RIALTO CHATTER: Matthew Broderick to Replace Harry Connick Jr. in NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT on Broadway?

According to published reports, stage and screen star Matthew Broderick will replace Harry Connick Jr. in the upcoming Broadway production of the Gershwin musical Nice Work If You Can Get It. Additionally, Tony winner Kathleen Marshall, who left the project a while ago, is back on board to direct.

Harry Connick Jr. had been set to star in the project when it came onto the radar a couple of years ago.  No word on why Connick Jr. has decided not to participate.

Broderick played Eugene Morris Jerome in the Neil Simon Eugene Trilogy including the plays, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues. Broderick returned to Broadway as a musical star in the 1990s, most notably with his Tony Award-winning performance in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and his Tony Award-nominated performance in the Mel Brooks' stage version of The Producers in 2001. Broderick reunited with his co-star from The Lion King and The Producers, Nathan Lane, in The Odd Couple, which opened on Broadway in October 2005. He appeared on Broadway as a college professor in the Philanthropist, running April 10 through June 28, 2009.

Nice Work If You Can Get It is a musical, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and a book by Joe DiPietro.  A workshop was performed in November 2007, featuring Harry Connick Jr. and Erin Dilly who were to then perform the show in Boston en route to Broadway, a run which was cancelled. At that time, the show was titled Heaven on Earth.

Photo Credit: Kevin Thomas Garcia