Michael McGrath to Headline The Honeymooners Musical at The Old Globe

Tony Award winner Michael McGrath (Nice Work If You Can Get It) will star as Ralph Kramden – the small-time bus driver with big-time dreams so famously played on television by Jackie Gleason – in the stage musical The Honeymooners, set to premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, September 8-October 27.

The production will be directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell, who will be represented on Broadway this spring with the new musical Kinky Boots. Additional casting and creative team will be announced at later date.

Inspired by the popular 1950s television series of the same name, The Honeymooners will have a book by Emmy Award nominee Dusty Kay (Entourage, Roseanne) and Bill Nuss (Hawaii Five-O), and a score by composer Stephen Weiner and lyricist Peter Mills, who previously collaborated on the off-Broadway hit Iron Curtain.

The musical will revolve around Ralph and his buddy Ed Norton, who are catapulted out of their working-class lives in Brooklyn and into the cutthroat world of Madison Avenue after they win a jingle-writing contest.

McGrath picked up both Tony and Drama Desk Awards earlier this season for his portrayal of Cookie McGee in Nice Work If You Can Get It, and also received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for his performance in Monty Python’s Spamalot. Among his other Broadway credits are Memphis, Born Yesterday, Wonderful Town, and Swinging on a Star.

Mitchell was represented on Broadway last season as the choreographer of Catch Me If You Can and the production supervisor of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. He won the Tony Award for his choreography of the 2005 revival of La Cage Aux Folles, and was nominated for his work on Legally Blonde, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Never Gonna Dance, Hairspray, and The Full Monty.