Susan Sarandon and More Join HBO Broadway Themed Pilot The Miraculous Year

Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon will join the cast of HBO's upcoming Broadway themed TV pilot The Miraculous Year, according to EW.com. Sarandon joins previously announced stars Norbert Leo Butz, Patti LuPone, Frank Langella, Eddie Redmayne, Hope Davis and Stark Sands in the pilot penned by Red Tony winner John Logan and directed by recent Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow.

Tony nominees Karin Plantadit (Come Fly Away) and Brooks Ashmanskas (Promises, Promises) and TV's Pushing Daisies star Lee Pace have also been cast alongside Andre Ward (Rock of Ages), Giancarlo Esposito (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Eric Altemus (The Fantasticks), Linus Roache, Elaine Cassidy, Remy Nozick, Logan Georges, Louis Ozawa Changchien and Daniel Davis. Production on the pilot begins on July 26 in New York.

Described as a chronicle of a New York family as seen through the eyes of Terry Segal, a charming yet self-destructive Broadway composer (Butz), The Miraculous Year is widely assumed to be based (loosely) on the life of  Stephen Sondheim, with whom scribe Logan collaborated on the screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd. The pilot, which makes industry digs at commercial hits like Wicked and spotlights real-life theater hangouts such as Angus McIndoe, establishes Segal as a snarky and brilliant talent in the process of adapting the novel Bel Ami for the Broadway stage while simultaneously juggling a difficult family (and chasing chorus boys).

According to a character breakdown on EW.com, Sarandon will play Patty Atwood, the director and choreographer of the play within the show. Davis plays Mandy Vance, Terry's corporate lawyer sister; Roache is her husband, Scott Vance; Esposito plays her boss, Harold Burton; Langella is Terry and Mandy's father, a world-class painter; LuPone is Veronica, a Broadway star; Sands is her son, Duke Ellis; Pace is Frank Moss, Terry's partner; Ashmanskas is Fritz, Terry's librettist; Davis is Frederick, Terry's mentor; Plantadit, Changchien is Tamil Lee, an art curator; Ward and Altemus are dancers in Terry's show and Nozik and Georges are Mandy and Scott's children.