users were predicting her to prevail, favoring instead Maria Friedman for Best Musical Revival winner Merrily We Roll Along and Michael Greif, a theater veteran looking for his first-ever Tony for musical Hell’s Kitchen.

Now on her second Tony nomination in as many years, Taymor looks to pull off another unexpected victory, this time for new play John Proctor Is the Villain. Even though Oh, Mary! helmer Sam Pinkleton is out front in Gold Derby’s odds, our users are not underestimating Taymor again, as she ranks second in the category with a contingent of backers. If she wins again this year, she would make Tony Awards history.

Watch our interview with Tony nominee Sadie Sink, ‘John Proctor is the Villain...

Director Jamie Lloyd is, to say the least, very busy these days. In four days his radical, magnificent Broadway reworking of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Blvd. will be competing for seven Tony Awards, including one for his direction, one each for his two stars Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis, and one for Best Musical Revival. Then there’s Evita, another Lloyd Webber classic getting the Jamie Lloyd treatment for a June 14 preview date at the London Palladium, with opening night on July 1. That one has Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón, Diego Andres Rodriguez as Che and James Olivas as Juan Perón.

And of course there’s Waiting for Godot, set for Broadway this fall at the Hudson Theatre. The stars? None other than Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, those old Bill and Ted buddies who just might have more in common with Beckett’s tragicomic tramps than you ever imagined.

Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy and Obie Award-winning actress known for playing eccentric characters on shows including Northern Exposure and Desperate Housewives, died on Friday. She was 71.

Her husband, actor Joseph Kell, said she died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer, Variety reports.

Mahaffey won an Emmy in 1992 for her supporting actress role in the dramedy Northern Exposure, where she portrayed the hypochondriac Eve, the wife of Adam Arkin’s character, from 1991-1994.

Mahaffey’s recurring television roles include portraying the conniving Alma Hodge, the ex-wife of Orson Hodge...

Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-winning actor known for such TV series as “Northern Exposure,” “Big Sky” and “Desperate Housewives” and films including “Sully” and “Seabiscuit,” has died. She was 71.

Mahaffey’s husband, actor Joseph Kell, disclosed that she died May 30 in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer.

“I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actresses. She will be missed,” Kell said.

Mahaffey won the supporting comedy actress Emmy in 1992 for her work as a hypochondriac Eve in the fictional Alaskan town featured in CBS’ fish-out-of-water dramedy “Northern Exposure,” which aired from 1990 to 1995.

Most recently, Mahaffey was seen in the Apple TV+ series “Echo 3” and the 2020 indie film “French Exit” opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges. For the latter, she earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her role as the optimstic Madame Reynard in Azazel Jacobs’ dark comedy.

She co-starred...

Valerie Mahaffey, the Emmy-winning actress known for her work on such shows as Northern Exposure, Desperate Housewives, Young Sheldon and Dead to Me, died Friday. She was 71.

Mahaffey died in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer, publicist Jillian Roscoe announced.

Known for playing eccentric characters, Mahaffey received a Spirit Award nomination for her turn as widowed American expat Madame Reynard in French Exit (2020) opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges as mother and son.

From 1991-94, she appeared on five episodes of CBS’ Northern Exposure over three seasons and received a supporting actress Emmy in 1992 for portraying the hypochondriac Eve, wife of Adam Arkin’s character.

She played the manipulative Alma Hodge, ex-wife of Kyle MacLachlan’s Orson Hodge, on ABC’s Desperate Housewives from 2006-07; recurred as the teacher Victoria MacElroy on CBS’ Young Sheldon from 2017-20; and played Lorna Harding, Christina Applegate’s narcissistic mother-in-law, on Netflix’s...

Gavin Creel will receive the Harold S. Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement (posthumously) and stage and screen star Brian Stokes Mitchell will receive the William Wolf Award at the 69th Annual Drama Desk Awards, being held on Sunday, June 1 at NYU Skirball. See the full list of nominees Here! Staci Levine and Jessica R. Jenen return as co-executive producers of the Awards. Beginning with the 2020 ceremony, the Drama Desk has honored the memory of legendary director and producer Harold Prince with the presentation of the Harold S. Prince Award, recognizing an individual for a lifetime achievement of outstanding contributions to the New York theatre. The director-producer-writer posthumously received the inaugural, namesake honor. <br...

Charles Strouse, the famed Broadway composer who received Tony Awards for his scores for Bye Bye Birdie, Applause and Annie, died Thursday at his home in New York City, his family announced. He was 96.

A member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Theater Hall of Fame, Strouse wrote music for more than a dozen Broadway shows.

