Apparently, it’s never too late to open a show on Broadway. With just 23 days left until the eligibility cutoff for the 2023 Tony Awards, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” has just announced a Broadway transfer. The production will begin performances on April 25, with an opening night of April 27 at the James Earl Jones Theatre. The limited run will last just 80 performances, through July 2. This will officially make the play the final eligible production in the 2022-2023 Broadway season, throwing chaos into many Tony races.
The play is a political drama from the late Lorraine Hansberry which recently ended a run Off-Broadway at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) and Oscar Isaac (“Scenes From a Marriage”) will reprise their starring roles in the Broadway mounting. This will mark Isaac’s Broadway debut, though he has numerous New York theater credits to his name, including a recent acclaimed production of “Hamlet.” Brosnahan previously made her Broadway debut in a revival of “The Big Knife.” Anne Kaufman will once again direct.
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The story takes place in 1960s Greenwich Village where a group of friends chase progressive ideals that collide with political realities of the time. Brosnahan and Isaac play struggling artists Iris and Sidney, who attempt to navigate a rocky marriage amid the heated political climate. This is Hansberry’s second and final play (after her famous “A Raisin in the Sun”) and was originally staged on Broadway in 1964.
“The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” was able to make the surprise transfer after the planned stage adaptation of “Room” fell through while the company was in final rehearsals. The financial pitfalls of that play freed up the newly minted James Earl Jones Theatre for the spring. Though the “Sidney Brustein” company just finished their Off-Broadway run, the last minute transfer (with just two preview performances in order to open before the Tony Awards cutoff) is still wildly unprecedented.
As the show crashes the spring Broadway season, the Tony category it will most affect is Revival of a Play. Previously there were just five eligible productions: “Death of a Salesman,” “A Doll’s House,” “Ohio State Murders,” “The Piano Lesson,” and “Topdog/Underdog.” “A Doll’s House” was hoping to capitalize on being the only one of these revivals still running at the time of Tony voting, but it will now have company from “Sidney Brustein.” In addition to providing strong competition, the addition of this show brings the eligible contenders up to six, and adds an automatic fourth nomination slot to the category.
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Isaac will join a stacked list of contenders for Lead Actor in a Play, but like the production itself, may benefit from being open during Tony voting. Many of the strongest candidates for this category concluded the limited runs of their plays back in the fall or winter. This includes Wendell Pierce (“Death of a Salesman”), John David Washington (“The Piano Lesson”), Stephen McKinley Henderson (“Between Riverside and Crazy”), Jefferson Mays (“A Christmas Carol”), Corey Hawkins, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (both form “Topdog/Underdog”).
Brosnahan will have plenty of wiggle room considering the lack of women-led plays this season. She is now just the seventh contender in a race that includes Jodie Comer (“Prima Facie”), Jessica Chastain (“A Doll’s House”), Audra McDonald (“Ohio State Murders”), Laura Linney, Jessica Hecht (both of “Summer, 1976”), and Zoe Wanamaker (“Pictures From Home”). With such a small lineup, there will only be four nominees. Can Brosnahan disrupt a category we assumed was a done deal?
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