Second Choices

The second half of the 2006-2007 Broadway season is upon us and the next five months promise something for everyone, from big flashy musicals to revivals of classic dramas. But above all, some of the world’s biggest stars will be gracing the Great White Way in the next few months. Here, in order of their official opening dates, is the very creamy crop of upcoming Main Stem offerings.

Translations
(Biltmore, January 25)
Tony Award winner Garry Hynes returns to Broadway to helm the Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of Brian Friel’s 1980 drama about the linguistic clash between the Irish and the English in the town of Ballybeg. The transcontinental cast includes Niall Buggy, David Costabile, Michael FitzGerald, Geraldine Hughes, Susan Lynch, and Chandler Williams.

The Coast of Utopia Part Three-Salvage
(Vivian Beaumont, February 18)
The final part of Tom Stoppard’s trilogy about a group of Russian intellectuals in the 19th Century promises a lot more scintillating talk — and yet another acting showcase for the plays’ 40-member-plus cast, including Richard Easton, Jennifer Ehle, Brían F. O’Byrne, Jason Butler Harner, Ethan Hawke, and Martha Plimpton. Talk about an embarrassment of riches!

Journey’s End
(Belasco, February 22)
R.C. Sheriff’s classic 1929 drama about a platoon of soldiers in World War I continues to be a very timely piece of work. British director David Grindley, who helmed the play’s recent acclaimed West End revival, once again takes the reins. The talented all-male cast is headed by handsome British film star Hugh Dancy and All-American Tony Award winners Boyd Gaines and Jefferson Mays.

Talk Radio
(Longacre, February 25)
The formidable Liev Schreiber takes on the role of acerbic talk show host Barry Champlain in the first Broadway production of Eric Bogosian’s riveting 1987 drama. Tony winner Robert Falls directs, and the supporting cast includes television favorites Peter Hermann and Stephanie March, actor-playwright Erik Jensen, and rising film star Sebastian Stan.

Prelude to a Kiss
(American Airlines, March 8)
Tony winner John Mahoney returns to Broadway for the first time in 20 years in a revival of Craig Lucas’ supernatural-tinged romance. Annie Parisse and Alan Tudyk play the young lovers. Daniel Sullivan directs.

Curtains
(Hirschfeld, March 22)
Proof that good things come to those wait: This long-gestating musical murder mystery by John Kander and the late Fred Ebb was a big hit at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre last fall. The book and additional lyrics are by Tony winner Rupert Holmes, and the director is the clever Scott Ellis. The show’s all-star troupe is led by David Hyde Pierce as a stagestruck detective who investigates Debra Monk, Karen Ziemba, Jason Danieley, Jill Paice, and Edward Hibbert as some of the many suspects.

The Year of Magical Thinking
(Booth, March 29)
The prolific David Hare is both adaptor and director of this solo stage version of author Joan Didion’s memoir about the recent annus horribilus in which she was forced to cope with the deaths of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne, and their daughter Quintana Roo. The highly estimable Vanessa Redgrave is sure to command the stage as Didion. Don’t forget to bring your handkerchiefs.

The Pirate Queen
(Hilton, April 5)
Having written two of Broadway’s all-time biggest hits, Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil are hoping that lighting will strike thrice with this epic musical based on the life of legendary Irish chieftain Grace O’Malley. Former Wicked star Stephanie J. Block tackles the title role; the wonderful Linda Balgord puts her own stamp on Grace’s enemy, Queen Elizabeth I; and Jeff McCarthy, William Youmans, and hunky Hadley Fraser lead the masculine contingent.

A Moon for the Misbegotten
(Brooks Atkinson, April 8)
Eugene O’Neill’s classic drama about the quasi-relationship between the alcoholic Jamie Tyrone and the rough-hewn Josie Hogan gets yet another spin just six years after its last revival, thanks to the rave reviews and many awards that Howard Davies’ production recently picked up in London. Oscar winner Kevin Spacey (last seen on Broadway in Davies’ production of O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh) and Olivier Award winner Eve Best play the troubled pair, while British star Colm Meaney co-stars as Josie’s rougish father, Phil.

Inherit the Wind
(Lyceum, April 12)
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s evergreen drama about the famous Scopes trial shows up for yet another run on the Broadway boards. This time around, the battling attorneys will be played by master thespians Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer under the guidance of Tony-winning director Doug Hughes. Don’t monkey around; get your tickets before this limited engagement sells out.

Legally Blonde
(Palace, April 29)
The latest screen-to-stage transfer is this musical version of the popular film about perky, seemingly-dumb Elle Woods, who not only surprises everyone by getting into Harvard Law, but eventually helps win a notorious murder case. The fabulous choreographer Jerry Mitchell jumps into the director’s chair for the first time; his collaborators include composer-lyricists Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, book writer Heather Hach, and set designer David Rockwell. Lovely Laura Bell Bundy steps into Elle’s pink pumps, while the first-rate supporting cast includes Tony winner Michael Rupert, Orfeh, Christian Borle, Richard H. Blake, and Nicole Ruth Snelson.

LoveMusik
(Biltmore, May 3)
The man with more Tony Awards than anyone in history, director Harold Prince, teams with Pulitzer Prize-, Oscar-, and Tony-winner Alfred Uhry to tell the story of composer Kurt Weill and his wife, actress/singer Lotte Lenya. Not surprisingly, they’ve chosen a pair of remarkably accomplished actor-singers, Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy, to portray the legendary couple. The show’s musik — I mean music — is by Weill, and the lyrics are by his many collaborators.

Deuce
(Music Box, May 6)
The ostensible subject of this new comedy is the relationship between a pair of retired tennis stars, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t know a racquet from a rocket; the author is four-time Tony winner and Pulitzer honoree Terrence McNally; the director is multi-Tony winner Michael Blakemore; and the stars are the legendary Angela Lansbury (in her first starring role on Broadway in nearly 25 years) and the national treasure known as Marian Seldes. Talk about a perfect match.

110 in the Shade
(Studio 54, May 9)
Leave it to the enterprising Roundabout to not just bring back the underappreciated 1964 Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt musicalization of N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker, but to hand the lead role of “old maid” Lizzie Curry to the one-and-only Audra McDonald. Lonny Price, McDonald’s close friend and frequent director, helms this production, which also features relative newcomer Steve Kazee as the charismatic con man Starbuck and the veteran star John Cullum as Lizzie’s plain-spoken dad.