He and lyricist Martin Charnin were responsible for the immortal tunes “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard Knock Life” from Annie, and he and his most frequent collaborator, lyricist Lee Adams, partnered on such classic show tunes as “Put on a Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie, “You’ve Got Possibilities” from It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman and “This Is the Life” from Golden Boy.

Asked by Playbill in 2009 why he got into the theater, Strouse replied: “You can make a lot of money and you meet beautiful girls.

“They’d be silly not to be skeptical, but luckily this movie just happens to have one of the best fan bases,” says Noel Carey, one-half of the Tony-nominated composing team responsible for bringing the cult-classic 1992 film Death Becomes Her to Broadway. Although screen-to-stage adaptations are always dicey propositions, he shares that diehard fans have embraced the musical: “They are really excited about the changes and the nods to the film and instead of getting the movie twice, they’re just getting another Death Becomes Her.” Carey and other creatives from the production sat down with Gold Derby and other journalists at the 2025 Tony Awards Meet the Nominees press event.

Fellow lyricist and composer Julia Mattison believes the reason why this theatrical treatment of the material has been so well received is because she and Carey feel just as passionately about the original movie as decades-long fans do. She explains,...

Three-time Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Robert Benton, who helmed the 1979 best picture Oscar winner “Kramer vs. Kramer” as well as such films as “The Late Show,” “Places in the Heart” and “Nobody’s Fool” and collaborated on the screenplay for “Bonnie and Clyde,” died Sunday in Manhattan. He was 92.

His death was confirmed to the New York Times by his assistant and manager Marisa Forzano.

Benton, who started out as an art director at Esquire magazine, was partnered early on with fellow Esquire alumnus David Newman. They penned the innovative, award-winning 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde,” which launched both their careers. They gradually diverged as Benton expanded into directing starting with “Bad Company,” starring Jeff Bridges.

After “Kramer,” he continued to turn out dramatic films, which he often wrote as well as directed. He brought Oscar fortune to actors including Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Sally Field, John Malkovich, Jane Alexander and Paul Newman,...

“Broadway was always the dream and I got a detour into TV,” reveals Marco Pennette. The writer has amassed a successful career in television, writing for comedies like Ugly Betty, Mom, and B Positive, but all the while he admits, “I was always kind of like lip syncing to Dreamgirls in my underwear in my room.” Pennette finally combined his love of theater with his comedic chops as the book writer for the Broadway hit Death Becomes Her. As he tells Gold Derby, the writer has none other than Hal Prince to thank for finally fulfilling his musical comedy dreams.

As a young teen, Pennette had ambitions to become a theater director. So he wrote a letter to Prince, the legendary 21-time Tony winner, for advice. During a family dinner, the phone rang and Prince’s assistant was on the other line. Prince wanted to schedule a meeting with the boy the next day.

Harvey Fierstein will receive the 2025 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.

Fierstein has won four Tony Awards, including two for Torch Song Trilogy, the 1982 play he wrote and made his Broadway debut in, which broke ground for its portrayal of gay culture, including the protaganist’s longing to have a family, and its inclusion of topics including gay marriage, adoption and bisexuality.

He also won Tony Awards for writing the best book of a musical for La Cage Aux Folles and best actor in a musical for Hairspray, where he originated the role of Tracy’s mother, Edna Turnblad.

Fierstein also wrote the book for the Tony Award winning musical Kinky Boots as well as Newsies and wrote Casa Valentina, A Catered Affair, Safe Sex, Bella Bella!, Legs Diamond, Spookhouse, Flatbush Tosca, Common Ground and more. He also revised the book for the recent Broadway revival of Funny Girl.

Exclusive: Rachel Zegler, star of Steven Spielberg’s screen version of West Side Story and the soon-to-be-released Disney live-action movie Snow White, will make her London theater debut as Eva Perón in a revival of the garlanded Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita, director Jamie Lloyd confirmed to Deadline on Friday.

The show will play at the fabled London Palladium for a limited 12-week summer season, with performances from June 14 through September 6.

Reached in New York where he’s meeting with actors being considered for other key roles, an excited Lloyd described Zegler as a “phenomenal talent” who will “blow the roof off the London Palladium.”

Complex negotiations to bring Zegler, an American of Colombian and Polish descent, to the West End were completed a few days ago. She will be among the highest-paid stars on the London stage this season.

‘West Side Story’

Lloyd told me that...

Tony Roberts, the urbane supporting actor known for his collaborations with Woody Allen in six films — including the Oscar best picture winner Annie Hall — and two Broadway plays, died Friday. He was 85.

Roberts died of complications from lung cancer at his home in Manhattan, his daughter, Nicole Burley, told The New York Times.

