broadway
Winnie Holzman, best known for her work on Wicked and My So-Called Life, will be honored by her alma mater, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, at its annual gala on April 7 at Cipriani South Street. Holzman wrote the book for the blockbuster stage musical Wicked, with music and lyrics by Stephen […]
Nick Jonas admitted that he might have taken the title of the song “Moving Too Fast” a bit too literally during a rehearsal for his upcoming return to Broadway in The Last Five Years. In an Instagram video posted on Tuesday (March 4), the Jonas Brothers and solo star revealed that he had an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.
“I was singing ‘Moving Too Fast,’ one of my character Jamie’s songs,” Jonas said of the run-through of the song he performs with his Tony winning co-star. “I’m supposed to jump onto this platform and then pull my co-star, Adrienne Warren, up onto the platform with me and keep singing.”
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And then things went a bit sideways. “I do it, and I hear a [ripping sound]. And I’m like, ‘Oh no, oh no.’ Then I feel a cool breeze in a place you don’t want to feel a cool breeze,” Jonas laughed before moving back from the camera to display the huge tear in the groin of his camo cargo pants. “This is what happened to my pants,” he said. “They’re not tight pants by any means. It just was the perfect spot and the position that I jumped up.”
It was bad, but it could have been worse, and it was.
Jonas mentioned that the pants split happened in front of the show’s director, Whitney White, as well as its composer, Jason Robert Brown, “and, of course, my co-star, Adrienne Warren,” as well as the stage management department, musical director, pianist and percussionist. So, basically, the whole team.
The singer shared that he attempted to fix the pants himself — “I tried to duct tape it, it didn’t work… I tried to put some safety pins in, didn’t hold” — before the crack stage managers ran over to Target to fetch him some black shorts so he could finish the rehearsal.
Jonas, who is returning to Broadway 13 years after starring in 2012’s revival of the musical How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, will take the stage for the debut of The Last Five Years on March 18.
Watch Jonas relive his trouser tragedy below.
Cynthia Erivo is set to host 2025 Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8. The ceremony will return to Radio City Music Hall in New York City for the first time since 2022. It will broadcast live to both coasts on CBS and stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.
“I am so proud and excited to take on this glorious honor,” Erivo said in a statement. “I am looking forward to ushering the theater community at large through a night that celebrates the wonderful performances we have witnessed throughout the year. I hope I can rise to the occasion.”
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This is Erivo’s first time hosting the Tonys, where she was a winner in 2016 for her lead role in The Color Purple. Ariana DeBose, also a Tony winner, hosted the Tonys the last three years. This will be the fifth year in a row that a woman of color has hosted the Tonys. Audra McDonald did the honors in 2021.
Erivo, 38, is the star of Wicked, which has become the highest-grossing film adapted from a Broadway musical. Erivo is Oscar-nominated for best actress for her role in Wicked, though she is not expected to win when the awards are presented on March 2. (Rumors persist that she and co-star Ariana Grande may be enticed to perform on the show.) It’s Erivo’s third Oscar nod, following dual nods (best actress and best original song) five year ago for Harriet.
In addition to her Tony win, Erivo has won a Grammy and a Daytime Emmy, both for projects related to The Color Purple.
“Cynthia is a remarkable talent and with her deep roots in the theater community, we are honored to have her host this year’s Tony Awards on CBS,” Mackenzie Mitchell, vp of specials at CBS, said in a statement.
Nominations for this year’s Tony Awards will be announced on Thursday, May 1.
The Tony Awards are produced in collaboration with Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, and White Cherry Entertainment. Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss are executive producers and showrunners for White Cherry Entertainment. Weiss will serve as director.
As he nears the end of his run in Broadway‘s Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, singer Adam Lambert celebrated his run with a stunning performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night (Feb. 10).
Dressed in all-black and wearing some glossy black lipstick and eyeshadow, Lambert performed “I Don’t Care Much,” the melancholy act II ballad sung by his character in the show, the Emcee. Dropping his character’s German accent, the American Idol alum sauntered through the jazzy number, placing particular emphasis on its harsh lyrics.
“Words sound false when your coat’s too thin/ Feet don’t waltz when the roof caves in,” he belted. “So if you kiss me, if we touch/ Warning’s fair; I don’t care very much.”
