The play takes place in the same world as the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things,” but it is based on an original story by “Stranger Things” creators the Duffer Brothers as well as Jack Thorne and Kate Trefry. Trefry wrote the play with Justin Martin and Stephen Daldry, serving as co-directors.

As previously announced, Louis McCartney will reprise his award-winning performance as Henry Creel to make his Broadway debut when the production makes it way to New York this spring.

The rest of the cast of 34 were announced Friday, including Janie Brookshire, Kelsey Anne Brown , Malcolm Callender, Ta’Rea Campbell as Patty’s Mom, Juan Carlos as Bob Newby – replacing Nicholas Eldridge, Antoinette Comer, Robert T. Cunningham as Charles Sinclair, Ayana Cymone as Sue Anderson, Tom D’Agustino, Victor de Paula Rocha , Ian Dolley as Walter Henderson, Dora Dolphin as Karen Childress, Nya Garner, Logan Gould as Lonny Byers, Shea Grant as Claudia Yount, Rebecca Hurd, Ted Koch as Chief Hopper, Timothy Lawrence, Jamie Martin Mann as Ted Wheeler, Patrick Scott McDermott, Stephen Wattrus, Maya West and Eric Wiegand as Alan Munson and Graham Winton.

The newcomer cast has 16 Broadway debuts. 

Earlier this month the production announced principal actors joining the cast, including Emmy Award nominee T.R. Knight as Victor Creel, Alex Breaux as Dr. Brenner, Emmy Award nominee Gabrielle Nevaeh as Patty Newby, Rosie Benton as Virginia Creel, Andrew Hovelson as Principal Newby, Alison Jaye as Joyce Maldonado, and Burke Swanson as James Hopper Jr.

Breaux will also be a series regular in the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things.” 

McCartney’s performance of “The First Shadow” on The West End earned him the Stage 2024 Debut Award for Best Performer in a Play as well as the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Additionally, the play has won Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play and Best Set Design.

The show’s description is as follows:

In 1959 Hawkins, Indiana, the Creel family seeks a fresh start, especially their teenage son Henry, who is eager to escape his troubled past. Initially, things go well — he finds friendship and joins the school play. But when a wave of shocking crimes strikes the town, Henry is forced to confront a terrifying truth: is there something inside him that connects him to the horrors unfolding around him?

As this thrilling mystery races forward, shadows of the past are unleashed, relationships are tested, and the town of Hawkins faces the ultimate question: can the power of friendship outshine the darkness within?

“Stranger Things: The First Shadow” will open at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre. Performances will begin on March 28, 2025, and the show will officially open on April 22, 2025. Tickets are now on sale.

The post ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ Full Cast Revealed appeared first on TheWrap.

As with some of the students in Toossi’s classroom drama, I have no talent for learning foreign languages despite all the courses taken, all the money spent. I know the fear, the awkwardness, that constant feeling of stupidity. Watching “English,” I also felt the tedium of sitting in a classroom — or Zoom class — while people struggle desperately to express themselves in a foreign language. Yes, the tedium. My classes tend to be 90 minutes. Toossi’s play is only slightly longer.

Set in Iran in 2008, the four students here (Tala Ashe, Ava Lalezarzadeh, Pooya Mohseni and Hadi Tabbal) and their teacher (Marjan Neshat) speak fluent American English when they’re supposed to be speaking Farsi, and a very accented broken English when they’re supposed to be speaking English. In other words, we in the audience can always understand what they’re saying except when the accents get a little too thick or the English gets really mangled, which is when Toossi reveals her dated sense of humor. Anyone who watched Ricky Ricardo “’splain” himself on “I Love Lucy” has heard these kinds of malapropism jokes before.

My takeaway from “English” is definitely not the message of identity and pride that Toossi has in mind. For me, the teacher Marjan (Neshat exudes extreme patience throughout) is trying hard to teach disrespectful students who don’t really want to learn. For example, when the teacher insists they speak English, a couple of the students believe she is infringing on their Arab identity and insist on speaking their native tongue so they can really “express” themselves. One student gets so incensed she plays a Farsi song in class.

