The Front Page will star Nathan Lane as Walter Burns, John Slattery as Hildy Johnson, John Goodman as Sheriff Hartman, Jefferson Mays as Bensinger, Holland Taylor as Mrs. Grant, and Sherie Rene Scott as Mollie Malloy, with additional casting to be announced.
The show is set in the press room of Chicago's Criminal Courts Building which is buzzing with reporters covering the story of an escaped prisoner. When star reporter Hildy Johnson (Slattery) accidentally discovers the runaway convict, he and his editor Walter Burns (Lane) conspire to hide the man from the other reporters, while they chase the biggest scoop of their careers.
The Front Page is a classic not only for its playability but also for its timelessness: No one will ever need footnotes to understand the idea of journalists competing venally to expose venal politicians. What they may need, though, is internet access, because the presses that printed Atkinson's review, and the reviews of every Broadway revival since then until this one, are as obsolete as the typewriters and candlestick telephones and 'Get me rewrite!' commands depicted in the play. So may theater critics be. Therefore, let me use my end-times platform to contradict Atkinson, who advised 'squeamish folk' to stay home. On the contrary, squeamish folk will love it, and when it comes to politics and journalism, who isn't squeamish?
He had the advantage of the John the Baptist that is Robert Morse and, in his wily partner John Slattery, the oldest, driest and most cynically unlikely Hildy Johnson that ever snagged a scoop. But at the Broadhurst Theatre on Thursday night, America's master farceur grabbed Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's creaking, dramatic homage to the beleaguered but indomitable craft and calling of Chicago newspapering by the scruff of its scraggly 1928 neck. And - nearly a century on - Nathan Lane declared it to still be beautiful.
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Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Costume Design for a Play | Ann Roth |
2017 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Nathan Lane |
2017 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | The Front Page |
2017 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Set Design for a Play | Douglas W. Schmidt |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Play | Jack O'Brien |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Nathan Lane |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | The Front Page |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Set Design (Play or Musical) | Douglas W. Schmidt |
2017 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Nathan Lane |
2017 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Douglas W. Schmidt |
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