Singer and actor Josh Groban joins “CBS Mornings” to discuss playing the title character in the Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
For singer-songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, it’s been a perfectly natural road from Nashville to Broadway, as they bring country music and “Hee Haw”-style humor to the Great White Way in the new musical comedy “Shucked.” Correspondent Tracy Smith talks with Clark and McAnally; book writer Robert Horn; and stars Caroline Innerbichler, Alex Newell and Kevin Cahoon about collaborations, storytelling, and sharing joy and corny jokes with audiences.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The life of singer-songwriter Neil Diamond has been dramatized, “warts and all,” in the Broadway musical “A Beautiful Noise.” Diamond, now 82, talks with correspondent Anthony Mason about continuing to sing; his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (a condition for which he was, he says, long in denial); and about the calm that has – finally – moved into “the hurricane of my life.”
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
The new Broadway show, “A Beautiful Noise,” is the story of a singer who’s sold more than 130 million records. Its subject: Neil Diamond, who said that attending the opening was “kind of like a dream come true. It was absolutely wonderful.”
With his wife, Katie, by his side, the 82-year-old Diamond, who’s rarely performed since he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, led the crowd in a chorus of “Sweet Caroline.”
There was, he said, a lot of love in the theatre, “and I felt it.”
Neil Diamond leads the audience at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City in singing “Sweet Caroline.”
CBS News
Mason asked, “Were you ever getting flashbacks in the middle of the show?”
“I think constantly, from the minute it started! Like, everything was a flashback!”
He said he’d wanted to make a musical (he thinks all songwriters and performers have that desire), but as the show was being developed, Diamond told the producers and writers he wanted it “warts and all.” “I didn’t necessarily love it, warts and all, but I wanted it,” he said.
Will Swenson plays the young Neil Diamond, whose Olympian ambition undoes two marriages. Mark Jacoby plays the older Diamond, still haunted by self-doubt. Diamond said. “This show was part of my psychotherapy. And it hurt. I didn’t like looking at myself in many of the scenes.”
Will Swenson and Mark Jacoby as Neil Diamond in “A Beautiful Noise.”
“A Beautiful Noise”
What part was hardest? “It all was pretty hard. I was a little embarrassed, I was flattered, and I was scared.”
Mason asked, “What were you scared of?”
“Being found out is the scariest thing you can hope, because we all have a façade, and the truth be known to all of ’em, I’m not some big star; I’m just me.”
Just a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who wanted to be a songwriter.
Neil Diamond, returning to the Bitter End in 2005.
In the Seventies, with “Cracklin’ Rose,” “Song Sung Blue,” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” he conquered the world. By the Eighties, he was one its biggest concert draws. In the ’90s, no one sold more tickets than the “Jewish Elvis.”
“So, where does the ‘have to’ come from?” Mason asked.
“I have to because if I want to maintain any self … ” He paused. “I don’t know why I have to.”
But in January 2018, Diamond revealed he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder that abruptly ended his touring career.
Diamond still regularly visits his Archangel Studio in Los Angeles, where the halls are decked with decades’ worth of awards, and where – for the first time since that diagnosis – he talked about facing Parkinson’s.
Mason asked, “How hard has it been for you to give up [touring]?”
“Oh, I still haven’t given it up, yet. It’s very hard,” he replied. “In a sense, I was in denial for the first year or two. When the doctor told me what it was, I was just not ready to accept it. I said, ‘Oh, okay. I’ll see you, you know, whenever you wanna see me. But I have work to do, so I’ll see you later.’”
Correspondent Anthony Mason with singer-songwriter Neil Diamond.
CBS News
His acceptance, he admits, is a work in progress. “I’m still doing it. And I don’t like it,” he said. “Okay, so this is the hand that God’s given me, and I have to make the best of it, and so I am.”
Mason asked, “Was there a moment in that process where you finally sort of did say to yourself, I accept this?”
“I think this has just been in the last few weeks.”
“Really?”
Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond.
CBS News
“But somehow a calm has moved [into] the hurricane of my life, and things have gotten very quiet, as quiet as this recording studio,” said Diamond. “And I like it. I find that I like myself better. I’m easier on people, I’m easier on myself. And the beat goes on, and it will go on long after I’m gone.