For me, this is the moment I would demand my tuition back. We’re learning German, so let’s listen to Lady Gaga?

Another such tuition-refund moment comes when the students perform a language exercise and throw a small green ball at each other. When they catch it, they have to speak an English word on a given topic, such as “kitchen” or “sports.” The exercise adds action to a drama that desperately needs it, but this exercise is trauma-inducing for anyone trying to verbalize a foreign word.

But back to those recalcitrant students: They shame Marjan for having let people in England, where she lived for nine years, call her Mary. That’s a lesson learned. This week, I must remember to tell my Italian instructor to stop calling me Robertino.

Of course, there’s a difference between foreign language as a hobby and foreign language as destiny and survival. These Iranian students’ future depends on passing the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The anxiety and fear of failure permeates the actors’ performances, and there’s something else they’re even better at communicating: resentment. “English” was conceived as Toossi’s MFA thesis, and running around the edges of her play is the inherent patriarchy of formal education. Toossi tweaks that indictment by having the teacher be female, but the subjugation of the students by an illiberal force propagating Western culture remains. They study a Ricky Martin song, watch the movie “Moonstruck” and, of course, drink Coca-Cola. That’s cultural tyranny.

The other choice is chaos — let the students run the classroom and no one learns. “English” explores the tyranny, but fudges the chaos. Left unexplained is how one incompetent student eventually aces her TOEFL. Also weakly explained is why another student, proficient in English, takes this class.

Under Knud Adams’ direction, Neshat is wise to play against the authoritarian instincts of her character. Ashe and Mohseni, unfortunately, play right into their respective character’s self-righteousness with regard to so-called students’ rights. Such entitled behavior has led to many in the United States leaving the teaching profession. It’s doubtful it has ever been tolerated in Iran, especially in 2008.

“English” is written in short snippets of scenes, and Toossi emphasizes this choppiness by concluding many of these five-minute skits with an overly pithy remark. Adams brings some connective tissue to the play by providing musical interludes as Marsha Ginsberg’s classroom set spins around to offer us a variety of viewpoints. The only thing missing is the drama.

In one respect, “English” fits perfectly into the dramatic works the Pulitzer committee likes to promote. It tells us that Western culture is bad, everything else is just great.

The post ‘English’ Broadway Review: Something Gets Lost in the Translation appeared first on TheWrap.

Van Kampen, also a concert pianist and theater director, died in Germany surrounded by family. No cause was given.

Her music was featured on Broadway and in London productions including “Richard III,” “Twelfth Night” and others with her husband in the cast. Van Kampen worked at Shakespeare’s Globe for nearly 20 years, eventually becoming its first female director.

She also wrote “Farinelli and the King,” which Steven Spielberg urged her to turn into a screenplay, and composed the score for the production that started in London before it moved to Broadway.

Van Kampen and Rylance were working on a historic TV drama for Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment at the time of her death.

The family statement provided to TheWrap is below:

Dear Friends,

Our beloved mother, and wife, Claire Louise van Kampen, has passed peacefully this morning, Saturday the 18th of January at 11:47, in the ancient town of Kassel Germany, surrounded by her family. Concert Pianist, Composer, Musical Director, Theatre Director, Playwright, Mentor and Friend.  And one of the funniest, wickedest, most inspiring women we have ever known. Claire has died of cancer on Mark’s 65th Birthday. 

We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter, and love. Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.

Juliet and Mark Rylance

The post Claire van Kampen, Prolific Composer and Wife of Mark Rylance, Dies at 71 appeared first on TheWrap.

Talks between IATSE and the non-profit theater broke down on Sunday, prompting crew members to go on strike ahead of the 2 p.m. ET matinee performance. The strike followed several months of negotiations after the Atlantic crew unanimously voted to unionize with IATSE in February 2024.

The union, which represents 170,000 technicians, artisans and craftspersons in the entertainment industry, including live events, motion picture and television production, broadcast and trade shows, said it filed an unfair labor practice charge against Atlantic as the theater’s management has “consistently stalled progress and made unilateral demands on working conditions.”

