Bosco, Santiago-Hudson and Bobb Join Finian's Rainbow; Full Cast Set
The full cast of Finian’s Rainbow, the final production of New York City Center’s 2008-09 Encores! season, has been set. Joining the previously announced Cheyenne Jackson, Jim Norton and Kate Baldwin, will be Tony winners Philip Bosco and Ruben Santiago-Hudson as well as Jeremy Bobb. The musical will play five performances from March 26 to 29, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, with music direction by Rob Berman.
Featuring music by Burton Lane, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg and a book by Harburg and Fred Saidy, Finian’s Rainbow is the story of the Irishman Finian McLonergan Norton and his daughter Sharon Baldwin, who travel to a small Southern town in the mythical state of Missitucky with plans to bury a stolen pot of gold in the shadows of Fort Knox in the mistaken belief it will grow and multiply. They have been followed from Ireland by the owner of the gold, a leprechaun named Og Bobb, who shows up determined to recover his treasure. Jackson plays Woody, the Missitucky landowner who falls in love with Sharon.
Finian’s Rainbow deals in a satirical way with issues of class and race, most specifically in the character of a bigoted southern senator who is accidentally turned black. The score includes such familiar songs as “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?,” “When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love I Love the Girl I’m Near,” “That Old Devil Moon” and “If This Isn’t Love.” The show originally opened at the 46th Street Theatre on January 10, 1949, and played a total of 725 performances.
Bobb will play the part of Og, a leprechaun the role which earned David Wayne a 1948 Tony Award. He appeared on Broadway in Is He Dead? and Translations. His other New York appearances include The Calamity of Kat Kat and Willie, Love: A Tragic Etude, Hell and Back and Murder in the First. His television and film credits include August, White Lies, Black Sheep and Law & Order.
Bosco, who will play Senator Rawkins, received a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut in The Rape of the Belt in 1960 and a Tony Award for his performance in Lend Me a Tenor in 1990. His many Broadway credits include Cyrano de Bergerac, Man and Superman, Saint Joan, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House and You Never Can Tell, winning Tony nominations for the last three. He also appeared in Come Back, Little Sheba, An Inspector Calls, The Heiress, Copenhagen, Twelve Angry Men and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His many film credits include Hogan's Goat, Working Girl, Children of a Lesser God, Wonder Boy, The Savages and My Best Friend's Wedding. Bosco won a Daytime Emmy award for his appearance in the ABC Weekend Special Read Between The Lines and is a series regular on series Damages.
Santiago-Hudson appeared on Broadway in Jelly's Last Jam and received the 1996 Tony for August Wilson's Seven Guitars. Santiago-Hudson's film credits include Coming to America and Domestic Disturbance. On television he has appeared on the daytime dramas Another World and All My Children and the primetime series The Cosby Mysteries, New York Undercover, NYPD Blue, Touched by an Angel, The West Wing, Third Watch, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and five episodes of Law & Order. He wrote Lackawanna Blues, an autobiographical play in which he portrayed himself and some 20 different characters from his past, which he adapted for a 2005 HBO film that won him the Humanitas Prize and earned him Emmy and Writers Guild of America Award nominations.
The cast of Finian’s Rainbow also features Guy Davis, Alina Faye, Andy Weems and William Youmans. The ensemble includes Tanya Birl, Bree Branker, Meggie Cansler, Bernard Dotson, Leslie Donna Flesner, Lisa Gajda, Tim Hartman, Mary Illes, Tyrick Wiltez Jones, Denis Lambert, Kevin Ligon, Monica L. Patton, Joe Aaron Reid, Devin Richards, Steve Schepis, Rashidra Scott, J.D. Webster and Terri White.