‘Forbidden Broadway’ Finds New Home Off Broadway
The updated iteration of Gerard Alessandrini’s long-running Forbidden Broadway revue is heading back to Off Broadway following a brief flirtation with the prospect of a Broadway move.
Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song will begin previews August 23 at Theater555 on West 42nd Street. Opening night is set for Thursday, September 12.
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Earlier this year, producers for the show announced that the satirical revue would make its decades-in-coming Broadway debut at the Hayes Theatre sometime this summer, but the planned staging was an early casualty of Broadway’s very crowded spring-summer season. Last month, the Broadway producers Ryan Bogner, Victoria Lang and Tracey McFarland said the Hayes staging wouldn’t happen due to the “enormously crowded” Broadway landscape.
Today, Forbidden Broadway creator Gerard Alessandrini said, “I am thrilled that this latest incarnation of the show that I had been preparing for more than a year, can now open Off Broadway, where Forbidden Broadway has felt at home for over 40 years. The exciting new Broadway season has inspired me to create a barrage of theatrical zingers, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to present this edition in New York after all.”
The Off Broadway staging is produced by John Freedson, Harriet Yellin and Eric Krebs.
Created, written and directed by Alessandrini, with musical staging by Gerry McIntyre, Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song “skewers the latest deluge of Broadway offerings including Hell’s Kitchen, Stereophonic, The Outsiders, The Great Gatsby, Back to the Future, The Wiz, and of course, Merrily We Roll Along.”
The synopsis continues, “there will be sendups of Roger Bart, Patti LuPone, Daniel Radcliffe, Ariana DeBose and Jeremy Jordan, among others. This up-to-the-minute version will also poke fun at the 2024 Tony Awards, and will include some of the most popular numbers from Alessandrini’s recent Forbidden Sondheim.”
The Forbidden Broadway company will be headed by Chris Collins-Pisano and Jenny Lee Stern with musical director Fred Barton on piano. The remainder of the cast and creative team will be announced later.
Alessandrini created the first edition of the show in 1982, and the popular revue has been staged at various Off Broadway venues for more than 40 years.
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