From Take Her, She’s Mine in 1961 to The Royal Family in 2009, Roberts appeared on Broadway 23 times. In between, he stepped in for Robert Redford in the original production of Neil Simon‘s Barefoot in the Park, directed by Mike Nichols.

In the long-running 1969-70 Broadway hit Play It Again, Sam, written by and starring Allen, Roberts portrayed Dick Christie, whose wife has an affair with his best friend, the magazine writer Allan Felix (Allen).

After Roberts received a best actor Tony nom for his performance, he and Allen reprised their roles for the 1972 movie version at Paramount...

A touching dedication at the end of Kiss of the Spider Woman reads simply: “For Fred, Terrence and Chita.” That would be lyricist Fred Ebb, playwright Terrence McNally and original star Chita Rivera, key figures behind the 1993 Broadway musical, alongside composer John Kander and stage director Harold Prince. The show won seven Tony Awards and ran for just over two years, though critics and audiences were divided, and it’s mostly considered a second-tier musical by the standards of Kander and Ebb, the celebrated team behind Cabaret and Chicago.

Bill Condon sets himself a tough assignment trying to transform the tricky material into a great movie musical, but thanks in part to laudable work from his three leads, he occasionally comes close. The writer-director revisits an idea that worked well in his screenplay for 2002’s Chicago — paralleling squalor and splendor, with central characters stuck in grim reality seeking escape through Golden Age Hollywood musical fantasy.

Exclusive: Ariana DeBose sure had some exciting news to share last night. “Fingers crossed,” come this summer she will star in the Jamie Lloyd-directed revival of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita at the iconic London Palladium, she told me exclusively.

The Oscar-winning star confirmed whispers I’d been hearing on the grapevine, although she cautioned that she has to clear it first with producers and partners of other projects that she’s working on.

“We’re 70% there,” DeBose told me as we chatted at the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group party at Lavo, on Sunset Boulevard.

Ariana DeBose

Universal was celebrating the cinematic and box-office achievement win for the musical Wicked and Peter Straughan’s best screenplay win for Edward Berger’s Focus Features movie Conclave. There was no getting away from the fact that Universal’s The Wild Robot, one of the year’s most enchanting films,...

The talented actress Linda Lavin passed away on Sunday in Los Angeles. She was best known for her role as a single mother in the hit sitcom “Alice.” She was 87 years old. A representative for Lavin said that she died from problems related to her lung cancer, which had just been diagnosed.

The entertainment business was shocked by her death because she was still working up to the end. She went to the opening of her new Netflix series “No Good Deed” in Hollywood on December 4, just a few weeks before she passed away.

Lavin’s career spanned seven decades and showed how well she could switch between theater, film, and television. She became a well-known supporter of women’s rights, especially at work. In 1976, she played Alice Hyatt on CBS’s “Alice,” her most famous role. The person in the story was a single mother working as a waitress...

“Life is a cabaret, old chum,” a mindful lyric from the iconic Cabaret, performed by Liza Minnelli, perfectly encapsulates the vibrant spirit with which Linda Lavin lived her life. Alas, the world lost a theater giant on December 29, 2024, when Lavin passed away at the age of 87 due to complications from lung cancer.

Known to millions for her unforgettable portrayal of Alice on the beloved CBS sitcom, she was far more than just the face behind a diner waitress.

Linda Lavin in The Back-up Plan (2010) | Credit: CBS Films

From musicals like A Family Affair to the quirky, It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman, Lavin brought an energy to the stage that was impossible to ignore. She was a true chameleon, a woman who could transition from drama to comedy without breaking a sweat.

As we bid farewell to the legendary star who passed away at 87, let...

Linda Lavin, the Tony-winning actress who spent nine seasons serving up meals with a side order of sass as the waitress Alice Hyatt on the hit CBS sitcom Alice, died Sunday. She was 87.

Lavin died unexpectedly in Los Angeles of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her rep told The Hollywood Reporter.

Hal Prince gave Lavin her first big break, pulling her out of the chorus and giving her a speaking part on Broadway in 1962, and she worked twice with Neil Simon, earning the first of her six career Tony nominations for playing the sexpot Elaine in 1970’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers and then winning in 1987 for her turn as the strong-willed Kate in Broadway Bound.

A native of Maine, Lavin had recurred as feisty Det. Janice Wentworth on the first two seasons of ABC’s Barney Miller when she was hired in 1976 to topline Alice, created by Robert Getchell.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, one of the most successful musicals in Broadway history when it ended its 35-year run in 2023, is coming back to North America in a tour featuring a reconfigured version.