“Atlantic Theater’s refusal to bargain fairly has left the crew no choice but to strike,” IATSE international president Matthew D. Loeb said in a statement. “These workers deserve the same dignity, respect and protections as everyone else in New York’s entertainment community — whether they work in front of or behind the curtain, on or Off Broadway. Shame on them for not providing healthcare coverage to all their employees. We are prepared to resume negotiations as soon as Atlantic Theater is ready to bargain in good faith.”

In a statement, the Atlantic said it offered IATSE a nearly 20% increase in wages and other benefits as well as two interim agreements over the past two months that included 13% increases in wages and health, effective immediately, in return for a no strike agreement, but that those offers were ignored.

“We believe equity on our stage is crucial and our offer aligns with our contract with Actors’ Equity Association,” the statement noted. “IATSE believes this is unacceptable and wants more. In addition, the union is attempting to expand its work jurisdiction beyond the theatrical productions.”

The Actors’ Equity Association, which represents over 51,000 professional actors, stage managers and others working in live entertainment, issued a statement of solidarity.

“We have full faith that IATSE is negotiating terms that are fair and appropriate for their members, and we look forward to the shows resuming when an agreement has been reached,” AEA assistant executive director Calandra Hackney said.

The negotiations came as the theater industry continues to struggle to recover to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

“The world of Off Broadway theater is quickly changing: many not-for-profits are doing shorter seasons and choosing plays with smaller casts, press coverage that can boost tickets sales is never guaranteed, advertising costs continue to rise and production costs have nearly doubled since the pandemic. Most of Off Broadway is facing a precarious financial situation, running significant deficits since returning from COVID,” the Atlantic added. “If IATSE is successful in getting their proposed financials with Atlantic, it would set a precedent for other Off Broadway companies and we may see the demise of some of our greatest institutions, including Atlantic.”

“Atlantic is pro-union and works collaboratively with several other unions, but we have to make this agreement financially sustainable for everyone or we will not be around to offer any work to anyone,” its statement concluded. “Our hope is that IATSE will reconsider the stance it is taking and work with us to reach a fair contract for our production crew quickly.”

IATSE noted that Atlantic received over $4.3 million from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) under the 2021 Save Our Stages law, as well as $205,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) over the past decade.

“These funds were intended to support arts institutions and their workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Yet, Atlantic Theater has used these resources without extending the same respect and support to the workers who keep their venues running,” IATSE said. “Atlantic Theater’s board of directors has a moral responsibility to negotiate in good faith and agree to a fair contract that allows productions to continue without disruption. The union remains ready and willing to return to the table at any time to reach an agreement that respects the rights and contributions of the crew. Despite management’s refusal to bargain fairly, the Atlantic crew has remained united in its demand for a contract that recognizes its contributions and provides the basic protections of union representation.”

The post Atlantic Theater Company Postpones 2 Off Broadway Productions as IATSE Stagehands Go on Strike appeared first on TheWrap.

10. “Swept Away” on Broadway

Using Avett Brothers songs, Jordan Logan’s book tells a true and riveting tale of cannibalism on the high seas. And man eating man isn’t even the shocking part. John Gallagher Jr. delivers the year’s best performance by an actor in a musical. Michael Mayer directs.

9. “Jordans” at the Public Theater

In a dazzling stage debut, Ife Olujobi delivers a play that’s funny, bizarre and an homage to “Get Out.” In that Jordan Peele thriller, there’s one Black character named Jordan. In “Jordans,” there are two (Naomi Lorrain and Toby Onwumere) who find themselves in the uncomfortable situation of working in an alien world. Whitney White directs.

8. “Oh, Mary!” on Broadway

Charles Ludlam’s the Ridiculous Theatrical Company lives on in playwright Cole Escola, who also plays Mary Todd Lincoln, a chronic drunk who wants to be a cabaret singer. That’s where Escola’s wild ride of a comedy begins, and their take on Abe Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora) and John Wilkes Booth (James Scully) is even more wonderfully insane. Sam Pinkleton directs.

