The new Broadway bio musical “Lempicka,” about the Polish Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka (“The Baroness with a Brush”), announced that it will play its final performance on May 19.
“Lempicka” opened last month to mixed-to-negative reviews and extremely divided feedback on social media. Eden Espinoza, who plays the title role (and received a Tony Award nomination last week for her performance), has missed a number of performances recently (including a performance that I was slated to attend).
It is not unusual for some struggling shows to announce that they will close immediately following the Tony Awards nominations announcement or the Tony Awards ceremony.
Alex Edelman receives Special Tony
Alex Edelman, the young Jewish standup comic who came to Broadway last summer with a limited run of his acclaimed monologue “Just for Us” (about his bizarre experience of attending a secret meeting of White Nationalists in Queens), has received a Special Tony Award for the show.
Although it only received a limited run, “Just for Us” was filmed for HBO and can be streamed through Max. Years ago, one-person shows would be considered as part of a competitive Special Theatrical Event category that has since been discontinued.
Hyland and Feldman will join ‘Little Shop’
Sarah Hyland (“Modern Family”) and Andrew Barth Feldman (“No Hard Feelings”) are set to join the long-running Off-Broadway revival of “Little Shop of Horrors” as Audrey and Seymour, respectively, beginning May 28.
In 2002, long before she became a TV star, Hyland played Annie in a Paper Mill Playhouse production of “Annie” and then went on to play a child version of Jackie Bouvier in “Grey Gardens” on Broadway.
Likewise, in 2018, Feldman won Best Actor at the National High School Musical Theatre Awards and went on to play Evan Hansen in “Dear Evan Hansen.” Jinkx Monsoon and Corbin Bleu will play their final performances as Audrey and Seymour on May 26.
LuPone and Farrow will return to Broadway
Not long ago, Patti LuPone dramatically announced that she had quit Actors’ Equity Association (the professional stage actors union), which brought into question whether she would be able to appear on Broadway again.
While her current union status remains unclear, LuPone will return to Broadway this summer alongside Mia Farrow in “The Roommate,” a new comedy by Jen Silverman and directed by Jack O’Brien, which will begin performances at the Booth Theatre (where “Kimberly Akimbo” just closed) on Aug. 29.
LuPone last appeared on Broadway as Joanne in “Company” in 2021, while Farrow last appeared on Broadway in a 2014 revival of A.R. Gurney’s two-hander “Love Letters” alongside Brian Dennehy.
‘Forbidden Broadway’ postpones Broadway run
The Broadway debut of “Forbidden Broadway,” which was slated to play the Hayes Theatre this summer following decades of on-and-off Off-Broadway runs and numerous updates, has been postponed.
“The Broadway landscape is enormously crowded at this moment,” the producers said in a statement, acknowledging the unusually large number of plays and musicals that opened last month, a few of which are already struggling at the box office.
Mel Brooks materializes on ‘Gutenberg!’ cast album
During its recent Broadway run, the two-hander musical comedy “Gutenberg! The Musical!” (which starred Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad) would feature a different celebrity cameo at the very end of many performances.
Those who took on the role of a Broadway producer who emerged from the audience included Nathan Lane, Anne Hathaway and Anna Wintour, Will Ferrell, Billy Crystal (twice), Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Santa Clause. On the show’s newly-released Broadway cast album, the role is played by none other than comedy legend Mel Brooks.
Interestingly, at one point, there were rumors that Rannells and Gad would co-star in a Broadway version of Brooks’ musical comedy “The Producers.”