The multi-year tour, which will launch at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre in November 2025, will feature Maria Björnson’s original design, be directed by Seth Sklar-Heyn (based on the original direction by Harold Prince) with the choreography of Gillian Lynne recreated and adapted by Chrissie Cartwright.

The touring production is based on a staging that debuted in London in 2021 following the Covid pandemic shutdown. The new, more economical version, still running in London, features a smaller orchestra and a redesigned set.

Additional tour cities and casting will be announced at a later date. Potential Broadway or New York plans were not addressed in today’s announcement.

Producer Cameron Mackintosh said today in a statement,...

In stunning and sad news, Gavin Creel, one of Broadway’s most popular and acclaimed leading men, died in Manhattan today just two months after being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of sarcoma. He was 48.

His death was confirmed by his partner Alex Temple Ward. Creel had undergone treatment at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering for metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma after being diagnosed in July. After his treatment at the hospital, he transitioned to hospice care at his home.

One of Broadway’s top musical theater artists, Creel made his Broadway debut in 2002 in a lead role of Thoroughly Modern Millie, earning a Tony Award nomination, a feat he’d repeat seven years later in what would become a signature performance as Claude in the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair.

From 2012 to 2015, he starred as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon, a role he’d...

Merrily We Roll Along closed out its Broadway run with a new high of $2.77 million, which the production says is the highest grossing week ever for any Stephen Sondheim musical on Broadway.

The revival, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez, ended its run July 7, after opening at the Hudson Theatre in October 2023. The revival has continued to break box office records at the theater and has seen a particular rise in grosses in recent weeks, after the production won best revival of a musical at the June 16 Tony Awards, where both Radcliffe and Groff also took home trophies, and as it neared its closing date.

Capacity has been at 100 percent every week of run. And the average ticket price has also increased, alongside its popularity, to reach a new high of $357.94 in its final week.

While Sondheim musicals did not traditionally fare well at the box office in their original runs,...

At this year’s Tony Awards “Suffs” managed to win prizes for Best Musical Book and Best Score, both of which went to Shaina Taub. Historically, winning those two accolades in particular would bode well for a show’s chances at Best Musical. Yet in a shocking turn of events, the top award went to “The Outsiders.” But this is not the first time something like this has happened.

SEETony Awards: Every winner (and nominee) in all 26 competitive categories

In 1978 “On the Twentieth Century” won Tonys for Best Score and Best Book (Comden and Green). It also won Best Actor in a Musical (John Cullum), Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Kevin Kline), and Best Scenic Design (Robin Wagner). Yet Best Musical that year went to Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby Jr.‘s revue “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” A tribute to the music of Fats Waller, it also won Tonys for Best...

At the beginning of Act Two of “Merrily We Roll Along,” Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, Lindsay Mendez and other ensemble members sing “It’s A Hit!,” celebrating the successful opening of characters Charlie and Frank’s first Broadway musical. Indeed, one could say the same about this revival of “Merrily,” not just because of its smash box office receipts, but also because of the seven Tony Awards nominations that it received on April 30. This recognition from New York theatre’s highest honor is a true redemption for the show, whose original production was a notorious flop for composer Stephen Sondheim and director Hal Prince that ran only 16 regular performances and earned only a single bid for Sondheim’s original score. But how does this production’s Tony success compare to other recent revivals of the late composer’s works?

The seven nominations “Merrily” received are for Best Musical Revival, three...

When the Tony Award nominations dust settled “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Stereophonic” received the most nominations with 13 each, followed by “The Outsiders” with 12, followed by the revivals of “Cabaret” with nine and “Appropriate” earning eight. Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose returns as host of the third consecutive year of the Tony Awards which CBS and Pluto will telecast June 16th from Lincoln Center.

How well to you know your Tony history? Here are some fun facts about the latest crop of nominees.

The revival of Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 musical “Merrily We Roll Along” earned seven nominations including best revival of a musical, best performance by an actor in a musical for Jonathan Groff, featured actor for Daniel Radcliffe, featured actress for Lindsay Mendez and best director for Maria Friedman (her sister Sonia Friedman is nominated for outstanding play for “Stereophonic”). The troubled original production of “Merrily We Roll Along’ only received a Tony nomination for original score.

Eddie Redmayne received his second Tony Award nomination Tuesday, for his role as the shape-shifting Emcee in the Broadway revival of Cabaret.

It’s a role the actor, known for leading films such as The Theory of Everything and in the Fantastic Beasts series, played during the production’s previous West End run. And while he’s already put his own spin on it, with the Emcee evolving from master of ceremonies at the Berlin nightclub at the center of the show to something more sinister, Redmayne said he’s still finding more to explore.

“He’s so enigmatic that he’s endlessly compelling to keep trying to mine and investigate,” Redmayne said.