7. “Eureka Day” on Broadway

Jonathan Spector’s send-up of political correctness at a private school in Berkeley, California has the actors walking on radioactive egg shells. Anna D. Shapiro’s direction turns a series of text messages into one of the year’s funniest scenes in the theater. Jessica Hecht, in a heartbreaking monologue, delivers the best performance by an actress in a play.

6. “Gypsy” on Broadway

Director George C. Wolfe has a wild new take on the classic: Mama Rose’s worst sin is no longer turning her daughter (Joy Woods) into a stripper. Audra McDonald gives the best performance by an actress in a musical.

5. “The Hills of California” on Broadway

Another very determined stage mother has not two but four daughters she wants to make stars to escape her own suffocating existence in Blackpool, England. In Jez Butterworth’s new play, Laura Donnelly plays both the mother and the one daughter who makes it all the way to California. Sam Mendes directs.

4. “The Ally” at the Public Theater

A Jewish professor (Josh Radnor) sponsors a controversial speaker on the campus, and all hell breaks out when words like “apartheid” and “genocide” are applied to the state of Israel. The debates never stop in Itamar Moses’ new play, the best of 2024. Lila Neugebauer’s direction resembles a brilliant chess match at which no one wins.

3. “Maybe Happy Ending” on Broadway

Two obsolete robots (Darren Kriss and Helen J Shen) meet a la Mimi and Rodolfo in “La Boheme,” and then go on a quest to find his owner somewhere on an island in South Korea. Hue Park and Will Aronson make spectacular Broadway debuts as both book writers and songwriters.  Michael Arden scores as the year’s best stage director.

2. “Hold on to Me Darling” at the Lucille Lortel

Kenneth Lonergan’s funny, pathetic, brilliant 2016 play returns to the New York stage with Adam Driver playing the country-western star who wants to return to his roots even though he never left them behind. Driver gives the year’s best performance by an actor in a play. Neil Pepe directs.

1. “Dead Outlaw” at the Minetta Lane

Playwright Itamar Moses takes a true story and delivers the stage equivalent of what Alfred Hitchcock did in “Psycho” when Janet Leigh gets killed 40 minutes into the movie. Even though the year’s best musical is about a mummy, it really sings with foot-tapping songs by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna. David Cromer directs.  

The post 10 Best New York Theater Productions of 2024 appeared first on TheWrap.

There had been doubts about the 2003 revival’s Mama Rose – shouldn’t Bernadette Peters be playing Baby June instead? – but Hatcher voiced much bigger concerns. He told Mendes, “Well, you’ve done something no one’s ever done before. You’ve ruined ‘Gypsy.’” Laurents’ agent from William Morris had to break up the fight, but agreed: The show under Mendes’ direction was too Brechtian, too dark. To prove this point, Laurents went on to direct the fourth revival, starring Patti LuPone in 2008. It’s what many consider the definitive “Gypsy.”

The fifth Broadway revival of “Gypsy” opened Thursday at the Majestic Theatre, and it is the first production there that its book writer and its lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, won’t be able to see. Unfortunately. It’s an audacious production and it is also very, very dark. George C. Wolfe takes over for Laurents and Mendes, and he adds another layer of meaning to a show that is arguably the most layered musical ever written for the Broadway stage. Despite all its revivals, “Gypsy” has never been a mega hit with audiences, even when Ethel Merman first sang the great tunes by Jule Styne.

Rose remains the worst stage mother in theater history, and ironically or not, her spirit lives on next door to the Majestic at the Broadhurst Theatre where the Sam Mendes-directed production of Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California” gives us one of the character’s direct descendants, a British mother who attempts to turn her four daughters into the next Andrews Sisters.

