Broadway star/rocker Michael Cerveris will appear in the Loser's Lounge special presentation of The Cure vs. The Smiths: The First Ever Loser's Lounge Battle Royale at the Knitting Factoryon Friday, June 3rd and Saturday, June 4th at 8 PM and 11 PM each night. He will take the side of the latter band by belting out "How Soon is Now" a la Morrissey.
Both The Smiths and The Cure were post-punk bands, led respectively by Morrissey and Robert Smith. The Smiths' albums include The Queen is Dead, Singles, Louder than Bombs and Meat is Murder, while The Cure released a self-title album, Seventeen Seconds, Disintegration and more.
Cerveris, whose band bears his surname, recently released his debut album, Dog Eared. It was also recently announced that the Sondheim stalwart will take on the title role in the upcoming Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, opposite Patti LuPone, with whom he starred in the Ravinia productions of Sunday in the Park with George and Passion (repeating the role of Giorgio at Lincoln Center, which he also played in the acclaimed Kennedy Center production in 2002). They will appear with Audra McDonald in the upcoming Ravinia mounting of Anyone Can Whistle in August.Cerveris was a 2004 Tony winner for his performance as
John Wilkes Booth in the Roundabout Theatre production of Assassins. Other
credits include Wintertime, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Titanic and The Who's
Tommy. Last year, Loser's Lounge favorites Robin Goldwasser and Julia Greenberg wrote the score of People Are Wrong!, which played at the off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre. The show, which starred David Driver, John Flansburgh (of They Might Be Giants), Robin Goldwasser, Connie Petruk,
Tricia Scotti, Chris Anderson, and Maggie Moore of Loser's Lounge, as well as Erin Hill and Todd Almond, received strong reviews and told the satiric story of a couple who move to the country only to meet an eccentric landscape artist.