Part of that exploration also comes as this Cabaret has the audience sitting surrounding the stage, and in a theater has been transformed with three levels of bars, which are used for a pre-show. All of this...

With the 96th Academy Awards in the history books, it’s time to become obsessed over the 77th Tony Awards. Nominations are April 30th with the awards set to air on CBS on June 16 from Lincoln Center. Among the contenders for Tony nominations are many musicals based on movies including “Back to the Future,’ “The Notebook,” “Water for Elephants” and “The Outsiders”: high profile revivals such as Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” with Jeremy Strong; “Cabaret” with Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne and the Who’s “Tommy”; imports from London and transfers from off-Broadway.

Do you remember the Tony landscape 50 years ago? The 28th annual honors took place April 21, 1974, at the Shubert Theater and aired on ABC. And to say it was a star-studded affair is something of an understatement. Robert Preston, Peter Falk, Cicely Tyson, Florence Henderson hosted; presenters included Al Pacino –-let’s hope he had better...

Exclusive: Eric Anthony Lopez has signed with Sovereign Talent Group’s theatrical division.

Lopez is best known for playing school jock bully Syd in Disney Studios pic Chang Can Dunk, produced by Lena Waithe and written and directed by first-time director Jingyi Shao.

Lopez is also known for his work on the stage. He made his Broadway debut as Passarino in Broadway’s The Phantom of The Opera, directed by Harold Prince with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Lopez’s television credits include the season of I Can See Your Voice on Fox , The Show Must Go On on AppleTV+ and City of Mercy.

LA-based Sovereign Talent Group represents the likes of Oscar nominee Eric Roberts, Valeria Lamm and Chris Doubek.

Lopez continues to be repped by Rcg (Rebel Creative Group) & Kapr.

Chita Rivera, the sultry singer, dancer and actress who commanded the Broadway stage for more than a half-century, has died. She was 91.

Rivera died peacefully in New York on Tuesday, following a brief illness, her daughter, Lisa Mordente, shared in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

Known for her long, sleek legs, smoldering green eyes and lusty singing voice, the two-time Tony Award winner originated some of musical theater’s most iconic characters.

When West Side Story bowed in 1957, it was Rivera singing about life in America as the fiery Puerto Rican transplant Anita. As Rose Grant, the long-suffering girlfriend of songwriter Albert Peterson, Rivera received top billing over Dick Van Dyke in 1960’s Bye Bye Birdie. In 1975, she made the stage sizzle with “All That Jazz” as Velma Kelly in Chicago. And the 1993 musical adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman put her in the spotlight as the sexy Spider Woman.

Martin McCallum, a British theatrical producer whose work on more than 500 Broadway and West End shows saw his participation in some of the most successful stage productions in modern theater history, died peacefully, surrounded by family, on January 14 in Sydney, Australia. He was 73.

His death was announced by his family. A cause was not disclosed.

The President of the Society of London Theatre from 1999 to 2002 and a member of the Broadway League since 1988, McCallum made an indelible mark on Broadway with massive hits, critical favorites and even two high-profile flops.

His impact on the London theater scene was even greater. Born in Blackpool on April 6, 1950, McCallum began his stage career as an assistant stage manager at the Castle Theatre Farnham,...

There’s an independently financed feature take of the 1992 John Kander and Fred Ebb West End and Broadway musical of Kiss of the Spider Woman that’s being readied to shoot in the spring with Jennifer Lopez set to play the role of Aurora, which Chita Rivera originated on the Great White Way.

Lopez is ripe to put on the high heels for the role: The Billboard hitmaker, Primetime Emmy nominee, 2x Golden nominee sings, and dances too.

Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast filmmaker Bill Condon is writing and directing, and Barry Josephson (Enchanted) is producing with Tom Kirdahy, Greg Yolen and Matt Geller. Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith Thomas and Benny Medina executive producing for Nuyorican Productions. Sergio Trujillo is the choreographer.

The musical is based on the Oscar winning 1985 Hector Babenco directed movie that starred Sonja Braga as the Spider-Woman, as well as the late Raul Julia and William Hurt.

Joanna Merlin, who created the role of the daughter Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway and served as a casting director for Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince and Bernardo Bertolucci, has died. She was 92.

Merlin died Sunday in Los Angeles of complications from myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disorder, her daughters, documentary filmmaker Rachel Dretzin (Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey) and actress Julie Dretzin (The Handmaid’s Tale), announced.

Merlin also portrayed the dance teacher Miss Berg in Alan Parker’s Fame (1980) and recurred as Judge Lena Petrovsky for more than a decade on NBC’s Law and Order: Svu.