Laura Donnelly delivers a big, fierce stage mother in “Hills.” In the new “Gypsy,” Audra McDonald is even bigger and fiercer. Most important, she is physical. Musically, the score lies uncomfortably on McDonald’s register break, especially in “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” In some ways, it is just another struggle for this Rose to meet and conquer, which she does magnificently in “Rose’s Turn.” Whether this ruthless mom is lying to landlords or ordering around waitresses or directing her adult children (Joy Woods as Louise, Jordan Tyson as June) or flirting with her long-suffering boyfriend Herbie (Danny Burstein, the epitome of generosity), McDonald wins by being tougher and stronger than anyone else on stage and, by extension, the world.

As Wolfe and McDonald see her, Rose has even more reason to fight, and turning her daughter into a stripper is only half of it. Having seen “Gypsy” so often, I was genuinely surprised when the audience at the preview I attended gasped out loud when Rose makes that career choice for Louise. In the new revival, the moment is almost anti-climactic, at least for me. Equally brutal is Rose putting Louise in the cow costume and, before that, replacing all the Black kids in the Newsboys chorus (“Extra! Extra!”) with white teenagers. This cast change from children to adults is one of the show’s most famous moments, and, in the past, has been handled quickly with strobe lights. The scene always gets big applause.

Under Wolfe’s direction, there are no strobe lights and there’s also not much applause, if any. Rather than dazzling us, the moment shocks. Here, Rose singlehandedly replaces each performer, and getting rid of all the Black children in the chorus, she also does away with Louise. June, on the other hand, can pass as white in her curly light brown (almost blond) wig, whether she is being played by the amazing child actor Marley Lianne Gomes or later by Jordan Tyson. As sung by Tyson and Woods, “If Momma Was Married” emerges as an anthem of survival for the two daughters, and is this production’s vocal standout.

Rose now conjures up a much more complicated masterplan, and the scheme begins as soon as she meets Herbie, a former agent turned candy salesman, who, because he’s white, can open doors for her with all the impresarios. Historically, this is very dubious. Theatrically, it is Wolfe’s masterstroke and extends right up to his final take on Gypsy Rose Lee as Josephine Baker.

This is not the definitive “Gypsy.” It is a very different “Gypsy.” And the newsboys are right on the money when they tell us, “Extra! Extra! Historical news is being made.”

The post ‘Gypsy’ Broadway Review: Audra McDonald Wrestles With Rose and Wins appeared first on TheWrap.

The writing on the backstage wall comes when an executive committee of concerned parents tries to address an outbreak of mumps at a private school. Anna D. Shapiro’s direction can best be described as littering the stage with egg shells and daring her five actors not to crack any of them. The school library where the committee meets has all the revered icons on display, and from the looks of Todd Rosenthal’s scenic design, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Toni Morrison will descend from the shelves at any minute to swat away all illiberal comments.

The extremely mild-mannered Don leads the group, and as played in several shades of gray by Bill Irwin, he can’t get through a sentence without changing his mind at least twice. Suzanne is another veteran of the group, and Jessica Hecht’s delivery is to pour lukewarm oatmeal over every slightly controversial opinion being expressed by fellow members Eli (Thomas Middleditch) and Meiko (Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz). Carina is the group’s new member, and Amber Gray plays this initiate by being slightly bemused at all the attempts to keep things diversified, equitable and inclusive. Eventually, Carina and Suzanne find room not only to disagree but verbally pummel the hell out of each other over vaccine efficacy.

Long before that showdown explodes, Don has called the committee together for an emergency meeting about the mumps outbreak. The declaration from public health officials is absolutely clear on what to do. The five committee members are anything but, and so Don sets up a Zoom call to address the parents directly.

Downstage center, Don faces the audience to stare and talk into a laptop. This Broadway season, the only less theatrical set up is Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher’s characters falling in love via email in “Left on Tenth.” In “Eureka Day,” Shapiro’s actors and Spector’s written words turn the situation into one of the must-see scenes of 2024. The fun starts as soon as the parents at the Eureka Day School begin to respond to what Don is trying to tell them. On the back wall of the library, David Bengali’s projection design gives us the parents’ texts messages, complete with head shots of people, pets and cartoon characters.

