Danny Burstein Will Join Audra McDonald in GYPSY

He'll never get away from Broadway! BroadwayWorld has just learned that Tony Award Winner Danny Burstein will star as “Herbie” opposite six-time Tony Award Winner Audra McDonald “Rose” in GYPSY. That’ll be just the beginning… more casting to be announced soon.

Burstein last appeared on Broadway in 2023's Pictures From Home. Gypsy will mark his 20th Broadway show. 

Directed by the legendary six-time Tony Award-winning Director George C. Wolfe, GYPSY is suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee. The musical features a book by Tony Award Winner Arthur Laurents, music by Tony and Academy Award Winner Jule Styne, and lyrics by Tony, Grammy, Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize Winner Stephen Sondheim, choreography by four-time Tony Award nominated Camille A. Brown, music direction and supervision by Andy Einhorn, and additional orchestrations and arrangements by Tony Award winner Daryl Waters. 

GYPSY will have scenic design by four-time Tony Award winner Santo Loquasto, costume design by four-time Tony Award nominee Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by nine-time Tony Award winner Jules Fisher + three-time Tony Award winner Peggy Eisenhauer, sound design by Tony Award winner Scott Lehrer, hair and wig design by Academy Award winner Mia Neal, makeup design by Michael Clifton, casting by Jordan Thaler CSA/Heidi Griffiths CSA, and production stage management by Rick Steiger.

GYPSY performances will begin Thursday, November 21, 2024, at Broadway’s newly renovated Majestic Theatre and the show will officially open on Thursday, December 19, 2024.  

CAST BIOGRAPHIES

Audra McDonald (Rose) is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry as both a singer and an actor. The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards and an Emmy, in 2015 she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and received the National Medal of Arts—America’s highest honor for achievement in the field—from President Barack Obama. In addition to her Tony-winning performances in Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill—the role that also served as the vehicle for her Olivier Award-nominated 2017 debut in London’s West End—she has appeared on Broadway in The Secret Garden; Marie Christine (Tony nomination); Henry IV; 110 in the Shade (Tony nomination); Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Tony nomination); and Ohio State Murders (Tony nomination).  On television, she was seen by millions as the Mother Abbess in NBC’s “The Sound of Music Live!,” won an Emmy Award for her role as host of PBS’s “Live From Lincoln Center,” and received Emmy nominations for “Wit,” “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.” Having played Dr. Naomi Bennett on Shonda Rhimes’s “Private Practice” (ABC) and Liz Reddick (formerly Lawrence) on both “The Good Wife” (CBS) and “The Good Fight” (Paramount+), she may now be seen as Dorothy Scott on Julian Fellowes’s “The Gilded Age” (HBO). On film, she has appeared in Seven Servants, The Object of My Affection, Cradle Will Rock, It Runs in the Family, The Best Thief in the World, She Got Problems, Rampart, Ricki and the Flash, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, the movie-musical Hello Again, Cinergistik’s documentary Whitney Houston In Focus, the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions’ Rustin and MGM’s Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect.  McDonald is a Juilliard-trained soprano, whose opera credits include La voix humaine and Send at Houston Grand Opera, and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at Los Angeles Opera, where the resulting recording earned her two Grammy Awards. She has issued five solo albums on the Nonesuch label as well as “Sing Happy” with the New York Philharmonic on Decca Gold. She also maintains a major career as a concert artist, regularly appearing on the great stages of the world and with leading international orchestras. She is a founding member of Black Theatre United, board member of Covenant House International, and prominent advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, whose favorite roles are those performed offstage, as an activist, wife to actor Will Swenson, and mother.

Danny Burstein (Herbie) has appeared in 19 Broadway shows, including: Pictures From Home; Moulin Rouge, for which he received the Tony Award for playing Harold Zidler; Doolittle in My Fair Lady; Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof; Herr Schultz in Cabaret; Max in The Snow Geese; Tokio in Golden Boy; Buddy Plummer in Follies; The Taxi Driver in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; Luther Billis in South Pacific; Aldolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone (Ovation Award nomination); Company; A Class Act; Titanic; and three seasons as an original company member of Tony Randall’s National Actors Theater: Three Men on a Horse, Saint Joan, The Seagull, A Little Hotel on the Side and The Flowering Peach. Off-Broadway includes: Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Delacorte); Describe the Night (Atlantic); Talley’s Folly (Lucille Lortel Award nomination); Mrs. Farnsworth (opposite Sigourney Weaver & John Lithgow); Psych; All in the Timing; Merrily We Roll Along; Weird Romance; I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, three appearances at Carnegie Hall as well as performing at the Metropolitan Opera as Frosch in the Jeremy Sams/Douglas Carter Beane production of Die Fledermaus.  Film/TV includes: “Julia,” “Dora,” “Tokyo Vice,” "The Good Fight," "Will Trent”, “Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies”, Molli and Max in the Future, “The Accidental Wolf,” Gary Jr. Or Jesus of Framingham, Tick Tick Boom, Separation, "F Is For Family," The Same Storm, "Central Park," “Dr. Death,” “Evil,” “Instinct,” “NCIS: New Orleans,” "Madam Secretary," "The Blacklist, "Tales of the City,” “Deception,” “Elementary,” Indignation (directed by James Schamus), The Family Fang (directed by Jason Bateman), Blackhat, “Boardwalk Empire" (directed by Martin Scorsese), “Louie,” “The Good Wife,” “Absolutely Fabulous,” “Ed,” all the “Law & Order” series, "Hope & Faith,” Transamerica, Deception, Affluenza, American Milkshake, Nor’easter, Construction, The Sounding; and Trust, Greed, Bullets & Bourbon. He was honored with his own Sardi’s caricature in 2009. Mr. Burstein proudly served on the Artists Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors for 15 years and received his training at New York's famed H.S. of Performing Arts, the Moscow Art Theater, Queens College (BA) and the University of California, San Diego (MFA). In 2022, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from Queens College. Burstein has received the Tony Award (7 nominations), the Drama League Award (3 nominations), two Drama Desk Awards (4 nominations), four Outer Critics Circle Awards (6 nominations), and three Grammy Award nominations.