Her acting résumé included the films Hester Street (1975), All That Jazz (1979), Baby It’s You (1983), The Killing Fields (1984), Mystic Pizza (1988), Class Action (1991) and City of Angels (1998) and such TV shows as Naked City, The Defenders, East Side/West Side, Homeland and The Good Wife.

Merlin cast the original Broadway productions of Sondheim’s Company,...

Joanna Merlin, original Fiddler On The Roof star and longtime Law & Order: Svu judge, has died. She was 92.

Her death was announced on the Instagram page of the New York University Tisch Graduate Acting Program, where Merlin had been on the faculty since 1998. A cause of death has not been given.

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“Joanna was an actress, master Chekhov teacher and former casting director for Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Bernardo Bertolucci and James Ivory,...

Joanna Merlin, known for her roles on Broadway, in the film Fame and as non-nonsense Judge Lena Petrovsky in TV’s Law & Order: Svu, has passed away at 92. Her death was announced by the New York University Tisch Graduate Acting Program, where she had been a faculty member since 1998. “Joanna was an actress, master Chekhov teacher, and former casting director for Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Bernardo Bertolucci, and James Ivory,” the NYU statement said. “Joanna will be deeply missed at Grad Acting, by the Chekhov community, and by the many people she touched through her artistry.” Merlin, renowned for her work as a casting director, played a pivotal role in casting for several iconic Broadway productions by Stephen Sondheim. She served as the trusted casting director for Harold Prince for many years. A specific cause of death has yet to be disclosed. Born Joann Ratner in Chicago on July...

Joanna Merlin, whose acting career stretched from Broadway (she was the original Tzeitel in Fiddler On The Roof), film (she played the dance teacher Miss Berg in Alan Parker’s 1980 film Fame) and TV (Law & Order: SVU‘s Judge Lena Petrovsky on dozens of episodes) has died. She was 92.

Her death was announced on the Instagram page of the New York University Tisch Graduate Acting Program, where Merlin had been on the faculty since 1998.

“Joanna was an actress, master Chekhov teacher, and former casting director for Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Bernardo Bertolucci, and James Ivory,” the NYU message said, adding, “Joanna will be deeply missed at Grad Acting, by the Chekhov community, and by the many people she touched through her artistry.”

As a casting director, Merlin was involved in numerous landmark Broadway productions written by Stephen Sondheim. She was, for many years, Harold Prince’s go-to casting director.

A...

Irony dwells in the bones of "Merrily We Roll Along," a musical that plays backward in time. The 1981 sinking of the original Broadway production of "Merrily We Roll Along" is a chaos best told by the documentary "Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened." The critics and audience were reportedly baffled by the reverse chronological storytelling and director Hal Prince's purposefully amateurish methodology, which casts high schoolers and young adults playing fortysomethings aging down to twentysomethings. It closed down after 44 previews and 16 performances. The loss demoralized the creatives so much that lyricist-composer Stephen Sondheim and Prince — mavericks who birthed successes like "Company" and "Sweeney Todd" — halted their collaboration for years. This short-lived run underscores the musical's themes: friendships breaking up and showbiz realities thwarting artistic plans.

Away from Prince's high-schoolish shell, major productions have repackaged "Merrily." This material also turned out to be a fitting endeavor for filmmaker Richard Linklater,...

What a difference 40 years makes. After opening to pans and a run of only 16 official performances in 1981, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical “Merrily We Roll Along” has been remounted on Broadway for the very first time. Maria Friedman has stepped into the director role once occupied by Sondheim’s frequent collaborator Hal Prince — “Merrily” was their first flop after an impressive string of successful shows in the 70s. The revival opened on Oct. 10 at the Hudson Theatre for a run slated to end in March.

“Merrily” boasts marquee names Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe. The trio play Franklin Shepard, Mary Flynn, and Charley Kringas, respectively, the three creatives at the heart of the musical that’s told in reverse over the course of 20+ years. It begins in a moment of personal and professional disillusionment and estrangement and unspools to a simpler, earlier time when their friendships...

Stephen Sondheim has almost never been more popular than in the two years since his passing in November 2021. In that time, celebrated revivals of “Company,” “Into the Woods,” and “Sweeney Todd” have come to Broadway, and successful remounting of “Assassins” and “Merrily We Roll Along” have played Off-Broadway, which is a testament to the enduring appeal of his works.

This fall will once again spotlight Sondheim. The tremendously successful Off-Broadway run of “Merrily” starring Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe opens on Broadway on October 10, which will mark the first remounting since its original, unsuccessful run in 1981. In addition, his final musical “Here We Are,” which is based on two Luis Buñuel films—“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel”—will have its highly-anticipated world premiere Off-Broadway, opening on October 22.

