Broadway Opening: MR. SATURDAY NIGHT (New Musical Starring Billy Crystal at the Nederlander Theatre)

Post image for Broadway Opening: MR. SATURDAY NIGHT (New Musical Starring Billy Crystal at the Nederlander Theatre)

by Gregory Bernard on February 21, 2022

in Theater-New York

BILLY CRYSTAL WILL STAR
IN THE NEW MUSICAL COMEDY MR. SATURDAY NIGHT
BOX OFFICE OPENS TODAY, FEB 21, 2022

A person in a suit smiling Description automatically generated with medium confidence PERFORMANCES BEGIN MARCH 1, 2022
OPENING NIGHT MARCH 31, 2022 AT THE NEDERLANDER THEATRE
Tickets at Mr. Saturday Night  

BOOK BY BILLY CRYSTAL, LOWELL GANZ & BABALOO  MANDEL
MUSIC BY JASON ROBERT BROWN
LYRICS BY  AMANDA GREEN
CHOREOGRAPHY BY ELLENORE SCOTT
DIRECTED BY JOHN RANDO

MR. SATURDAY NIGHT  is the story  of  Buddy Young Jr.,  an outrageous  and outspoken comedian who found fame, if not fortune, in the early days  of  television.   Now, some 40 years  after his TV career flamed out, Buddy seeks one more shot  at the spotlight,  and while he’s  at it, one last shot  at fixing the family he fractured  along the way.

MR. SATURDAY NIGHT  will  also feature Shoshana Bean  (Wicked, Waitress), who will play the role of Susan Young; Tony Award winner  Randy Graff  (City  of  Angels,  Les Misérables)  is Elaine Young;  David Paymer  (City Slickers,  Quiz Show,  State & Main), who is recreating his Oscar-nominated performance  is Buddy’s brother Stan Yankelman;  Chasten Harmon  (The Good Fight, Elementary,  Broadway’s  Hair)  is  agent  Annie Wells.

The Broadway company will also include Jordan Gelber  (Sunday in the Park with George),  Brian Gonzales  (Aladdin), and  Mylinda Hull  (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,  Sweet Charity).

RANDY GRAFF

SHOSHANA BEAN

DAVID PAYMER

JORDAN GELBER, BRIAN GONZALES, and MYLINDA HULL

Mr. Crystal returns to the role  of  Buddy Young Jr. that he portrayed in the original 1992 Columbia Pictures film  of  the same name, which  also marked his directorial debut. The book for the stage musical is written by Crystal, Lowell Ganz  and  Babaloo  Mandel.  The score for  MR. SATURDAY NIGHT  features music by Jason Robert Brown  (Parade, The Bridges  of  Madison County)  and lyrics by Amanda Green  (Hands on  a  Hardbody). John Rando  (Urinetown, On The Town) will direct. The production will feature choreography by  Ellenore Scott  (upcoming revival  of  Funny Girl).

The production will feature scenic design by  Scott Pask,  costume design by  Paul Tazewell, lighting design by  Kenneth Posner,  video  and projection design by  Jeff Sugg,  sound design by  Kai Harada,  and hair  and wig design by  Charles LaPointe. Music Direction is by  David O.  Orchestrations  and  arrangements  are by  Jason Robert Brown.

This is Billy Crystal’s return to Broadway following the hugely successful production  of  700 Sundays  that premiered in 2004  and had  a return Broadway engagement in 2013.

Based on the Castle Rock Entertainment motion picture,  Mr. Saturday Night  is  written by Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz  and Babaloo  Mandel  and based on  a  concept by Billy Crystal. By special  arrangement with Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures.

BIOGRAPHIES:

BILLY CRYSTAL  (Buddy Young Jr./Book)  is  a  Tony  and Emmy  Award winning comedian,  actor, producer, writer,  and director.   He is known  around the world  as the star  of  such feature films  as  When Harry Met Sally’¦,  City Slickers  and  Analyze This;  as  a  cast member  of  NBC’s  Saturday  Night Live;  and the  acclaimed nine-time host  of  the  Academy  Awards ®. Crystal has hosted the GRAMMY ®  Awards three times  and earned 5 Emmys for his work  as host, writer  and producer on both shows. Billy won his 6th  Emmy for the HBO  Comedy Special “Midnight Train to Moscow.” Crystal was the 2007 recipient  of  the Mark Twain Prize for  American Humor  and is  a  NY Times  best-selling  author  of  5 books. In 2004, Crystal made his Broadway debut with the original production  of  his one-man  show  700 Sundays,  for which he won  a  Tony  Award. The Broadway production was released  as  an HBO special, garnering 4 Emmy Nominations.   Crystal’s latest work includes the friendship comedy  Standing Up, Falling Down  opposite Ben Schwartz,  as well  as  Here Today,  for which Crystal co-wrote the screenplay, directed, produced,  and starred opposite Tiffany Haddish. He has been married to Janice for 51 years  and they have two children  and four grandchildren.