“I still can sing,” he said.
“Do you need to still sing?”
“Well, I like singing. I’ve been doing it for 50 years, and I enjoy it.”
“What happens inside you when you sing?”
“I feel good. It’s like, all the systems in my mind and my body are working as one when I’m singing. And it’s a great feeling.”
“[It’s] given you a pretty amazing life.”
“I’ve had a pretty amazing life, it’s true,” Diamond said. “And the thing was, I wasn’t always able to look back on it and be comfortable with it, smile, feel that I was worth it. I think all of that good stuff is starting to come into my life.”
Why? “Well, I can’t really fight this thing, so I had to accept it, this Parkinson’s Disease. There’s no cure. There’s no getting away from it. You can’t just say, ‘Okay, enough already. Let’s get back to life.’ It doesn’t work like that. But I’ve come to accept what limitations I have, and still have great days.”
Great days, like an opening night on Broadway.
A scene from the Broadway musical “A Beautiful Noise.”
“A Beautiful Noise”
He said, “I just have to take life as it comes to me, enjoy it, be thankful that I’ve had it, especially having the life that I’ve had.”
For Neil Diamond, it’s a life worthy of a Broadway musical.
Mason asked, “What does it mean to you?”
“Well, to paraphrase Sally Field, ‘They like me! They really like me!’” he laughed.
To listen to the Original Broadway Cast Album of “A Beautiful Noise” click on the audio player below:
Anthony Mason is senior culture and senior national correspondent for CBS News. He has been a frequent contributor to “CBS Sunday Morning,” and is the former co-host for “CBS This Morning: Saturday” and “CBS This Morning.”
Who says you can’t do a show with country music on Broadway? You probably know every word of “Oklahoma!” The Mark Twain musical “Big River” won seven Tonys. And “Annie Get Your Gun” was a big ol’ hit, especially the countrified revival with Reba McEntire. And now, a brand-new country-themed musical about corn is ready to pop.
“Shucked,” which opens Tuesday, is that rarest of birds on Broadway: a completely original production not based on a movie or, really, anything else. It’s the story of a small town closed off from society by cornfields. But when the corn starts suddenly dying, one brave soul goes to the big city for help, and a musical happens.
The cast of the Broadway musical “Shucked.”
CBS News
The show started out as a nod to the old TV program “Hee Haw,” but after more than ten years and a few complete overhauls, it’s ready to stand on its own.
Caroline Innerbichler, who plays the heroine Maizy, said a Broadway show with country music makes perfect sense: “Because country music, I’ve always felt, is the closest thing, other than Broadway, to Broadway, ’cause it’s all about storytelling.”
Caroline Innerbichler performs “Woman of the World,” from “Shucked”:
Alex Newell, who plays Maizy’s cousin, Lulu, said the genre is a first for her: “I’ve done dance music, I’ve done Broadway, I’ve done jazz standards. I’ve done everything under the umbrella but country music.”
It helps that the duo behind the music has some pretty impressive credentials. Brandy Clark, who herself grew up in a small town in Washington State, has written hits for the biggest stars in country, and has an album she made with Brandi Carlisle coming out soon. Her writing partner on “Shucked” is Shane McAnally, also one of the biggest songwriters in Music City. He’s got three Grammys and a slew of other awards, but one of the things he says he cherishes the most is working with Brandy Clark.
They clicked from the moment they met many, many hit songs ago: “It was like lightning struck,” McAnally said.
Songwriters Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark.
CBS News
Their music is key, but the sound you hear most often at a “Shucked” performance is laughter. A lot of the jokes are pretty edgy, and it’s easy to see why: the book writer, Robert Horn, used to write for the hit show “Designing Women.”
Smith asked, “You can kind of sense that there’s a little ‘Designing Women’ in this?”
“There’s a little ‘Designing Women’ in all of us, you have to say!” Horn laughed.
Back then, his comedy formula was simple: “I used to say, ‘I’m gonna write it Jewish, and you’re gonna say it Southern.’ That was the joke,” he said. “And it did work, yes.”
