Story of the Week: A Last-Minute Addition to the Broadway Season

Broadway-watchers were shocked this week to learn that the off-Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, which played a sold-out run this winter at BAM, will make a surprise transfer to Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre — and not a moment too soon. The production will play exactly three preview performances before opening on Thursday, April 27, the final day on which a Broadway show may be considered for a 2023 Tony Award.

Story of the Week will look closer at the series of misfortunes that had to transpire for this unexpected turn of events, as well as the clever producers who marshaled artists and capital to take advantage of a sudden hole in the Broadway calendar. But first…

What is The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window?

This domestic-political drama is the final play written by Lorraine Hansberry before she died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. It’s about Sidney, a bohemian dilettante who flits from one failed dream to the next: When his folk music venue, “Walden Pond,” goes under, he decides to purchase a floundering alt-weekly newspaper. This immediately piques the interest of Wally O’Hara, who is running an insurgent political campaign against a machine-backed candidate, and who would very much like an endorsement. But Sidney’s wife, Iris, is fed up with his flights of fancy, which he liberally takes while dismissing her career as an actor. One wonders if their increasingly divergent ideals can cohabit in one little Greenwich Village apartment.

Since playing a brief run on Broadway in 1964, Sidney Brustein’s Window has mostly lived in the shadow of Hansberry’s famous debut play, A Raisin in the Sun. Director Anne Kauffman has spent much of the last decade trying to change that, for reasons she explained to TheaterMania in 2016. She helmed a production at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre that year, with sights set on an eventual New York run. Nearly eight years and a pandemic later, producer David Binder made that a reality by inviting Kauffman to stage Sidney Brustein’s Window at BAM’s Harvey Theater with a starry cast led Oscar Isaac as Sidney and Rachel Brosnahan as Iris.

In his review of the BAM run, TheaterMania critic David Gordon wrote, “Hansberry writes with the fervor of someone trying to get all her feelings out before it’s too late; because of that (and the probable lack of edits due to her illness), The Sign has a shagginess it can’t shake…But the warts are part of the charm, and it’s just so exiting to realize that this 59-year-old play speaks to our current social climate with such effortlessness, as Hansberry dares her characters (and especially the audience) to confront their own actions and inactions, and the realization that we all can be bought and sold without considering the ramifications.”

Also bought and sold with significant ramifications were tickets: Sidney Brustein’s Window broke house records at the shabby-chic Brooklyn venue. That’s enough to get the attention of any producer, but it takes a lot more than commercial success to move a production from Brooklyn to Broadway — especially this late in the season.

Why is Sidney Brustein suddenly transferring to Broadway?

This Broadway run almost certainly wouldn’t have happened without two big misfortunes suffered by other productions. First, Clare Barron’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, which was scheduled to make its long-awaited debut at New York Theatre Workshop under the direction of Sam Gold, did not materialize. Originally set to close out the 2019-20 season, Three Sisters was postponed due to Covid. It was rescheduled for this spring, only to be postponed indefinitely on March 6. This freed up Isaac (who was slated to appear opposite Barbie writer-director Greta Gerwig) to pursue other projects, like the one he was about to close at BAM.

Second, the Broadway run of Emma Donoghue’s Room was abruptly canceled in the middle of rehearsals when one of its lead producers withdrew, citing personal reasons. This left the production, which had been set to start previews this past Monday, with a massive financial shortfall that the remaining partners were unable to overcome. It also left the newly rechristened James Earl Jones Theatre without a tenant at the height of the Broadway season.

Into that void rushed The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, which already had a complete set and costumes, a cast of improbably available performers, and a couple of producers with a penchant for taking big, bold risks.

And who exactly is that?

The lead producer is Seaview, a Broadway production company headed by Greg Nobile and Jana Shea, which describes itself as “ferociously committed to disrupting industry standards by taking a radical approach to what we make and how we make it.”

In addition to Sidney Brustein, Seaview is producing the Broadway revival of Parade and the equally unexpected Broadway transfer of Alex Edelman’s Just for Us, which was just announced on Wednesday.

Seaview was also the lead producer of Selina Fillinger’s oval office comedy POTUS, which performed a similar stunt last season when it expedited its official opening night by two weeks in order to meet the Tony cutoff in 2022 (it received two nominations and no wins). That was a show that had already secured a venue and was deep into rehearsals when it joined the 2021-22 season. By bringing Sidney Brustein to Broadway at the last minute, Nobile and Shea have topped that earlier feat, leaving many in the Broadway community stunned by their agility.

I am exceedingly interested in how Seaview was able to turn lemons into lemonade by bringing Sidney Brustein to the Jones just two weeks after its previous tenant folded (multiple requests for comment had gone unanswered at the time of publication). It’s not just about the venue: schedules, contracts, capitalization — there are so many moving parts when putting up a Broadway show, making this kind of speed extremely atypical. If either of you are reading this, reach out and let me know how you put it together.

How will this change the Broadway season and 2023 Tony Awards? 

In so many ways: Half the cast is making its Broadway debut, including Isaac, a major film star (Inside Llewyn David, Star Wars) who has regularly appeared off-Broadway (Hamlet) and will now be eligible for a Best Actor in a Play Tony.

Brosnahan will be making her sophomore appearance on Broadway (she was in the 2013 revival of Clifford Odet’s The Big Knife), and this will serendipitously coincide with the release of the final season of her hit television series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is set to premiere on April 14 and will continue to trickle out during the early weeks of Sidney Brustein‘s run. In that period, she will arguably be the most talked-about television star in America, and she will be appearing on a Broadway stage. It’s a major coup for the producers, and for Broadway as a whole.

Less internationally recognized, but just as significant to the future of the industry is the scenic design collective dots, which will be making its Broadway debut with Sidney Brustein. You can read about why this is such an important development here.

Finally, Sidney Brustein has the potential to upend several Tony categories, including the race for Best Revival of a Play. This season has already produced several strong candidates, including well-received revivals of Death of a Salesman, Topdog/Underdog, The Piano Lesson, Ohio State Murders, and A Doll’s House. No ruling has yet come down about Between Riverside and Crazy (which could arguably be designated as either “New Play” or “Revival”), but if the category remains with six eligible candidates, it is likely that only four of them will be nominated for a Tony Award (this is subject to exceptions through the byzantine Tony rules and regulations).

All of this makes for a more exciting season, and a Tony race for Best Revival of a Play that could rival the one already shaping up for Best Revival of a Musical. Few things are more theatrical than the element of surprise.