SHOSHANA BEAN’s  three independent solo albums have all topped the iTunes R&B and Blues charts in the US and UK, with her fourth and most recent project, SPECTRUM, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Jazz charts. She has sold out solo concerts around the globe, lent her voice to countless films and television shows, amassed millions of views on YouTube, and performed alongside Ariana Grande, David Foster, Postmodern Jukebox, Brian McKnight, and Michael Jackson. Shoshana is a veteran of the Broadway stage having made her debut in the original cast of  Hairspray, starring as the very first replacement for Elphaba in  Wicked  and most recently as Jenna in  Waitress. She won a IRNE Award for her performance as Fanny Brice in  Funny Girl  and earned a Jeff Award nomination for her portrayal of CeeCee Bloom in the pre-Broadway musical production of  Beaches.

RANDY GRAFF  (Elaine Young). Broadway:  City  of  Angels  (Tony/ Drama Desk  Award),  A  Class  Act  (Tony/Drama Desk nominations),  Fiddler on the Roof  (2004),  Laughter on the 23rd Floor,  Moon Over Buffalo,  Falsettos,  High Society,  Les Misérables  (original Fantine).  Off Broadway/Regional:  The Babylon Line  (Lortel  Award),  Motherhood Out Loud  (Primary Stages),  The Long Christmas Ride Home  (Vineyard Theatre),  and productions  at Playwrights Horizons, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, McCarter Theater,  and The Kennedy Center’s Sondheim Festival  as the Countess in  A  Little Night Music. Ms. Graff has sung on several original Broadway cast recordings,  and her own solo cd “Randy Graff Sings Cy Coleman.”

DAVID PAYMER  (Stan Yankelman).  After  a  breakout performance  as ’˜Ira’ in  City Slickers, David Paymer’s co-star Billy Crystal wrote him into  Mr. Saturday Night, earning him  an Oscar nod. He has worked with prolific directors such  as Spielberg (Amistad), Redford (Quiz Show), Oliver Stone (Nixon), David Mamet (State & Main), Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s  Franchise),  and Sam Raimi (Drag Me To Hell). Paymer has since notably starred in  The  American President,  Get Shorty,  Payback,  The Hurricane,  In Good Company, Francis Ford Coppola’s  Twixt  and  Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Paymer can currently be seen recurring on FX in Hulu’s “Dave”  as Dave Burd’s father.

CHASTEN HARMON  (Annie Wells). Chasten recurs on the CBS  All  Access series “The Good Fight”. She previously starred in the USA series “Damnation”  and had recurring roles on  ABC’s “The Fix”, NBC’s “The Inbetween”  and CBS’s “Elementary”. In film, Chasten can be seen opposite  Adam Driver in Jim Jarmusch’  Paterson. She will next be seen starring in the independent film  The Mistress. Chasten received her MFA from the Yale School  of  Drama.

JORDAN GELBER  has appeared on  Broadway in  Sunday in the Park with George,  Elf  (Buddy),  All My Sons, Avenue Q  (original cast, Outer Critics Circle Award). Off-Broadway credits include  Nantucket Sleigh Ride, 2000 Years,  The Joke,  Birth and After Birth, Avenue Q.  Film: star of  Dark Horse,  The Kitchen, Bleed For This,  Pelham, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead,  Everyday People  (IFP/Gotham Award nominee),  Riding in Cars With Boys,  Changing Lanes. TV:  Elementary, Mr. Robot, Mindhunter, Insatiable, Boardwalk Empire,  Nurse Jackie,  Rescue Me, Ugly Betty,  every  Law & Order  series,  The Sopranos,  100 Centre Street. BA, Stanford University; MFA, NYU Tisch Graduate Acting (Laura Pels Award).  www.JordanGelber.com

BRIAN GONZALES  has appeared on Broadway in  Aladdin, One Man Two Guv’nors,   Shrek,  and  The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  His National Tour credits include  Shrek, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  His TV and film credits include  Aladdin  Live from The West End,  Elementary, Law & Order.

