August on the London Stage: Sean Hayes Reprises His Tony-Winning Role, Brigadoon Appears, Every Brilliant Thing Returns

In August, some theater capitals go to sleep. But not London, which is opening any number of enticing productions, even as a separate theatrical jamboree unfolds at Scotland's Edinburgh Festival, north of the border. Those in London can feast on a U.K. stage premiere from a Tony-winning TV name, alongside two productions whose leading players are multiply cast, and the return to London of a second Tony winner, this time in a world premiere. For more on these and other shows, read on.

STARRY STARRY "NIGHT"
Doug Wright’s play Good Night, Oscar won a 2023 Tony award for leading man Sean Hayes (Will & Grace), who not only inhabited the onetime raconteur, actor and wit, Oscar Levant, but played Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with unbridled passion, live at each performance. Here the play is resurfacing for a late-summer berth at the Barbican, opening August 6 and directed as before by Lisa Peterson. Olivier nominee Rosalie Craig (Company) lends local star wattage as Levant’s wife, June, and Ben Rappaport is once again on hand as TV talk show host, Jack Paar. The limited run ends September 21.

In an expansive interview during rehearsals, Wright, the author, spoke to Broadway.com about returning to the theater capital where he was previously represented with Grey Gardens and I Am My Own Wife. “We were a very tight-knit and loving family,” Wright said of Good Night, Oscar’s Broadway cast, confessing to “a certain trepidation about bringing new [actors] into the fold.” Instead, at the first London read-through he recalls catching his director’s eye “and Lisa and I were both on fire—this cast is so damn good.” Hayes’ excellence of course is already known but Wright was full of praise for his English leading lady: “When Rosalie agreed to do this, I was just floored, and watching her work has been such an education. You see her intelligence and her mind going a mile a minute.” It sounds like a fine Night is in store.

A “BRILLIANT” RETURN
The British comedian Jonny Donahoe caused a New York sensation when he brought his U.K. hit Every Brilliant Thing (crafted with Duncan Macmillan) off-Broadway in 2014. The solo play was then filmed in 2016 and is now finding a West End perch for the first time, opening August 7 at @sohoplace and featuring a rotating roster of stars, beginning with Lenny Henry and later including Minnie Driver, Ambika Mod and Donahoe himself. How does he feel about his show’s return? “It’s extraordinary,” the engaging actor-writer told Broadway.com. “When Duncan and I first worked on it in 2013, we anticipated two performances and that would have been OK. Instead, I’ve performed it 250 times across four different continents, and that’s just me.” To what does he attribute the success of a show steeped in depression but also huge dollops of joy? “I like to say that it’s cheap, and the logistics are in our favor. The truthful answer is that it really does become a joyful and uplifting piece about wanting to keep on going.” In the shadow of darkness, the play embraces light.

THE HEATHER ON THE HILL
Brigadoon is done relatively rarely on both sides of the Atlantic, but the 1947 musical from the My Fair Lady duo of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe is following Shucked as the second musical of the season at the alfresco Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park. Drew McOnie directs and choreographs, and August 11 is opening night. Louis Gaunt plays Tommy Albright, the New Yorker who stumbles upon the (fictional) Highland village of Brigadoon, and Danielle Fiamanya and Georgina Onuorah are sharing the role of his love interest, Fiona MacLaren. “I get goosebumps envisioning what Drew has done,” Fiamanya, a Scotswoman herself, said of the production’s creator, whose work she called “meaningful, powerful, dangerous.” The musical this time out boasts a fresh book from the prize-winning playwright Rona Munro (The James Plays). “Rona is like Scottish royalty, so I knew we were going to be in safe hands,” Fiamanya said of the musical’s new scribe. To hear the performer describe her colleagues, it’s almost like being in love.

"TOTORO" STAR TURN
While the Olivier Award-winning My Neighbour Totoro continues its garlanded West End run, its executive producer and composer Joe Hisaishi will be on the podium August 14 of the Royal Albert Hall for one night only as part of the annual BBC Proms season of music, which remains one of the greatest gatherings of musicians in the world. The Japanese maestro will make his Proms conducting debut with his own piece, “The End of the World,” alongside the 1984 work “The Desert Music” from the American minimalist composer Steve Reich, who is now 88.

Q-AND-A
Riverside Studios, situated way out in West London, has in recent years hosted such starry names as Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis and Elizabeth McGovern. This month, Tony winner Robert Sean Leonard returns to the London stage in the world premiere of a new two-hander, Interview, opening August 28 and adapted from the 2003 Dutch film of the same name that was itself remade in 2007 in English. “It really is unlike any play I’ve ever read,” the warmly witty actor said of the adaptation from the Anglo-Dutch writer-director Teunkie Van Der Sluijs. The play, he said, pairs “a journalist who is bitter and acerbic and tired opposite someone bursting with life and excitement”—the young influencer, Katya, played by co-star Paten Hughes. “It’s like watching Taylor Swift pair off opposite Lewis Black,” Sean Leonard noted dryly. “I’d pay to see that conversation.”