Bound for Broadway: 11 Debuts We Can't Wait to See in 2018
Last year brought us the debuts of current Broadway darlings Hailey Kilgore (Once on This Island), Ethan Slater (Spongebob Squarepants), and Eva Noblezada (Miss Saigon), plus some serious star power thanks to Uma Thurman's lead role in The Parisian Woman. Fortunately, 2018's slate of newcomers is equally stacked. Whether they're London stage stars crossing the pond, Hollywood A-listers or buzzed-about fresh faces, these are the Broadway debuts to watch for in the new year.
1. Chris Evans
Captain America himself will take his first New York theater bow in the first Broadway production of Kenneth Lonergan's 2001 play Lobby Hero. Evans plays an “unpredictable” cop who is sleeping (around) on the job, and stars opposite his Scott Pilgrim vs. the World co-star Michael Cera, who plays a hapless lobby security guard caught in a moral dilemma when a murder investigation comes to his work. Not only is the show bringing a Hollywood super hero to the boards, but it will also reopen the newly refurbished Helen Hayes Theatre, the first Broadway home for one of New York's top off-Broadway theater companies, Second Stage Theatre.
2. Lauren Ridloff
Perhaps best known as the first African-American Miss Deaf America, Ridloff will make another meaningful stride for representation and inclusion on Broadway as Sarah in the Kenny Leon-directed revival of Children of a Lesser God. The play chronicles the romance between an unconventional teacher (The Affair’s Joshua Jackson) at a school for the deaf and a former student (Ridloff). The role of Sarah was written specifically for deaf actress Phyllis Frelich, who won a Tony Award for her performance the 1980 premiere (Marlee Matlin won an Oscar for the 1986 film). Now it's Ridloff turn to shine in the role.
3. Matt Bomer
This star is most known for his roles as a sexy conman in the TV crime series White Collar, sexy stripper in Magic Mike and Lady Gaga’s sexy vampire husband on American Horror Story: Hotel. Now, Bomer will make his Broadway debut in The Boys in the Band, which is about a group of gay men convening for a birthday party. Set in 1960s New York City, the party goes awry when self-loathing and catty humor tear them apart. After scoring a Golden Globe Award for the HBO adaptation of The Normal Heart, another groundbreaking gay story, we have confidence in Bomer's turn as the underachieving and conflicted Donald in Mart Crowley’s dark classic.
4. Charlie Stemp
After appearing making his West End debut as "monkey number three" in Wicked and hitting the road in the international tour of Mamma Mia!, this 24-year-old British fresh face made it big on the London theater scene in 2016 with an Oliver-nominated turn in the classic English musical Half a Sixpence. Now the energetic star (sample of Sixpence reviews: “infectious Red Bull-level energy,” “springs about like a mountain goat” and “one big, athletic, all-singing, all-dancing, all-banjo-playing tidal wave of cheer”) will make his New York debut on January 20 as goofy store clark Barnaby in Hello, Dolly! replacing Broadway's next Evan Hansen, Taylor Trensch.
5. Kandi Burruss
“I’m not about the drama. Don’t start none, won’t be none,” Burruss states in one of her Real Housewives of Atlanta taglines. Apparently, she is about the drama, seeing as how the reality-TV star is making her first Broadway bow as Matron "Mama" Morton in Chicago on January 15. The singer-songwriter hit the Billboard charts as a member of the '90s R&B group Xscape and has since written hits like TLC’s “No Scrubs” and “Bills, Bills, Bills” by Destiny’s Child, so clearly she has the music chops and attitude to nail the show-stopping “When You're Good to Mama.”
6. Armie Hammer
Currently a Hollywood awards season regular for his turn in the critically adored gay romance Call Me by Your Name, Hammer will spend the summer on the Main Stem in Straight White Men. Hammer will play one of three adult brothers who is forced confront their identity at a Christmas Eve gathering with their dad (Emmy winner Tom Skerritt) in the drama by Young Jean Lee. After being bogged down by big-budget film flops, Hammer finally struck cinematic gold, and he's following up that success with Broadway. Here’s to trading in magazine covers for marquees.
7. Samantha Barks
The West End starlet, best known for her breakout role as Eponine in the Les Misérables film, is hitting Rodeo Drive in a musical adaptation of the beloved rom-com Pretty Woman on Broadway. She’ll play Vivian (the iconic Julia Roberts role) who goes from hooker to high class after meeting a wealthy businessman, played by Once Tony winner Steve Kazee. A regular on the London stage, Barks has flirted with Broadway before, leading Amélie’s out-of-town run in 2015, but now she’s arriving for real.
8. Jelani Alladin
Jonathan Groff told Broadway.com that when he saw the Denver tryout of Frozen: The Musical, Alladin’s performance as Kristoff was tear-inducing. “He has this moment in the second act with this beautiful song that just made me cry,” said Groff, who originally voiced the role in the animated movie. “He was incredible.” All eyes will be on this newcomer when the sure-to-be juggernaut Disney musical opens at the St. James Theatre on March 22.
9. Noma Dumezweni
Even before landing the female lead of Hermione Granger in the mega-show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, this British talent was one of the West End's most-loved theater stars of the moment, thanks largely to an Olivier-winning turn as Ruth in A Raisin the Sun and a last-minute stint replacing Kim Cattrall in the play Linda at the Royal Court Theatre. Dumezweni handled the internet uproar that followed her casting with aplomb (the difference between her and film Hermione Emma Watson? “She’s young,” she told Broadway.com) and went on to win the Olivier Award for the play, which arrives on Broadway on March 16.
10. Denise Gough
Gough stunned audiences and picked up an Olivier Award as Emma, an addiction-riddled actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, in the West End and New York productions of People, Places & Things. Perhaps it’s good casting, then, that Gough will reprise the role of Harper, an addiction-riddled housewife on the verge of a nervous breakdown, in the Broadway transfer of London’s Angels in America. Gough will make her Broadway debut when starry revival bows March 25.
11. Harry Hadden-Paton
You’ll probably recognize Harry Hadden-Paton from his parts in British period dramas, like the Marquis of Hexham Bertie Pelham in Downton Abbey and Martin Charteris, the Queen’s dashing aide on The Crown. The London stage star will play Henry Higgins to Lauren Ambrose’s Eliza Doolittle in the Lincoln Center revival of My Fair Lady. He’ll make his debut as the phonetics professor when the long-awaited Lerner and Loewe reboot opens at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater on April 19.