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Lambert released his rendition of the song as a single back in December, and in an interview with radio presenter Elvis Duran, explained the track’s painful meaning in the larger context of the show. “It’s like a torch song,” he said. “It’s really beautiful, and this is in the second act when things are sad, and it’s a song about indifference, and kind of just saying ‘I give up.’”
Cabaret takes place in Berlin during the late 1920s and early 1930s, as the Nazi party rose to power. In “I Don’t Care Much,” Lambert’s Emcee sings about Germany’s apathy in the face of the Nazis’ fascist, antisemitic rhetoric. While he was recording the song, Lambert says he couldn’t help but think about the parallels between that story and today’s politics.
“The day after the [2024 U.S.] election, I know we all felt some kind of way. We recorded this right around election week,” he explained. “I kept going back to how I felt, how a lot of the people that I know in my community felt [after the election], and it was this feeling of … ‘I don’t know what else to do, except to say that I guess I don’t care now as a coping mechanism.’”
Lambert currently stars in the production alongside Auli’i Cravalho (as Sally Bowles), with both of their last performances slated for March 29. Starting on March 31, the roles of the Emcee and Sally will be taken over by country singer-songwriter Orville Peck and Tony-nominated actress Eva Noblezada.
Watch Lambert’s full performance of “I Don’t Care Much” above.
Country music artists have long had ties to musical theatre — and it seems natural, given that both country music concerts and the electrifying shows of Broadway share similarities. Both are built around stories and tales that connect with human emotions, and both feature teams of people intent on combining music, songwriting, performance, lighting and […]
Kelly Rowland is an avid supporter of women supporting women — and she had a great role model to look up to in her Destiny’s Child days. The superstar joined Jennifer Hudson on the latter’s daytime talk show, where Hudson asked Rowland what inspired her passionate uplifting of her fellow women. The “Dilemma” singer revealed […]
Few American-made mythologies loom larger than L. Frank Baum’s Oz. His 1900 book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was an instant sensation that was made into theatrical productions and films, and later inspired songs by Elton John, America, ELO and even the Melvins.
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Now, Jon M. Chu’s blockbuster Wicked is taking audiences beyond the yellow brick road, thanks to bewitching performances by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. So put on your emerald-colored glasses for a look back at Billboard’s coverage of a story that transported people over the rainbow to another world.
Not In Kansas Anymore
Just two years after Baum published his book, a musical adaptation, The Wizard of Oz, opened in a Chicago theater. Thanks to vaudeville veterans Fred Stone and David C. Montgomery playing the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman, respectively, the Jan. 3, 1903, Billboard raved, “It is one continuous case of laughter throughout.” The reviewer noted, however, that “the music isn’t so very catchy.” If they only had a Rodgers & Hart!
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If They Only Had a Brain
When the sixth silent film based on Oz opened in 1925, a Billboard critic wasn’t convinced it was King of the Forest. “No one ever expects logic in a film of this species and certainly no one finds any in The Wizard of Oz,” wrote a reviewer in the April 25 issue of director Larry Semon’s slapstick take. The good news: “You can safely invite the school committee and the clergy to view this film as it is wholesome and totally without objectionable features.”
‘What Happened Next Was Rich’
When MGM’s lush The Wizard of Oz premiered in New York, Billboard was there — as was star actress Judy Garland, who sang a few songs after the screening with frequent co-star Mickey Rooney. The “vaudefilmers” combo grossed $68,000 and broke “all house records,” according to the Sept. 2, 1939, issue. Two weeks later, Billboard forecast a bright future for “Over the Rainbow”: “You can count on its staying around for some time.” By Sept. 30, the song was a jukebox must: “No ifs and buts to it — it’s got to be in every machine.”
No Place Like Harlem
When The Wiz, a stage musical reimagining with an all-Black cast, opened on Broadway in 1975, a Jan. 18 Billboard review hailed its “sauce, moxy and innovation.” Sidney Lumet’s big-screen adaptation was “a wow” but “rather long,” according to the Oct. 14, 1978, issue. The same reviewer also said that Michael Jackson “excels as Scarecrow in several numbers,” including “a vibrant duet” with Diana Ross on “Ease on Down the Road” — which hit No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 the next week.
