Christian Borle, Brian D'Arcy James & More Set for Workshop of Broadway-Aimed Something Rotten

This is one to watch. Broadway favorites Christian Borle (Peter and the Starcatcher), Brian D'Arcy James (Shrek), Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone), John Cariani (Fiddler) and Brad Oscar (The Producers) will lead a developmental lab of Something Rotten in New York this October. Directed by Aladdin’s Casey Nicholaw, the buzzed about new musical comedy is scheduled to premiere at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre next Spring.

The show has music and lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick, with a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell and is set in Renaissance England where two brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom (d’Arcy James and Cariani), are desperate to write a hit play. But how can they when the competition is the biggest star of the era, everyone’s favorite bard: William Shakespeare (Borle)? So they seek out the soothsayer Nostradamus. But not the Nostradamus, his nephew Thomas, who gives our heroes a completely original idea from the future—write a play with songs! And thus, the first ever musical is born.

Other company members for the workshop include Allen Fitzpatrick, Kate Reinders, Jeff Steitzer and Gerry Vichi.

Casting for the Seattle incarnation will be announced later.