MYLINDA HULL’s  Broadway credits include  The Nance, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Sweet Charity, Little Shop of Horrors, 42nd Street, Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical.  Off Broadway work includes  Road Show  (Public Theatre);  I Love You, You’re Perfect’¦  (Westside Theatre);  High Button Shoes, The New Yorkers, Merrily We Roll Along, Girl Crazy, Face The Music  (all at Encores!). Regional credits include  The Connector  (NYSAF),  Dancing at Lughnasa  (Two River),  Guys and Dolls  (North Shore, IRNE Award). Natl Tour: Lola opposite Jerry Lewis in  Damn Yankees.  Television:  Fosse/Verdon, Younger, Rise, The Big C, The Blacklist.

LOWELL GANZ  (Book) grew up in Queens  and moved to Los  Angeles to begin  a  career writing for television shows including  The Odd Couple, Happy Days,  and  Laverne  and Shirley  (which he co-created).  After teaming up with Babaloo  Mandel he began  a  screenwriting career. Their credits include  Night Shift, Splash, Gung Ho, Spies Like Us, Parenthood, City Slickers,  A  League  of  Their Own, Mr. Saturday Night, Forget Paris, Multiplicity, Ed TV,  and  Fever Pitch. In 2019, they received the Writer’s Guild Laurel  Award for Lifetime  Achievement in Screenwriting. Lowell  also,  along with Garry Marshall,  wrote  a  play,  Wrong Turn  at Lungfish,  which was produced  at Steppenwolf in Chicago  and in Los  Angeles  and  off-Broadway. He considers the opportunity to be part  of  the creative team that is bringing  a  new musical to Broadway  a  highlight  of  his career. Lowell lives in Los  Angeles with his wife Jeanne. They have three children, five grandchildren,  and he still roots for the Mets.

BABALOO  MANDEL  (Book) was born  and raised in The Bronx, where his school grades disproved that  all Jews were smart.    At  age 10 he was figuratively struck by lightning upon seeing the classic film  Some Like It Hot.    In 1972 he left New York for Hollywood to pursue his  Some Like It Hot  screenwriting dream.    He soon landed his first writing job on the TV series  M*A*S*H.    He was immediately fired  and his  office thoroughly fumigated.    Several years later,  after writing jokes for comics, great pity befell him by Lowell Ganz.    He worked on several TV shows  co-run by Mr. Ganz, until  an opportunity came  along to fulfill Babaloo’s screenwriting dream.    Together they have written 20 films,  among them  Splash, Parenthood,  A  League  of  Their Own,  as well  as four films (City Slickers 1  and 2, Mr. Saturday Night  and  Forget Paris) for the luminescent Billy Crystal (in case he reads this).    In 2019 they were recipients  of  the Writers Guild Lifetime  Achievement  Award.    In his personal life, Babaloo has been married for 46 years, because who else would marry him?    Together he  and his wife, Denise, whom he has known since she was 14, have six children  and two grandchildren. As for  Mr. Saturday Night, the Broadway bound musical, this goes beyond  a  10-year-old boy’s dream.

JASON ROBERT BROWN  (Composer/Orchestrator/Arrangements). Jason’s musicals include  Songs for  a  New World,  Parade  (Best Score Tony  Award),  The Last Five Years  (also  a  feature film),  13  (being released on Netflix summer 2022),  The Bridges  of  Madison  County  (Best Score  and Best Orchestrations Tony  Award),  and  Honeymoon in Vegas.  Jason’s  albums  as  a  singer-songwriter include  Wearing Someone Else’s  Clothes,  How We React  and How We Recover,  Live in  Concert with  Anika  Noni Rose,  and this year’s  Coming From Inside The House  with  Ariana Grande  and Shoshana Bean. Upcoming:  The Connector;  Farewell My Concubine; concerts  and Hadassah meetings.    Mr. Saturday Night  marks Jason’s first collaboration with  any  of  these people  and they  all seem nice.