Age-‘Defying’ Appeal
A full century after Oz first hit the Gay White Way, Wicked debuted on Broadway. It was very “Popular”: When Billboard launched its Top Cast Albums chart in the Jan. 21, 2006, issue, the original cast recording was the first No. 1. Wicked’s broomstick flight to Hollywood was just as successful. “Ariana Grande is a revelation,” praised a Nov. 22, 2024, Billboard article, adding that Erivo’s Wicked Witch “feels real and relatable — even in a musical with talking goats.”
Wilkommen, bienvenue, howdy partner! Country star Orville Peck is set to make his Broadway debut as the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. On Wednesday (Jan. 15), Cabaret announced that the “Dead of Night” singer would take over the iconic role from Adam Lambert starting on March 31, where he will be joined […]
Cast recordings are a crucial part of supporting a musical’s life, during its initial run on or off-Broadway, as well as far beyond that. While a show is running, a recording available on streaming platforms can reach a wide ticket-buying audience and thus potentially help increase its performing lifespan; the recording is also often the way that regional theaters first discover shows they might produce — which proves especially important to shows that have shorter lives on Broadway.
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But while shows have ample platforms for releasing their original cast recordings — from boutique labels specializing in theater to major labels getting in on the next big hit — a trio of journeyman theater musicians noticed a gaping hole in the market for a new kind of label: one that would support a show from its earliest writing stages all the way through is fully realized production.
That new label — aimed at amplifying new voices in musical theater as well as individual solo performers — is Joy Machine Records, co-founded and run by Ian Kagey, Sonny Paladino, Brian Usifer and Will Van Dyke.
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The quartet have musical theater bonafides in spades. Kagey is a Grammy-winning engineer and mixer who has engineered numerous Broadway cast recordings in addition to working in TV, film, and with artists including Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney; Paladino is a seasoned arranger and producer who most recently was music supervisor, arranger, orchestrator and conductor for Neil Diamond bio-musical A Beautiful Noise; Usifer is an orchestrator, arranger, music director, pianist, producer and composer who recently worked on the acclaimed (but short-lived) Swept Away and Huey Lewis’ The Heart of Rock and Roll musical; and Van Dyke is a Grammy-nominated producer, songwriter, music supervisor, orchestrator and arranger who was music director of Swept Away and is music supervisor/orchestrator/arranger for the long-running off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors.
“Our approach comes from our experience being on many sides of the table in that process, and understanding what it takes to see a show from inception through opening night and beyond,” says Usifer. “We approach every project with not only a high bar musically but an emphasis on kindness and transparency throughout the process.”
Joy Machine, which will be distributed by The Orchard, is launched as a full-service record label which will offer what it calls “three tiers of support for musical development.” As Van Dyke explains, “from the first piano/vocal demos through fully produced tracks,” Joy Machine’s team will “help producers think about budgeting for these recordings from the jump. That kind of awareness will also help teams build a cast recording into their budget to be able to fully preserve their final product.”
The label’s current and upcoming client roster includes The Avett Brothers’ original Broadway cast recording of Swept Away; Huey Lewis’ OBCR of The Heart of Rock and Roll; and solo projects with Joy Woods (currently starring as Louise in Gypsy on Broadway), composer Joe Iconis (Be More Chill), Corey Cott (a star of The Heart of Rock and Roll) and more.
Thus far, the team has recorded at Kagey’s own Renaissance Recording in New York for demos and smaller concept albums, and at the storied Power Station studios for original Broadway cast albums. (“They really know how to make a cast album and make it a seamless and un-chaotic experience,” says Usifer of the latter). Joy Machine is currently working on a concept album for the new musical Joy, meant to give audiences an insight into the show’s music before it ventures to Broadway.
As an artist, Joy Huerta says she likes a good challenge. So when the producers of Broadway‘s upcoming adaptation of Real Women Have Curves reached out to her in early 2020 to see if she could write the songs for the musical, she was swept off her feet.
“I said, ‘For sure!’,” the Grammy Award-winning singer of Mexican pop duo Jesse & Joy — who had never composed music for theater before — tells Billboard Español. “I saw [the 2002 movie] and said, ‘I love the idea, of course, let’s do it.’ I think it was the weekend before we went into lockdown.” She adds: “You dream of challenges, but you don’t know what those challenges are going to look like.”
