Tam Mutu's Understudy Bradley Dean to Play Title Role in Doctor Zhivago Tonight on Broadway

Broadway vet Bradley Dean will step in for Tam Mutu in the title role in Doctor Zhivago on April 3. The April 2 evening performance of the epic romance was canceled after Mutu could not appear in the show because of illness and with less than a week of preview performances to date, there had not been time to prepare understudy Dean. The Des McAnuff-helmed production will officially open at the Great White Way's Broadway Theatre on April 21.

Dean’s Broadway credits include The Last Ship, Evita, A Little Night Music, Company, Spamalot, Man of La Mancha and Jane Eyre.

The tuner features a book by Michael Weller, music by Lucy Simon and lyrics by Michael Korie and Amy Powers. Based on the 1957 novel by Boris Pasternak, the romance is set during the final days of Czarist Russia and follows Zhivago, a political idealist, physician and poet. His life is tossed by the tides of history as he is torn between a life with his devoted wife, Tonia Gromeko and the passionate and mysterious Lara Guishar. Zhivago is not alone in his yearnings for Lara, competing for her affections with the young revolutionary Pasha Antipov and the aristocrat Viktor Komarovsky.

The cast also includes Kelli Barrett, Tom Hewitt, Paul Nolan and Lora Lee Gayer.