The musical comedy Honeymoon in Vegas starring Tony Danza got excellent reviews in its SRO run at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey last year. Now, with the announced closing of the critically praised but disappointingly patronized After Midnight, the Brooks Atkinson Theatre is opening up for Honeymoon's Broadway debut, again starring Danza, directed by Gary Griffin and choreographed by Denis Jones. Rob McClure and Brynn O'Malley will co-star.
Per Ben Brantley of the New York Times: "This delightful new musical based on the 1992 movie by Andrew Bergman, who also wrote the over-the-top funny book for this show, features a revelation of a score by Jason Robert Brown that hooks you from the get-go…The cooler-than-cool spirit of Frank Sinatra is present here, made flesh in a deliciously underplayed star turn by Tony Danza."
Frank Scheck of the New York Post also praised the Emmy and Golden Globe nominee: "Danza has the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. His timing is razor-sharp, his crooning pleasant, and his soft-shoe dancing smooth." Indeed the former Taxi and Who's the Boss star is no mere television transplant. In addition to a turn as Max Bialystock in The Producers on Broadway, he earned an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for his stage debut in Wrong Turn at Lungfish (1993), and appeared in The Iceman Cometh, opposite Kevin Spacey, and in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge.
Though Brown's The Bridges of Madison County opened and closed rather quickly last season, it did earn two Tony Awards for the composer, for score and orchestrations. (Brown had won a previous Tony for Parade.) Honeymoon in Vegas has the potential for much bigger success. Celebrated screenwriter Andrew Bergman (Blazing Saddles, Fletch, The In-Laws, Soapdish) wrote the book for the musical, which concerns fearful Jack Singer (Tony nominee McClure) and his girlfriend Betsy (O'Malley) who meet Tommy Korman, a smooth-talking gambler (Danza) while in Vegas to get hitched. Tommy, looking for love himself, falls for Betsy, with results almost as unpredictable as a single pull on a one-armed bandit. The 1992 movie, which Bergman also directed, starred Nicolas Cage, James Caan and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Previews begin Nov. 18, 2014 prior to an official opening January 15, 2015.
