Daniel Radcliffe's How to Succeed Sets Opening Date at Al Hirschfeld Theatre

The buzz-filled revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying starring Daniel Radcliffe has found a Broadway home: The show will begin previews on February 26, 2011, at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre and open on March 27, directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford. Further casting will be announced shortly.

Billed as the 50th anniversary production of the show, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying features a book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert and a score by Frank Loesser. The show centers on a young window-cleaner, J. Pierrepont Finch, who begins a meteoric rise from the mail-room to Vice President of Advertising at the World-Wide Wicket Company. Finch’s unorthodox and morally questionable business practices jeopardize not only his career but also his romance with Secretary Rosemary Pilkington. Loesser’s score includes such hits as “I Believe in You,” “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm,” “The Company Way,” “Been a Long Day,” “Rosemary” and “Brotherhood of Man.”

How to Succeed originally opened on Broadway in October 1961 starring Robert Morse (who went on to star in the 1967 film version and now appears in Mad Men, a show with a similar setting). The show won seven Tonys and became one of only eight musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A 1995 Broadway revival directed by Des McAnuff starred Matthew Broderick as Finch and ran for 548 performances at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

The How to Succeed revival will be produced by Broadway Across America (John Gore, Thomas B. McGrath, Beth Williams), Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, Joseph Smith, Michael McCabe, and Candy Spelling.