For composers Clark and McAnally, it’s the end of a long and emotional road, watching the show come to life: “We sit together every night through these previews,” McAnally said. “Alex Newell sings a song called ‘Independently Owned’ in the middle of the first act, and received a standing ovation in the middle of the act. I’m a former addict. I have tried everything that I like many times over. And I just looked at [Brandy] and said, ‘This is like no high I have ever experienced.’”
Alex Newell as Lulu performing “Independently Owned,” from “Shucked.”
CBS News
Clark said, “A couple of nights ago, I just had this overwhelming feeling. I was looking at the barn, and Shane and I were sitting there, and I was like, ‘This is so weird for me to say this to you right now, but I just love you so much.’ Because that is how I feel when we’re sitting there. Like, even though we’re not a couple, it is like we have this child.”
And the hope is that their child will be something Broadway, and the rest of us, could probably use right about now: a freewheeling, knee-slapping bundle of joy.
Alex Newell said, “There are a lot of heavy shows. And we need heavy shows. We love, we thrive off of heavy shows. But sometimes you just need to do a little laughing. Sometimes you just need to let that go and have a guffaw. We’ve been inside for so long and we forgot that joy can exist.”
To hear Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally perform “Maybe Love” from “Shucked” click on the video player below:
Nicholas Lloyd Webber, the Grammy-nominated composer, record producer and eldest son of Andrew Lloyd Webber, died Saturday in England after a protracted battle with gastric cancer and pneumonia. He was 43.
“His whole family is gathered together and we are all totally bereft,” the 75-year-old Webber said in a statement emailed by a representative to CBS News. “Thank you for all your thoughts during this difficult time.”
Nicholas died at a hospital in the south-central English town of Basingstoke, his father said. Webber, the famed composer, missed the Broadway opening Thursday of his “Bad Cinderella” to be at his son’s side with other loved ones.
I am shattered to have to announce that my beloved elder son Nick died a few hours ago in Basingstoke Hospital. His whole family is gathered together and we are all totally bereft. -ALW
Nicholas is best known for his work on the BBC One’s “Love, Lies and Records,” which was based on the book “The Little Prince.” He also worked on his father’s 2021 “Cinderella,” earning a Grammy nod for best musical theater album.
Nicholas is Webber’s son with his first wife, Sarah Hugill, also the mother of his older sister, Imogen. The senior Webber has four other children.
FILE — Andrew Lloyd Webber with wife Madeleine, son Nicholas Lloyd Webber and a guest attend the after party following the press night of “Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” at Cirque on July 17, 2007, in London, England.
Getty Images
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
Smash was an NBC drama that ran in the early 2000s. Many people think it ended a bit too early, but luckily, it’ getting its own Broadway play. The show told the story of a group of friends trying to make a living creating and producing Broadway plays. Of course, it’s an extremely demanding field. Sacrifices must be made to have a successful career there. The series largely follows a successful play based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, titled Bombshell.
The actual Broadway production which is just now reaching fruition has been in the works since roughly 2015. Luckily, Steven Spielberg came in to help the whole thing along. Spielberg had this to say about the show:
Smash is near and dear to my heart, and it was always my hope that a musical inspired by the show would eventually come to the stage. We now have an incredible creative team, and I’m looking forward to completing the Smash journey, which began with my producing partners over 10 years ago.
Robert Greenblatt is also helping produce the whole thing, adding to Spielberg’s statement.
“Speaking for myself and Neil Meron, we’re elated that Steven wanted to join us as we bring ‘Smash’ to the stage, as we’ve always felt that Shaiman and Wittman’s incredible scorebelonged on Broadway. And collaborating with the incomparable Susan Stroman, one of the best directors of musicals, plus first-class bookwriters Rick Elice and Bob Martin, and our original choreographer Josh Bergasse, is pure joy.”
The show will be about the creation of Bombshell, like the TV series, but the announcement also claims that the stage version will “depart liberally from the series.” We’ll have to see just how liberally.
