Welcome to The Callboard, Queerty’s curtain-raising theater news, where we share the latest news from Broadway and beyond. From casting announcements and openings to viral moments with our favorite stars, here’s a front-row seat to all the drama happening onstage and off!
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An astonishing 14 shows will open on Broadway this April, but the old standbys are still going strong. While The Phantom of the Opera’s chandelier crashed for the final time last spring after 13,981 performances, a few shows have dug in their character shoes for the long haul.
Aladdin celebrated its 10th anniversary by plopping a massive Genie lamp atop the New Amsterdam Theatre. The lamp spins and puffs smoke for Insta moments. Make a wish, and maybe the current Aladdin, Michael Maliakel, will make a special appearance. Stans of the show can head over to Tommy (opening March 28) to catch the show’s original star, Adam Jacobs, as Captain Walker.
Alladin, New Amsterdam Theatre, New York City. Open-ended run.
Hopes and prayers for Elton John‘s Broadway return
After a hit run in the West End, Tammy Faye will open at the newly refurbished Palace Theatre on November 14, 2024, with its original stars, Katie Brayben, in the title role and Andrew Rannells as Jim Bakker. Featuring music by pop icon Elton John and lyrics by former Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears.
The rise and fall of the televangelical couple, previously dramatized in the film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield, is fertile fodder for the stage, given their theatricality and high-drama lifestyle.
“Broadway is a place where the greatest stories are told,” says John in a teaser for the new musical. The six-time Grammy winner would know, having previously occupied the Palace with his hit Aida, which ran over four years.
Tammy Faye, Palace Theatre, New York City. Performances begin October 19, 2024.
More than a missing page from ‘The Notebook’
It seemed like the perfect fit: a decades-spanning romance with music by alt-pop balladeer Ingrid Michaelson. But what should have been a page-to-stage-tuner became one of those articles from The Atlantic that takes about three weeks to read, after which you ask, “What was that about?”
Based on Nicholas Sparks’s 1996 novel of the same name and adapted into a film in 2004, co-starring a young Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, The Notebook follows the tumultuous love affair between young socialite Allie Hamilton and lumber mill worker Noah Calhoun. The predictable plot ends better than its Romeo and Juliet origin story (swap dementia for poison and give ‘em another 40 years), but the lack of conflict makes for a fidgety first act, which mainly includes various onstage traffic patterns of the couples in three different stages of life with emotional gestures by choreographer Katie Spelman.
Charismatic performances manage to leap off the page, including Joy Woods as middle Allie, Maryann Plunkett as her cognitively declining older self, and a quirky turn by Carson Stewart, making his Broadway debut in several supporting roles, first as Noah’s buddy, Fin, then later as a kind-hearted physical therapist to Noah’s older self. Unfortunately, Bekah Brunstetter’s book otherwise renders Noah, Allie, and their friends with little distinction. The gloomy scenic design (David Zinn and Brett J. Banakis) doesn’t do the show any favors, minus a mid-show thunderstorm, which leads to Noah’s thirst-trappy strip down.
The Notebook is one of a handful of book-to-film-to-stage adaptations this season, with The Outsiders, Water for Elephants, and The Great Gatsby following suit.
The Notebook, Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Open-ended run.
In quotes
I would wear my mom’s wedding dress to bed. Well, it was from her first marriage. It was very 70s, with bell sleeves and an empire waist. It wasn’t like a wedding cake type of dress.
Oh, Mary!‘s Cole Escola tells Queerty when recalling their earliest memories of playing dress-up.
My mom let me wear it to bed because then my dad wouldn’t see me in it. It wasn’t ever discussed, but it was understood that my dad couldn’t see me wearing this dress.
A royal pain in the *ss
Queerty recently reported that Jeremy O. Harris was “in a slight rage over the moral panic” regarding Black Out nights at the West End production of Slave Play. Never one to compromise his beliefs (or push the buttons of audiences), Harris has founded a production company. Page Six reports that his first project is titled Prince F****t (fill in the blanks with that slur that made you shudder through high school), Jordan Tannahill’s play about “a not-very distant future in which Prince George has just come out of the closet.” Who needs another season of Young Royals or Heartstopper when we have Harris around?