In honor of another “season of Sondheim,” take a look back at every single Tony...

Major film and TV productions are currently on hold due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, but the New York theater scene is still as active as ever. A new Broadway season is upon us, and there are five musicals set to open this fall. Will they contend at next year’s Tony Awards? Below, we give you a preview of the plot of each musical as well as the awards history of its author, cast and creative teams, plus the opening and (where applicable) closing dates.

“Merrily We Roll Along”

The first Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1981 musical adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart‘s 1934 play spans three decades in the entertainment industry and charts the relationship between composer Franklin Shepard and his two friends — writer Mary and lyricist and playwright Charley. The original production directed by Hal Prince only ran for 16 performances,...

Franne Lee, a Tony-winning costumer and set designer who joined the fledgling Saturday Night Live and created the looks of some of the NBC’s late-night show’s most iconic characters, including the Coneheads, the Nerds, the Killer Bees and the Blues Brothers, died August 27 in Atlantis, Florida, following a brief illness. She was 81.

Her death was announced by her daughter Stacy Sandler.

Lee was one of the top costume designers on Broadway in the 1970s, winning Tony Awards for in 1974 and 1979 for two musicals directed by Harold Prince: Candide and the original production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She also shared a ’74 Candide Tony for Best Scenic Design with her then romantic and professional partner, the acclaimed set designer Eugene Lee.

Her work on Candide was noticed by Lorne Michaels, who was putting together the original creative team for his new comedy show Saturday Night Live.

Hulu’s acclaimed “Only Murders in the Building,” currently vying for 11 Emmys, has gone all razzle dazzle in its third season. Make that rattle dazzle! Beleaguered Broadway director Oliver (Martin Short) was hoping for a comeback on the Great White Way with the mystery thriller “Death Rattle.” But when his leading man (Paul Rudd) is murdered, he decides to turn the straight play into a musical, “Death Rattle Dazzle!” And in the third episode, Meryl Streep’s nervous journeyman actress and Ashley Park’s leading lady performed the show-stopping ballad “Look for the Light” co-written by Sara Bareilles. One almost forgot the prime suspects in “Death Rattle Dazzle!” are the infant Pickwick triplets.

The 1959 multiple Tony winner “Redhead” also has a rather strange plot for a musical: a serial killer is stalking women in London in the 1880s during the time Jack the Ripper was terrorizing the city. Sounds like a real toe-tapper.

UK Agency Insanity Group Restructures Entertainment Team

UK agency Insanity Group, which represents the likes of Maya Jama and Alice Levine, has restructured its entertainment division. Helen Gleave has been promoted to Group Managing Director with responsibility for leading the entertainment team and wider business, while Issy Lloyd and Neil Ransome are also promoted. All three have been at the outfit for more than a decade. Founder andd CEO Andy Varley called the trio “exceptionally strategic and forward-thinking executives.” Insanity launched in 1997 and has offices in London and LA, with clients including Jama, Levine and Mollie King, along with musicians.

Eric Anthony Lopez Inks Deal Reload Management

Exclusive: Actor Eric Anthony Lopez has signed with Reload Management. Lopez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is best known for starring in the Disney Studios pic Chang Can Dunk. He is also known for his work on stage. He made his Broadway...

New York City Opera’s Bryant Park summer series continues with Tenor Alessandro Lora in Concert on Saturday, August 19th at 7pm. An exciting young talent, tenor Alessandro Lora of Vicenza, Italy will perform a crowd-pleasing concert of diverse Italian repertoire including folk, popular, and traditional Neapolitan songs alongside operatic favorites, sure to delight the whole family. Featuring the New York City Opera Orchestra, the concert will be led by two great conductors, Maestro Maurizio Barbacini and Maestro Diego Basso, founder of the Orchestra Musico Sinfonica Italiana and the prestigious Art of Voice Academy. Produced in cooperation with Sandro di Benedetto, Bruno Benetti, and OneArt, the evening promises to be an unforgettable night of classic Italian romance and passion, sure to bring the audience to their feet.

Entry is on a first-come, first-served basis. Performances are designed to be enjoyed casually – no tickets required – with ample seating available and free...

Inga Swenson, the two-time Tony-nominated singer and actress who as the dictatorial German cook Gretchen Kraus sparred with Robert Guillaume‘s character on the 1980s ABC sitcom Benson, has died. She was 90.

Swenson died Sunday night of natural causes in hospice care in Los Angeles, her son, Mark Harris, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Swenson also sparkled in two critically acclaimed 1962 films released seven weeks apart — as the mother of Helen Keller (Patty Duke) in Arthur Penn’s The Miracle Worker (1962) and as the wife of a U.S. senator with a dark secret (Don Murray) in Otto Preminger’s political thriller Advise & Consent (1962).

