Falsettos returns to Broadway after 24 Years
Falsettos is a musical with a book by James Lapine and William Finn and music and lyrics by Finn. The musical consists of March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, the last two in a trio of one-act Off-Broadway plays (the first was In Trousers). The story involves Marvin, his ex-wife Trina, his psychiatrist Mendel, his son Jason, and his gay lover Whizzer Brown. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1992 and won Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score at the Tony’s.
TONY AWARD-WINNING MUSICAL
FALSETTOS
Music and lyrics by WILLIAM FINN
Book by WILLIAM FINN and JAMES LAPINE
Direction by JAMES LAPINE
PREVIEWS BEGIN THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2016Â
OPENING NIGHT IS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2016Â
AT THE WALTER KERR THEATRE
Lead cast has been released which includes Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells and Stephanie J. Block,
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Come and see Our Big Falsettos Video Playlist
This production of FALSETTOS will mark a happy reunion for producer Andre Bishop, composer/lyricist William Finn, and playwright/director James Lapine. In 1981, while Artistic Director of Playwrights Horizons, Bishop produced Finn and Lapine’s new one-act musical March of the Falsettos in the theater’s second floor 75-seat space. The story of a gay man named Marvin, his lover Whizzer, Marvin’s wife Trina, son Jason, and their psychiatrist Mendel, March of the Falsettos was a critical success, described by The New York Times as a musical find. It eventually moved to Playwrights Horizon’s larger downstairs theater for an extended engagement before enjoying a long run Off-Broadway at what was then known as the Westside Arts Theatre. Fast forward to 1990, when a second new musical by Finn and Lapine, Falsettoland, opened at Playwrights Horizons. A continuation of the story of Marvin and his extended family in the early days of the AIDS crisis, Falsettoland repeated the success of its predecessor with rave reviews and a move to the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
In 1992, the two one-act musicals were combined into one and opened on Broadway as FALSETTOS. FALSETTOS ran for over a year at the John Golden Theatre and won Tony Awards for Finn’s score and Finn and Lapine’s book. The 2016 FALSETTOS will be directed once again by James Lapine. The production will have choreography by Spencer Liff, sets by David Rockwell, costumes by Jennifer Caprio, lighting by Jeff Croiter, sound by Dan Moses Schreier, and musical direction by Vadim Feichtner, conducting Michael Starobin’s original orchestrations.
William Finn and James Lapine return to Lincoln Center Theater where their musical A New Brain (with music and lyrics by Finn and book by Finn and Lapine) played at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in 1998 and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. Additionally, Lapine and Finn have collaborated on the musicals Muscle and Little Miss Sunshine. Lapine also directed Finn’s musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway, for which they received Tony nominations for both direction and original score.
William Finn’s Elegies: A Song Cycle premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in 2003. He wrote and composed In Trousers (L.A. Drama Critics Award); America Kicks Up Its Heels (Playwrights Horizons); and Make Me A Song (New York Stages); as well as Romance in Hard Times, Love’s Fire: Fresh Numbers by Seven American Playwrights, and scores for Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and As You Like It, all for The Public Theater. He graduated from Williams College, where he was awarded the Hutchinson Fellowship in Musical Composition.
For Lincoln Center Theater, James Lapine wrote and directed the Tony Award nominated play Act One from the autobiography by Moss Hart, and directed his play Twelve Dreams. In addition to directing the recent HBO documentary Six by Sondheim, Lapine collaborated with Stephen Sondheim as author and director on the musicals Sunday in the Park with George (Pulitzer Prize), Into the Woods, Passion (Tony Award), and the multi-media revue Sondheim on Sondheim. On Broadway, he directed the 2013 revival of the musical Annie, Golden Child, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Amour. His other plays include Luck, Pluck and Virtue, The Moment When, Fran’s Bed, and Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing.
Lincoln Center Theater will produce FALSETTOS as part of its 32nd year. LCT is one of New York’s favorite not-for-profit theaters, with productions at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont, Mitzi E. Newhouse, and Claire Tow Theaters, as well as other theaters on and off Broadway, as well as touring productions nationally and around the world, TV and film projects, and original cast recordings. Notable recent productions include the award-winning The Coast of Utopia, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, War Horse, Other Desert Cities, and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Current productions include the Tony Award-winning production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, The Royale at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, and Her Requiem at the Claire Tow Theater.
LCT3 is Lincoln Center Theater’s programming initiative devoted to producing the work of new artists and developing new audiences.
Jujamcyn Theaters is recognized as a theatrical innovator, championing shows that push the boundaries of Broadway and create new experiences for audiences. Jujamcyn’s five Broadway theatres are the St. James, Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O’Neill, and Walter Kerr where current productions include the Tony Award-winning Best Musicals The Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots and Jersey Boys, as well as Something Rotten! and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Recent productions include A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, American Idiot, Clybourne Park, Fela!, Hair, How to Succeed in Business, A Little Night Music and Spring Awakening. The Jujamcyn team is led by President Jordan Roth, President Emeritus Rocco Landesman, Executive Vice President Paul Libin and Senior Vice President Jack Viertel.