10 Popular TV Shows That Were Almost Cancelled Too Soon
There’s a new demon barber of Fleet Street: Singer Josh Groban, who earned a Tony nomination for his first Broadway musical, “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” is back in the title role of Stephen Sondheim’s iconic musical about a vengeful barber whose victims are baked into meat pies. CBS News’ Anthony Mason talks with Groban; Tony-winner Annaleigh Ashford (who co-stars as Mrs. Lovett); and Tony-winning director Thomas Kail (“Hamilton”) about the blood-curdling revival.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
NEW YORK (AP) — It was 2019 and aspiring Broadway actor Eleri Ward had Stephen Sondheim’s “Every Day a Little Death” stuck in her head.
“I would see friends at auditions and whatnot, and having been awake since like 4 or 5 a.m., they’d ask me how I’m doing,” she said. “And I responded with, ‘Oh, every day a little death.’ I was saying it as a stupid joke.”
She decided to record an acoustic rendition in her New York apartment’s living room and posted the iPhone video to Instagram on a Friday afternoon that March.
Her innovation helped fulfill her aspiration: That simple post, amassing 120 likes, would lead to a recording contract, a job as the opening act for Josh Groban on tour last summer and the release Friday of her second indie-folk CD of Sondheim covers, “Keep a Tender Distance,” on Ghostlight Records.
“She’s completely unafraid of exploring the darkness of loneliness, as Sondheim does as well,” said two-time Tony Award winner Donna Murphy, the original Fosca in “Passion.” “She’s a fully present human in expressing both through her music and through what she shares in conversation with her audiences about what’s painful about being human.”
After the initial Instagram post, sung in a style inspired by Sufjan Stevens, Ward’s friend pushed her to explore more from Sondheim.
“So the very next day I came up with ‘Johanna (Reprise),’” Ward said. During the pandemic, Ward and her boyfriend put the contents of their New York apartment in storage and moved to Boston. By January 2021, she was posting her Sondheim videos to TikTok, at the suggestion of another friend.
“People really responded to them, wanted me to release these covers on streaming services,” Ward recalled. “So I said, ‘OK, I know how to record guitar and vocals and keyboard,’ so we had a walk-in closet in this apartment in Boston and I started recording what I had already created and editing and creating new things along the way.”
She made a TikTok asking Broadway World to write about her album, and the website subsequently ran a Q&A. Kurt Deutsch, founder of Ghostlight Records and a senior vice president of Warner Music Entertainment & Theatrical Ventures, read that story, searched online, discovered “Johanna (Reprise)” and messaged Ward on Instagram.
“I was in my Boston apartment about to eat sushi with my boyfriend and I freaked out,” Ward said.
“I had never really heard Sondheim done in that way,” Deutsch said. “I found her music just glorious and I said, ‘Do you have more?’”
Ward’s debut album of acoustic Sondheim covers, “A Perfect Little Death,” was recorded in the closet of the Boston apartment and released by Ghostlight on Oct. 1, 2021.
For her second album she was afforded 11 sessions last year at Better Company in Brooklyn and got to lay down her own backing vocals. The recording was initially issued digitally in September, and Ward made her off-Broadway debut last fall as a swing in “Only Gold.” She’s in the midst of a winter/spring solo tour with dates all over the country.
Ward couldn’t contain her tears as she walked onstage at Manhattan’s Sony Hall for a December concert. She was overwhelmed with joy when Bobby Conte and Jennifer Simard, standouts in last season’s revival of “Company,” joined her for duets.
“I lead with my heart when I’m performing.” Ward said. “My solo shows, this is my chance to open up my whole soul to you. It’s a very vulnerable but beautiful experience.”
Now 28, Ward grew up in the Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge, Illinois, her mom an interior designer and real estate broker and her dad a consultant. She started piano lessons at 5 and remembers seeing “Sweeney Todd” at the suburban Drury Lane Theatre and attending a Sondheim talk with critic Frank Rich.
After graduation from high school at Chicago Academy of the Arts, where Ward sang Amy in “Company,” she enrolled at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Ward transferred across the street to the Boston Conservatory and earned a 2017 bachelor of fine arts degree in musical theater with an emphasis in acting and songwriting.
She picked up a guitar in 2016 only because a friend was selling hers for $40.
“It totally open and whole new voice for me artistically,” Ward said. “I was writing completely different music on guitar and I just sort of fell in love with it.”