On the strength of those performances, the Nebraska native — no, she was not born in Germany — was cast in 1963 as the spinster Lizzy in 110 in the Shade, based on N. Richard Nash’s play The Rainmaker. She received a Tony nomination for best actress in a musical for that performance,...

Jerome Coopersmith, who wrote more than 30 installments of the classic 1960s-70s police drama Hawaii Five-o and received a Tony Award nomination for his book for the 1965 Harold Prince-directed Sherlock Holmes musical Baker Street, died Friday in Rochester, NY. He was 97.

His family announced his death.

After earning a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge in 1945, Coopersmith also wrote, among other stage works, the first act of the 1966 three-part Mike Nichols-directed musical The Apple Tree, starring Barbara Harris and Alan Alda. The musical was revived for Broadway in 2006 by the Roundabout Theatre Company in a production that starred Kristin Chenoweth, Brian D’Arcy James and Marc Kudisch.

But Coopersmith was most prolific as a television writer. From his early days in the late 1940s and early 1950s contributing to such series as The Gabby Hayes Show, Johnny Jupitor and the religion-themed Lamp Unto My Feet, Coopersmith wrote...

Jerome Coopersmith, who received a Tony nomination for writing a 1965 Sherlock Holmes musical and penned more than two dozen episodes of the original Hawaii Five-o during the series’ first nine seasons, has died. He was 97.

Coopersmith died peacefully Friday in Rochester, New York, his family announced.

After earning a Purple Heart for his service during World War II, Coopersmith broke into television writing for quiz shows and historical programs. In the early 1950s, he and Horton Foote worked on the kids-focused Gabby Hayes Show and Johnny Jupiter, and the future Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winner behind To Kill a Mockingbird would become his mentor.

Coopersmith wrote 30 regular installments and two feature-length episodes of CBS’ Hawaii Five-o from 1968-76. Among those was the notable 1975 eighth-season installment Retire in Sunny Hawaii … Forever, which featured Helen Hayes in an Emmy-nominated guest-starring stint as the aunt of her real-life son, James MacArthur.

He then...

Mark Simon, a longtime casting director for stage productions on Broadway and at Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, died July 16 in Los Angeles. He was 70.

His death was confirmed by Broadway publicist Adrian Bryan-Brown.

Launching his theater career as assistant general manager at Manhattan Theatre Club, Simon subsequently worked at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater and for the Off-Off Broadway Alliance, now known as Art-ny.

Simon was a co-producer of the 1986 revival of Joe Orton’s Loot, directed by John Tillinger. The production started at the Manhattan Theatre Club Off Broadway and subsequently transferred to Broadway’s Music Box Theater with a cast including Zoë Wanamaker, Zeljko Ivanek and, in his Broadway debut, Alec Baldwin.

As the founder of Mark Simon Casting and, before that, as a casting director at Johnson/Liff & Associates, Binder Casting and Livent, Simon worked on such Broadway and Off Broadway productions as The Sweet Smell of Success and Ragtime.

Sheldon Harnick, the nimble lyricist who partnered with composer Jerry Bock to create the songs for some of Broadway’s greatest musicals, including Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and She Loves Me, has died Friday. He was 99.

Harnick died of natural causes at his apartment overlooking Central Park on the Upper West Side, spokesperson Sean Katz told The Hollywood Reporter.

Harnick, who credited actress Charlotte Rae for inspiring him to become a Broadway lyricist, had an uncanny knack of making it sound as if the singer were having a conversation with the audience. His lyrics for such tunes as “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” “She Loves Me” and “Little Tin Box” were simple and straightforward yet deeply moving at the same time.

“A theater lyricist is a playwright who writes short plays in verse that have to be set to music,” Harnick said in a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Treat Williams, the versatile actor who starred as a New York City neurosurgeon who moves his family to Colorado on the WB series Everwood and in such films as Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City and Milos Forman‘s Hair, died Monday in a motorcycle accident in Vermont. He was 71.

His agent, Barry McPherson of APA, confirmed Williams’ death in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

Williams, of Manchester Center, Vermont, was aboard a motorcycle and wearing a helmet when he collided with a car on Route 30 near Dorset, the Vermont State Police said in a statement.

An initial investigation indicated that the driver of the car “stopped, signaled a left turn and then turned into the path of a northbound 1986 Honda VT700c motorcycle operated by Williams. Williams was unable to avoid a collision and was thrown from his motorcycle. He suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to Albany Medical Center in Albany,...