Five years later, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical is finally giving a glimpse of Huerta’s work ahead of its spring Broadway opening. First, the production released an acoustic performance video of “If I Were A Bird” three weeks ago, in which she sings with fellow Mexican actor and singer Aline Mayagoitia. Now, on Thursday (Jan. 9), arrives “Flying Away,” which Huerta — who is not part of the cast — performs in the clip accompanied by Nadia DiGiallonardo, Rich Mercurio and Yair Evnine. “They gave up so much so I could have more/ And if I don’t go what was all of it for,” say part of the lyrics.
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“’Flying Away’ is a song of longing of this teenage girl becoming a woman, who is growing up in a double culture [as the daughter of Latin American immigrants.] She’s becoming her own person while she’s trying to discover who she wants to be, who she is supposed to be, and who her family need her to be,” Huerta explains. “It’s a big struggle for her, and I think she doesn’t wanna let anyone down, but she ultimately has to think about her, without forgetting about her family. ‘Flying Away’ is that type of song about, how can I spread my wings, how can I fly, how can I be who I was born to be without leaving everyone behind.”
Additionally, fans can stream four demo tracks from the show, including “Make It Work,” “Flying Away,” “Daydream,” and “Real Women Have Curves,” all performed by Huerta, here. All songs were written by the Mexican star along with composer/lyricist Benjamin Velez, whom she calls “a very talented guy.”
Known for Hot Latin Songs hits including “Corre!”, “Me Soltaste” and “Ecos de Amor” as part of Jesse & Joy, the duo she shares with her brother, Huerta — who could relate to the story as the Mexican daughter of an American mother — has enjoyed learning the craft of writing songs for a different form of art in this project.
“Also understanding in what way you are telling the story, because the way I tell stories is in 3 minutes. Here, I especially had time to strike a certain nerve, knowing that what I did or said was going to have a domino effect half an hour, 45 minutes later,” she says enthusiastically. “And that’s been phenomenal because for me now writing songs for Jesse & Joy, knowing what I know after five years of working on this project, it’s been fascinating — it’s like I’m stealing little tricks from different sides for both worlds, and it’s been quite fun.”
Based on the play by Josefina López and the HBO’s movie adaptation, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical is set in East L.A. in 1987 and follows 18-year-old Ana García, a daughter of immigrants who struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desire of her mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory. The 2002 movie, directed by Patricia Cardoso, put a young America Ferrera on the map.
Now Huerta hopes the show helps people see real immigrants in a different light.
“Something that’s really affected me with this story is that all these issues that were happening in the 80s are still happening today, and you would think no, it’s 2025, so many things have changed, it should be easier, and it’s not,” the artist says, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I have dual citizenship, I feel very privileged, but it is very difficult for those who are going to live right now in this new change of government,” she adds. “One of the reasons I’m very excited about this play is that I feel like, whenever you try and tell the story through a family perspective, a family point of view, I feel like maybe we can stop looking at our differences and we can start looking at each other as people. And when that happens, I think change really starts happening.”
As for her aspirations not only to write but also to perform on Broadway, Huerta would love to do it one day, but right now she is enjoying the ride behind the scenes. “I would definitely love to do it at some point. I would also love writing more for musicals,” she says. “This has been such a rewarding and such a beautiful experience.”
Real Women Have Curves: The Musical is produced by Waitress producers Barry and Fran Weissler, and Jack Noseworthy. It has a book by Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin, music supervision by Nadia DiGiallonardo, and direction & choreography by Tony and Olivier Award winner Sergio Trujillo. Cast and additional creative team will be announced at a later date.
It arrives on Broadway following its 2023 world premiere at American Repertory Theater (A.R.T) at Harvard University, with previews beginning on Tuesday, April 1, and an opening night set for Sunday, April 27 at the James Earl Jones Theatre (138 West 48thSt). Tickets can be purchased online now at Telecharge.com or by calling 212-239-6200.
Watch Joy Huerta singing “Flying Away” from Broadway’s Real Women Have Curves: The Musical above.