Beautiful Moves the Earth, Fun Home Departs & Bronx Bombers Open Their Season in This Week's Datebook

So, you’re trying to stick to your New Year's resolutions, but take a pause from that juice cleanse long enough to check out what’s happening on and off Broadway this week! The Yankees round the bases of the Great White Way, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical makes Broadway feel like a natural woman and Fun Home plays its final show at the Public. It’ll be easy to keep your resolution to see more theater in 2014, because we’ve got the hottest NYC happenings in this week’s Datebook.


MONDAY, JANUARY 6
TAKIN’ IT BACK TO THE OLD SCHOOL
Ann Morrison, Broadway’s original Mary Flynn from Merrily We Roll Along, is telling all in her Studio 54 show Now You Know: An Evening of Steve, Lenny—and Annie. The Broadway vet will be "opening doors" to the songs of Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein for one night only, and you won’t want to miss the behind-the-scenes stories she and special guest Liz Callaway have to offer. 

ALSO: Oscar Isaac talks Inside Llewyn Davis on The Daily Show; Carey Mulligan chats on Kelly and Michael.


TUESDAY, JANUARY 7
DEPP V. DEPP
Ladies, ladies, please! There’s enough Johnny Depp to go around. In fact, two movies' worth, as Paramount releases a delightful double feature of Sweeney Todd and Sleepy Hollow. Depp might not sing Sondheim in Tim Burton's Washington Irving adaptation, but things get just as creepy as in Mrs. Lovett's pie shop. (Bonus casting: Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman.) Meanwhile, don't miss Depp's Oscar-nominated confrontation with Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin.

ALSO: Tom Wopat and Jennifer Laura Thompson both begin runs at 54 Below; the August: Osage County soundtrack is released.


WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8
RUN, COLIN, RUN
House of Cards’ Eshan Bay and Sheldon Best (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) star in off-Broadway’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The play follows Colin (Best) as he tries to make a better life for himself by taking up long distance running, but in the process is exploited at the prison school he’s being forced to attend. Watch the drama unfold as previews begin at Atlantic Theater Company's Stage 2.

ALSO: Travis Moser headlines This Can't Be Love: The Songs of Rodgers and Hart with Rocky’s Samantha Shafer at 54 Below; Scarlett Johansson talks Don Jon and Her with David Letterman; William H. Macy stops by Late Night With Jimmy Fallon; Chicago’s Ute Lemper returns to 54 Below.


THURSDAY, JANUARY 9
RICHIE...RICHIE BLAKEY
Broadway can’t take its eyes off of Richard J. Blake! The musical vet is jumping from playing multiple roles in Matilda to Four Seasons bad boy Tommy DeVito in the long-running hit Jersey Boys. You’ve seen Blake all over the Great White Way in Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, Wicked and more, and he's perfectly cast as the pride of Belleville, New Jersey. See Blake and the rest of the Seasons at the August Wilson Theatre.

ALSO: An off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton's Loot begins tonight at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.


FRIDAY, JANUARY 10
IT AIN'T OVER TILL IT'S OVER
The boys in pinstripes are coming to Broadway in Eric Simonson’s new Yankee-centric drama Bronx Bombers. The show follows Yogi Berra (Peter Scolari) as he meets up with other famous players throughout the 20th century and rediscovers what it means to be a teammate. Catch the ballers hit a home run for the first time tonight at Circle in the Square Theatre. Go Yankees!

ALSO: Mx. Justin Vivian Bond stars in A Man’s a Man at Classic Stage Company; August: Osage County opens across the country.


SATURDAY, JANUARY 11
SIX FEET UNDER
After four extensions, the acclaimed new musical Fun Home closes this weekend at the Public Theater. Based on the graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, this unusual show is set in a funeral home and follows Alison (played by three actresses of different ages) as she comes to terms with her troubled family life and the death of her closeted father. We've heard rumors of an eventual Broadway transfer, but head Home, if you can, to see it off-Broadway.


SUNDAY, JANUARY 12
TONIGHT THEY’RE YOURS COMPLETELY
You will still love the cast of Beautiful: The Carole King musical tomorrow after opening night tonight! With Broadway.com’s sexiest man alive Jarrod Spector as Barry Mann, the oh-so-charming Jake Epstein as Carole King’s lover Gerry Goffin and Tony nominee Jessie Mueller as the pop maven herself, the show follows King's rise from Brooklyn teen to chart-topping singer/songwriter.

ALSO: Stage vets Meryl Streep, Oscar Isaac and more vie for 2014 Golden Globes on NBC; Breakfast with Mugabe reopens on Theatre Row; Peter and the Starcatcher plays its last magical performance at New World Stages; Tony nominee Victor Garber portrays a judge on The Good Wife.