If you're looking for big-name actors from the stage, the small screen, and the silver screen, look no further than Broadway this March. Shake off the last of winter’s bitter chill and warm up with New York theater and its radiant wave of hotshot celebs. Here are just a few of the recent star arrivals: Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams (Blackbird); Oscar winners Lupita Nyong’o (Eclipsed) and Forest Whitaker (Hughie); and Tony winners Frank Langella (The Father, from 3/22); Faith Prince and Roger Bart (Disaster!); Jane Krakowski, Laura Benanti, and Michael McGrath (She Loves Me); Sophie Okonedo and Jim Norton (The Crucible), and Frank Wood (Hughie).
As for long-running shows with VIP cache, let’s talk Wicked. The company recently welcomed two-time Tony winner Judy Kaye (Nice Work If You Can Get It; Phantom of the Opera) and Peter Scolari, costar of the vintage sitcom Bosom Buddies alongside Tom Hanks. Meanwhile, at Lincoln Center’s gorgeous revival of The King and I, leading lady Kelli O’Hara welcomes back her original king, Oscar and Tony nominee Ken Watanabe, March 17th to April 17th.
Ken Watanabe returns to Kelli O’Hara and The King and I. Photo: Paul Kolnik
Star-generated electricity on the outskirts of Broadway comes from cinema’s neoteric Spock Zachary Quinto and Robin Tunney (The Mentalist), costarring in Off-Broadway’s much lauded Smokefall through 3/20 (mcctheater.org); Tony winner Robert Sean Leonard in MTC’s Prodigal Son; and a sublime revival of Sam Shepard’s 1979 Pulitzer-winning Buried Child with Oscar nominees Ed Harris and real-life wife Amy Madigan.
Ed Harris and Paul Sparks (Photo: Monique Carboni)
Big name buzz is all over Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit, aka a theatrical petri jar in which a different celebrity opens the sealed script every performance and flies solo from there. The (confirmed!) lineup features Nathan Lane (3/7); Whoopi Goldberg (3/14); Patrick Wilson (3/21); Brian Dennehy (3/28); and Mike Birbiglia (4/11). Tony winners Christine Baranski, Alan Cumming, and Martin Short are among those signed on pending availability. (At midtown’s West Side Theatre, whiterabbitredrabbit.com).