Thirty seconds into these text messages I stopped listening to what was being said on stage. Indeed, Spector gives the actors lines, they never stop talking, sometimes all at once, but it is the written and silent text messages that completely dominate. What becomes clear very soon is that the text comments are filled with crap no parent would utter face to face to his or her worst enemy. The brazenness and, ultimately, the cruelty are shockingly funny — shocking because those texts are so typical and commonplace nowadays.

It’s a great scene, and Spector matches it with a monologue that comes late in the play. Here, the playwright has the enormous help of Hecht, who delivers one of this year’s most riveting performances. It takes place when Suzanne and Carina have their showdown. Whatever your views on childhood vaccines may be, Hecht forces you to reconsider those ideas right or wrong.

The post ‘Eureka Day’ Broadway Review: How Concerned Parents Text Their Way to Hell appeared first on TheWrap.

But even the von Trapp family never sang this much. And the Dahls don’t just sing. Each plays a musical instrument too. There’s Mom (Mare Winningham), who plays the guitar, and there’s Dad (David Rasche), who plays the piano. Other instruments include a harmonica, a mouth organ, maracas and a triangle. We can give thanks to the baby Jesus that there are no bongo drums.

No surprise, the Episcopal priest husband James (Christopher Lowell) of the daughter Diana Dahl Bennett (Shailene Woodley) fits right into this Hallmark card picture. Even the drug-addict son Johnny (Christopher Sears) has a lot of singing to get off his chest when he finally arrives, very late for dinner, at the family farmhouse in Connecticut.

Only two members of this brood appear less than charmed by all the vocalizing, and tellingly, they’re both in-laws. They include the Jewish wife Rachel (Molly Bernard) of the son Mark Dahl (Zachary Quinto) and the wife Pippa (Roberta Colindrez) of the daughter Evie Dahl (Rebecca Henderson). And Johnny brings a female companion, Loren (Barbie Ferreira), who remains bemused because, unlike the two female in-laws, she hasn’t had to sit through this song-fest ritual in years past.

Clearly the title of Headland’s 100-minute one-act play is ironic.

The priest and his wife are a bit baffling at first, because this Episcopalian couple reacts more like white Christian nationalists when it comes to the pink lesbian couple in the room. Headland resolves James and Diana’s strange brand of religion late in the play. Until she does, the conflict between the straights and the gays creates lots of arguments and recriminations. And when Evie and Pippa finally tell off the two bigots, the audience at the Helen Hayes Theater flaps their hands right on cue like Pavlovian chickens. Broadway playwrights know how to play to the chorus.

All the singing is supposed to signal a happy childhood that went very wrong somewhere on the path to adulthood. The problem is, almost all of the characters are types, if not downright clichés: the parents (cuddly, with blinders on), the Christians (blessed, but bigoted), the drug addicts (irresponsible, but lively), the lesbians (angry and pissed off) and the Jew (also angry and pissed off).  That leaves Zachary Quinto to play the one character that’s supposed to be the play’s moral center but nearly topples over from all the angst Headland gives him. Mark Dahl studied to be a priest but switched to law, and in the process turned into an atheist who gets to deliver a perfectly dreadful speech about the existence of God in the play’s penultimate scene.

There is one big plus though: Having seen John Lee Beatty’s living room set with its humongous Christmas tree and attendant lights, you can skip visiting Rockefeller Center this season.

Trip Cullman directs.

The post ‘Cult of Love’ Broadway Review: Zachary Quinto Gets Buried in Holiday Sturm und Cheer appeared first on TheWrap.

The Tony-winning actress got extra candid during her Wednesday appearance on “That’s a Gay Ass Podcast,” bluntly revealing she “never liked” the “Chuck” star, especially now that his political beliefs have become a topic of conversation.

“Yeah, I never liked him. Everyone was like, ‘He’s so great,’ and I was like, ‘No, he’s not. He’s sucking up all the f–king energy in this room and he wants to mansplain everybody’s parts to them,'” Benanti recalled. “He really sucked everybody in with his dance party energy, like, ‘We’re doing a dance party at half-hour.’ I was like, ‘Good luck, have fun.’”

