Theater News

Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Joshua Henry to Join Audra McDonald in Shuffle Along

Mitchell and McDonald will reunite on Broadway for the first time since the original production of ”Ragtime”.

Audra McDonald will be joined by Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, and Joshua Henry in Broadway's Shuffle Along.
Audra McDonald will be joined by Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, and Joshua Henry in Broadway's Shuffle Along.
(© David Gordon)

A bevy of stars will join six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald onstage in the upcoming Broadway production Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Follows.

Starring with McDonald are Tony winners Brian Stokes Mitchell (Ragtime) and Billy Porter (Kinky Boots), as well as Tony nominees Brandon Victor Dixon (Motown the Musical) and Joshua Henry (Violet). Previews begin at Broadway's Music Box Theatre on Monday, March 14, 2016 with opening night set for Thursday, April 21.

The production, with a new book and direction by George C. Wolfe and choreography by Savion Glover, will present the landmark 1921 African-American musical Shuffle Along alongside the behind-the-scenes details that led the songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake and librettists F.E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles to create this groundbreaking work.
Mitchell and Porter take on the roles of Miller and Lyles, with Dixon and Henry as Blake and Sissle, and, as previously announced, McDonald as performer Lottie Gee.

Wolfe's creative team includes Daryl Waters (musical supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations), Santo Loquasto (scenic design), Ann Roth (costume design), Scott Lehrer (sound design), Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer (lighting design), and Shelton Becton (musical director).

Shuffle Along marks a reunion for Glover and Wolfe, both of whom won Tony Awards for their 1996 hit Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. It will also mark the first time that McDonald and Mitchell have worked together since the original Broadway production of Ragtime. Additionally, cast members Dixon and Henry both played the role of Heywood Patterson in major New York mountings of John Kander and Fred Ebb's musical The Scottsboro Boys.

Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell in the original Broadway production of Ragtime.
Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell in the original Broadway production of Ragtime. The pair will reunite in the upcoming musical Shuffle Along.