Days after her debut album’s release, Ghostlight helped arranged a concert at Rockwood Music Hall in Manhattan. Groban was in attendance, having been given a copy of her recording by Kevin Gore, Warner’s president of global catalog for recorded music.
Sondheim died that November at age 91, bringing wider attention to Ward’s covers. In December, Groban asked Ward to criss-cross the U.S. with him for a 26-show, six-week summer tour.
Emotion overflowed last March after Ward’s concert at New York’s 184-seat Joe’s Pub, where she sang a duet of “Loving You” with Murphy. Ward was introduced after the show to Rick Pappas, Sondheim’s lawyer and the executor of his estate.
“Rick says, ‘I want you to know that Sondheim loved your album and loved that you were doing something he never imagined with his music and bringing it to new audiences,’” Ward said. “I’m holding onto Donna Murphy, crying, and she’s crying. It was just the most amazing moment and such validation that I just never thought I was going to get.”
Theatergoers waiting to see the sold-out first preview of a classic Broadway musical Tuesday were interrupted by neo-Nazis chanting, holding banners and passing out false information about the show’s subject.
The group was identified by the musical’s producers as the National Socialist Movement. The group is the largest membership-based neo-Nazi group in the United States and is known for “violent antisemitic rhetoric” and “its racist views,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the first preview of Parade on Broadway @paradebway and there is a absolutely wild protest outside. Only filmed a second because it was genuinely scary. They were insulting patrons as they walked in. #Parade#Broadwaypic.twitter.com/kP3iN3eyGS
The musical, “Parade,” first appeared on Broadway in 1998 and is being revived at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater in midtown Manhattan after an acclaimed concert production in 2022. It tells the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager who was falsely accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan in Georgia in 1913. After Frank’s sentence was commuted, he was murdered by a lynch mob.
The trial, which historians believe included false testimony, and the antisemitic media coverage at the time led to the creation of the Anti-Defamation League, which still exists today. Frank was also granted a posthumous pardon in 1986, and the Georgia Historical Center erected a marker honoring Frank in 2008. In 2018, the first national anti-lynching memorial was placed at the site.
The members of the National Socialist Movement outside the theater claimed that Frank was a “pedophile” and criticized the ADL. Social media footage of the protest quickly went viral, leading to outrage online.
“If there is any remaining doubt out there about the urgency of telling this story in this moment in history, the vileness on display last night should put it to rest,” said the play’s producers in a statement Wednesday. “We stand by the valiant Broadway cast that brings this vital story to life each night.”
Ben Platt, who plays Frank, said in a video message that the first preview of the show was “so wonderful and special” until he saw videos showing the scene outside the theater.
“Naturally, the news of the fact that there were some protesters at our show has spread a lot, and that has kind of (been) the stamp on the evening, in terms of public perception of the evening,” said Platt, 29. Platt won a Tony Award in 2017 for his role in “Dear Evan Hansen.”
Platt said that the group was “bothering some of our patrons” and spreading the “antisemitic rhetoric that led to this whole story in the first place.”
“If you don’t know about it, I encourage you to look up the story and most importantly encourage you to come see the show,” Platt said. “It was definitely very ugly and scary but a wonderful reminder of why we’re telling this particular story and how special and powerful art, and particularly theater, can be. And just made me feel extra, extra grateful to be the one who gets to tell this particular story and to carry on the legacy of Leo.”
Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union that represents more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers, also issued a statement.
“‘Parade’ tells an important story of what happens when antisemitism and other kinds of hatred are allowed to grow unchecked,” the union said. “We are proud of our members and their colleagues who are bringing this tragedy to life on stage, and the presence of antisemitic protestors at their place of work only underlines how important that work is. There is no place for hate in our streets or our workplaces, and we condemn the demonstration in the strongest possible terms.”
Recent years have seen a spike in antisemitism in the United States. According to a survey by the American Jewish Committee, more than 80% of Jewish adults in the U.S. say that antisemitism has increased in the past five years. Two-thirds of Jewish adults surveyed said that they had seen or been the target of antisemitic remarks and threats online. And 43% of survey respondents said they see antisemitism in the U.S. as a “very serious problem.”
Theatergoers waiting to see the sold-out first preview of a classic Broadway musical Tuesday were interrupted by neo-Nazis chanting, holding banners and passing out false information about the show’s subject.
