Producers Stars Cady Huffman and Nathan Lane Reunite for Broadway’s The Nance; Complete Casting Announced

Tony winner Cady Huffman will reunite with her The Producers co-star Nathan Lane for Douglas Carter Beane’s new Broadway play The Nance. Rounding out the cast are Andrea Burns (In the Heights) and Jenni Barber (The Performers), joining previously announced co-stars Lewis J. Stadlen and Jonny Orsini.  Directed by Tony winner Jack O’Brien, the Lincoln Center Theater production will begin previews at the Lyceum Theater on March 21, with an official opening night set for April 15. 

The play's title refers to a derogatory slang word for effeminate men and campy homosexual characters typically played by straight men in 1930s burlesque shows. Lane will play Chauncey Miles, a gay nance performer working during the period when New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia was trying to ban burlesque. Integrating burlesque sketches into the drama, The Nance paints the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life.

In addition to her Tony-winning performance as Ulla in The Producers, Huffman appeared on Broadway in The Will Rogers Follies (Tony nomination), La Cage aux Folles, Big Deal, Steel Pier and Dame Edna: The Royal Tour. Her film and TV credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Good Wife, The Nanny Diaries and Romance & Cigarettes.

Burns has been featured in the Broadway productions of In the Heights, The Full Monty, Beauty and the Beast and The Ritz.

Barber most recently co-starred in the short-lived porn comedy The Performers. Her other stage performances include The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee, Cactus Flower, Some Lovers and Nobody Loves You.

The Nance will feature set design by by John Lee Beatty, costumes by Ann Roth, lighting design by Japhy Weideman, sound design by Leon Rothenberg, original music and arrangements by Glen Kelly, orchestrations by Larry Blank and choreography by Joey Pizzi.