However, it wasn’t just a personality clash that led to Benanti publicly eviscerating Levi eight years later. As podcast host Eric Williams noted, the “Harold and the Purple Crayon” actor paid tribute to fellow former co-star Creel following his death from cancer at age 48 in September … by implying COVID-19 vaccines may have actually caused “turbo cancer” in him.

“I know that this is going to offend some people and make some people mad, and I wish it didn’t,” Levi said in an October Instagram Live video. “A few weeks ago, my friend Gavin Creel died. He was 48 years old, and he was one of the healthiest people I knew.”

“You better believe that, with everything in me, I believe that if these COVID vaccinations were not forced on the American public…” he then trailed off.

Benanti did not mince her words when reacting to Levi’s stance on Wednesday: “For him to use Gavin’s memory — a person he was not friends with — to use his memory for his political agenda and to watch him try to make himself cry until he had one single tear, which he did not wipe away, I was like, ‘F—k you forever.’”

She further acknowledged how the “Tangled” voice actor embracing his more conservative side will actually help his career, as opposed to what others may think.

“And everyone’s like, ‘It’s career suicide.’ But it’s not career suicide, because Christian, faith-based TV and film is huge. He’s going to be a huge f—king star in that realm. He’s going to make more money than he ever has,” Benanti said. “It makes me nauseous, but also a little bit, like, ‘I told you, motherf—kers.’”

Notably, Benanti and Levi ended up working together again shortly after their musical closed in “Tangled: Before Ever After” in 2017, as well as on two episodes of the spinoff series, “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.”

TheWrap has reached out to Levi’s team for comment.

The post Laura Benanti Admits She ‘Never Liked’ Former Co-Star Zachary Levi After He Politicized Gavin Creel’s Death: ‘F—k You Forever’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

Speaking with “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson in this week’s episode of his “Dinner’s On Me” podcast, Harden said that Nichols blamed her for everything that went wrong with the 2001 New York production.

Harden had just won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Pollock,” which meant she didn’t have to audition to join the cast, which included Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stephen Spinella, Larry Pine, Deborah Monk and John Goodman. 

The cast was “bonkers,” so Harden said she didn’t hesitate to say yes. “I had in my mind, my vain little mind, that Mike would see me and realize I was the new Meryl Streep. I just had in mind that he would love me and that he would find someone similar in spirit [and feel the same] passion that he had for Meryl.”

Unfortunately, Nichols decided that she was the show’s “guinea pig.” She explained to Ferguson, “It means that there’s one person who gets picked on, and when the show isn’t going to be successful, it’s going to be that person’s fault. And there’s nothing, no, no way that person can ever be successful.”

While Nichols treated Streep as “the reigning queen of that particular play,” Harden said that “it very quickly became clear that no matter what I did as Masha, it was the wrong thing to do.”

The actress remembered crying in the dressing room that she shared with Streep. “At one point I sobbed, ‘I don’t think Mike likes me.'”

Streep suggested that maybe Nichols disliked the character. “I don’t think he likes Masha. And it’s your job to stay loyal to your character,” she recalled Streep telling her.

Eight years later, Nichols came to see Harden in “God of Carnage” on Broadway and apologized for the way he’d treated her during “The Seagull.”

“He bursts into tears and I hug him and he says, ‘I was really hard on you during, ‘The Seagull, wasn’t I?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Even Philip Seymour told me I was really hard on you!'”

She told him, “Well, you were.”

That’s when Nichols gushed, “You’re one of the greatest actresses in America.”

“That’s why the end of the story is a little embarrassing to say, but he said it. And I think that the takeaway for me is that it was a two-way street,” she told Ferguson. “Mike was disappointed in what I didn’t know. And he was also playing favorites, as he does. He can be very hard on people, but he was disappointed that I didn’t instinctively come at it with what he knew. And so he punished me a little bit for it.”

Listen to Harden’s full interview with Ferguson here.

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