‘Hamilton’ celebrates Halloween with really cheap tickets
“Hamilton” has found a great way to say Happy Halloween: Virtually every seat for the 8 p.m. performance on Oct. 31 will be sold for $10 each via a digital lottery.
Theatergoers can enter the lottery now through Oct. 24 using the show’s official app.
It was simultaneously announced that Denée Benton (“Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812”) will take over the role of Eliza in the Broadway production beginning Oct. 30.
‘Smokey Joe’s Café’ shutting its doors
The new Off-Broadway revival of the nostalgic rock-and-roll revue “Smokey Joe’s Café” will close on Nov. 4 following 121 performances at Stage 42. A national tour and cast album of the new production are currently in the works. By comparison, the original Broadway production ran for five years in the 1990s, making it the longest-running revue in Broadway history. “Smokey Joe’s Café” contains about 40 songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller including “Jailhouse Rock,” “On “Broadway,” “Stand By Me,” “There Goes My Baby,” “Hound Dog” and “Love Potion No. 9.”
Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ extends for the last time
Due to high ticket demand, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Yiddish-language production of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City has been extended for the fourth and final time through Dec. 30. More than 40,000 people have already attended the production (which provides English and Russian supertitles for the non-Yiddish speaking). In a statement, Joel Grey (who directed the revival) said that it was “unexpectedly moving and thrilling” to see “so many different audiences, young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish, responding to ‘Fiddler’s’ universal themes of family, home, belonging and country.”
Carvel and Miller returning to Broadway in Murdoch drama ‘Ink’
Bertie Carvel (“Matilda”) and Jonny Lee Miller (“Elementary”) will return to Broadway as media baron Rupert Murdoch and newspaper editor Larry Lamb respectively in “Ink,” a new drama by James Graham (“Finding Neverland”) about the young Murdoch taking over The Sun in 1969 London. Carvel and Miller have already played the roles in London. “Ink” will play the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in April.
Burstein to join ‘My Fair Lady’ as Alfred Doolittle
Six-time Tony nominee Danny Burstein (who is currently expected to play Harold Zigler in “Moulin Rouge” when it comes to Broadway) will take on the role of the ruffian dustman Alfred P. Doolittle (“With a Little Bit of Luck,” “Get Me to the Church on Time”) in Lincoln Center Theater’s Broadway revival of “My Fair Lady” for 16 weeks beginning Jan. 8. Norbert Leo Butz will give his last performance in the role on Jan 6. As previously announced, Tony winner Laura Benanti will take over as Eliza Doolittle on Oct. 23, with Lauren Ambrose set to give her final performance on Sunday.
Spotted…
Mike Birbiglia marching from the Cherry Lane Theatre (former home of his one-man show “The New One”) in the West Village to the Cort Theatre (its new home) on Broadway…Russell Crowe at “Pretty Woman”…Salman Rushdie at “Sakina’s Restaurant”…Shirley Jones at “Come from Away.”
