Tony Nominee Joshua Henry Joins Glee's Amber Riley in Encores’ Cotton Club Parade

Strike up the band because Joshua Henry is joining the parade over at Encores! The Tony nominee will replace previously announced star Brandon Victor Dixon in Encores’ upcoming staging of Cotton Club Parade. Dixon, who is set to star in the new musical Motown, is no longer available due to scheduling conflicts.

Cotton Club Parade is a Broadway-style revue celebrating Duke Ellington’s years at the famed Harlem nightclub in the 1920s and ‘30s. The show features singers, dancers and variety acts performing songs by composers including Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields (“I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Digga Digga Doo”), Harold Arlen (“Stormy Weather,” “I’ve Got the World on a String,”) and Ellington himself (“Rockin’ in Rhythm,” “Cotton Club Stomp,” “Creole Love Call”).

The cast also features Glee’s Amber Riley, Jared Grimes and Adriane Lenox. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, the show will be presented for seven performances, November 14 through 18.

Henry most recently starred as Jake in the Tony-winning Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess. He received a Tony nomination for his role as Haywood Patterson in the acclaimed Kander and Ebb musical The Scottsboro Boys (a role originally played off-Broadway by Brandon Victor Dixon, coincidentally). His other credits include Broadway’s American Idiot, In the Heights, Encores' The Wiz and Godspell at the Paper Mill Playhouse. Henry also appeared as Jennifer Hudson’s love interest in the Sex and the City film.