The group was identified by the musical’s producers as the National Socialist Movement. The group is the largest membership-based neo-Nazi group in the United States and is known for “violent antisemitic rhetoric” and “its racist views,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The musical, “Parade,” first appeared on Broadway in 1998 and is being revived at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater in midtown Manhattan after an acclaimed concert production in 2022. It tells the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager who was falsely accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan in Georgia in 1913. After Frank’s sentence was commuted, he was murdered by a lynch mob.
The trial, which historians believe included false testimony, and the antisemitic media coverage at the time led to the creation of the Anti-Defamation League, which still exists today. Frank was also granted a posthumous pardon in 1986, and the Georgia Historical Center erected a marker honoring Frank in 2008. In 2018, the first national anti-lynching memorial was placed at the site.
The members of the National Socialist Movement outside the theater claimed that Frank was a “pedophile” and criticized the ADL. Social media footage of the protest quickly went viral, leading to outrage online.
“If there is any remaining doubt out there about the urgency of telling this story in this moment in history, the vileness on display last night should put it to rest,” said the play’s producers in a statement Wednesday. “We stand by the valiant Broadway cast that brings this vital story to life each night.”
Ben Platt, who plays Frank, said in a video message that the first preview of the show was “so wonderful and special” until he saw videos showing the scene outside the theater.
“Naturally, the news of the fact that there were some protesters at our show has spread a lot, and that has kind of (been) the stamp on the evening, in terms of public perception of the evening,” said Platt, 29. Platt won a Tony Award in 2017 for his role in “Dear Evan Hansen.”
Platt said that the group was “bothering some of our patrons” and spreading the “antisemitic rhetoric that led to this whole story in the first place.”
“If you don’t know about it, I encourage you to look up the story and most importantly encourage you to come see the show,” Platt said. “It was definitely very ugly and scary but a wonderful reminder of why we’re telling this particular story and how special and powerful art, and particularly theater, can be. And just made me feel extra, extra grateful to be the one who gets to tell this particular story and to carry on the legacy of Leo.”
Recent years have seen a spike in antisemitism in the United States. According to a survey by the American Jewish Committee, more than 80% of Jewish adults in the U.S. say that antisemitism has increased in the past five years. Two-thirds of Jewish adults surveyed said that they had seen or been the target of antisemitic remarks and threats online. And 43% of survey respondents said they see antisemitism in the U.S. as a “very serious problem.”
Despite shooting to stardom after years on Grey’s Anatomy,Jesse Williams feels his career is just getting started.
Well known for his role as Dr. Jackson Avery on the long-running ABC drama, Williams was eager to try something new and decided to take his chance on the revival of Richard Greenberg’s 2002 baseball play, Take Me Out. Upon signing on to his very first play, little did Williams know that the revival would be a smash hit, leading to multiple Tony nominations and a highly demanded second run.
Halfway through the second turn of the Broadway show, Williams reflected on the freeing nature of his onstage experience and how, prior to starring on Broadway, his tenure on the hit TV show was actually something of a roadblock from other opportunities.
“Honestly, I feel like a kid just starting his career, because I am just starting my career,” Williams told Vanity Fair. “As soon as I started acting, essentially, I was immediately on Grey’s Anatomy, and I did that for 11 years straight, 10 months a year. Unavailable for anything else. So it’s all I did and knew.”
The actor went on to compare working on the TV drama to studying at “an amazing school” but being unable to leave the school and go outside to join the rest of the students on the playground. “I was in school…an amazing school, looking out the window, watching everybody else play and try things and fall and hurt themselves and try again and win—and I didn’t really do that. I was in an amazing castle, but I still couldn’t really leave. And so now, to leave, I feel like a kid.”
Unlike child actors, or those who were born into the business, former schoolteacher Williams scored his big break on what is now the longest-running medical prime-time drama when he was approaching 30. And while grateful for his time on Grey’s Anatomy, the Tony-nominated actor credits his Take Me Out experience with helping him to further perfect his craft in a new medium and open up a world of new acting opportunities.