AMANDA GREEN  (Lyrics)  is  a  Tony-nominated lyricist/composer, writer,  and performer. She wrote the lyrics  and co-composed  Hands On  A  Hardbody  (Tony, Outer Critics Circle  and two Drama Desk  Award Nominations for Music & Lyrics, first woman composer to receive the  Frederic Loewe  Award  for Outstanding Composition). In the same season she co-wrote lyrics for  Bring It On  (Tony nominated for Best Musical, Drama Desk Nom for Outstanding Lyrics).  Additional credits include Broadway:  High Fidelity  (lyrics);  additional book  and lyrics for Tony-nominated revival  of  Kiss Me Kate;  additional lyrics for Tony-nominated revival  of  On The Twentieth Century.  Off Broadway:  additional lyrics,  Bob Carol Ted &  Alice  (The New Group);  For The Love  Of  Tiffany  (lyrics; NY Fringe Festival). TV:  Peter Pan Live, The Kennedy Center Honors.  She is currently writing the lyrics for  Female Troubles,  an original musical comedy she co-conceived, which she describes  as “Jane  Austen meets  Bridesmaids  but  about Women’s Reproductive Freedoms.”  Amanda is the first woman President  of  The Dramatists Guild  of  America.

JOHN RANDO  (Director) won the 2002 Best Director Tony  Award ®  and Outer Critics Circle  Award for  Urinetown the Musical. Other Broadway credits include  On the Town  (Tony nomination for Best Revival  and Best Direction), the Tony-nominated Best Musicals  A  Christmas Story  and  The Wedding Singer,  Penn & Teller,  A  Thousand Clowns,  Dance  of  the Vampires,  Getting the Band Back Together  and  Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party. Concert productions include  The New Yorkers,  High Button Shoes,  It’s  a  Bird It’s  a  Plane It’s Superman,  Annie Get Your Gun,  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,  Damn Yankees,  Face the Music,  Of  Thee I Sing,  The Pajama Game,  Do Re Mi  and  Strike Up the Band  (all for City Center Encores!).  Off-Broadway credits include  Jerry Springer the Opera  (The New Group), David Ives’s  The Heir  Apparent  (Classic Stage Company – 2014 SDCF Callaway  Award for Direction)  and David Ives’s  All in the Timing (2013 Obie  Award for Direction). Internationally, John’s work can be seen in China with two original musicals: Jay Chou’s  The Secret  and  Spirit  of  Life – The Jonathan Lee Musical.

ELLENORE SCOTT  (Choreographer) is  a  choreographer, performer,  and creative director. In 2022, Ellenore will choreograph the Broadway revival  of  Funny Girl.   She has  also served  as the  associate choreographer for  Head Over Heels  and  King Kong  on Broadway  and was the  assistant choreographer for the Broadway revivals  of  Cats  and  Falsettos.   She choreographed Kate Hamill’s  off-Broadway production  of  Pr8ide  and Prejudice  and Jeremy O. Harris’  Black Exhibition.  She is the  Artistic Director  of  ELSCO Dance,  a  New York contemporary dance company.  As  a  performer she was  a  finalist  and  an  All-Star on the hit television show, “So You Think You Can Dance.” Ellenore has performed on numerous television shows (Glee, Smash, The Ellen Show, The Blacklist, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,  among others)  and danced with Janet Jackson.

JAMES L. NEDERLANDER  (Producer). President  of  The Nederlander Organization  and son  of  the late James M. Nederlander. Broadway:  Tina’”The Tina Turner Musical, Jagged Little Pill, Moulin Rouge!,  Thoughts  of  a  Colored  Man, Plaza Suite, Some Like It Hot, To Kill  A  Mockingbird, Oklahoma!, Tootsie, Harry Connick, Jr.–A  Celebration  of  Cole Porter, The Band’s Visit, Mean Girls, My Fair Lady, On Your Feet!, The Humans, Meteor Shower, The Elephant  Man  starring Bradley Cooper,  I’ll Eat You Last  starring Bette Midler,  Kinky Boots, Next to Normal, The 25thAnnual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Movin’ Out,  as well  as  many others. He has  also promoted hundreds  of  concerts, from  Adele to Robin Williams, Pink Floyd, U2, The Rolling Stones  and Billy Joel.   Nederlander is  a  co-owner  of the newly revived Drama Book Shop in New York.

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