(left to right): Jesse Tyler Ferguson(Mason Marzac) and Jesse Williams(Darren Lemming) in Take Me Out.By Jeremy Daniel/ Courtesy of the TAKE ME OUT Production.
“I am thrilled that Agatha Christie’s beloved murder mystery that changed popular theatre and has been a landmark attraction for U.S. visitors to London’s West End for the past 70 years will now be coming to Broadway,” McCollum said in a statement. “I’m excited for the huge Christie fan-base in North America, and for the acting company in New York who will join the esteemed ranks of ‘The Mousetrap’ alumni.”
Spiegel was equally excited to celebrate the show’s 70th anniversary by bringing it to New York.
“There can be no better way to mark today’s milestone in ‘The Mousetrap’s’ illustrious run, than to look ahead to a production in New York. I feel after the longest out of town try-out in history, ‘The Mousetrap’ is finally ready to transfer to Broadway,” he added.
“The Mousetrap” is a mystery murder famous for its twists and turns since it first opened in 1952 in London.
The play is expected to arrive on Broadway in 2023.
Lea Michele took on her dream role as Fanny Brice in Broadway’s “Funny Girl” this year, and on Thanksgiving she brought the show to New York City’s Herald Square. Michele and some of her co-stars kicked off the televised Thanksgiving Day Parade with a performance of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” the iconic hit song from the musical.
The parade often features several Broadway numbers, performed in Herald Square where the parade ends. This year’s parade featured routines from “Some Like It Hot,” “The Lion King” and others. The Rockettes and several featured marching bands from across the country also performed.
Jimmy Fallon, the Roots, Gloria Estefan and Dionne Warwick were also on parade floats.
Lea Michele and the cast of Funny Girl rehearse during the first day of New York’s Thanksgiving Day Parade rehearsals at Herald Square on Nov. 21, 2022, in New York City.
Taylor Hill/WireImage
Ahead of the performance, Michele shared a video on her Instagram stories at 5:30 a.m. as she got ready in her Broadway dressing room. She continued to film her journey to Herald Square. She even shared a TikTok dance to Taylor Swift’s “Bejeweled” to mark the occasion.
Michele has always been enthusiastic about the Fanny Brice role. On “Glee,” a musical television show about a high school glee club, Michele’s character, Rachel Berry, lands the role on Broadway.
Life eventually imitated art and Michele landed the role earlier this year, replacing Beanie Feldstein. She recieved several standing ovations during her first week in September.
In an interview with Broadway.com, Michele agreed it was very “meta” that both she and the character she played for six years on “Glee” got to star as Fanny Brice.
After she got the role, Michele shared two photos — one of herself and one as Rachel Berry – outside of the theater under the “Funny Girl” marquee. “A dream come true,” she wrote on Instagram.
Lea Michele takes her first curtain call as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” on Broadway at The August Wilson Theatre on Sept. 6, 2022, in New York City.
Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Michele is no stranger to Broadway. She appeared in “Les Miserables” as young Cosette in 1995, when she was just eight years old. She’s also known for her role in “Spring Awakening” — she was part of the original cast in 2006.
Writer-director Cameron Crowe’s Oscar-winning autobiographical film, about a teenage rock journalist in the 1970s, is now a musical. He talks with correspondent Tracy Smith about dramatizing the personal, even painful, truth in “Almost Famous,” and about how the spirit of his mother (memorably played in the film by Frances McDormand) is present at New York’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, eight shows a week.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
One of America’s great art forms has not had a permanent museum devoted to its history, until now: The Museum of Broadway opens next week in the heart of New York City’s theater district, with an entertaining and educational exhibition of highlights from the Great White Way. Correspondent Rita Braver pays a visit, and talks with Broadway legend Joel Grey, the Tony-winning star of the landmark musical “Cabaret.”
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Actor Jim Parsons joins “CBS Mornings” to talk about starring in the off-Broadway musical “A Man of No Importance,” as well as his thoughts on a new book about “The Big Bang Theory.”
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson is making her Broadway directorial debut with a revival of “The Piano Lesson” by August Wilson. She is the first woman to helm an August Wilson Play. “CBS Saturday Morning” co-host Michelle Miller sits down with Richardson Jackson and her husband, actor Samuel L. Jackson.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
