Best of Broadway announces ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ‘Tina,’ ‘Six,’ ‘Frozen’ and ‘My Fair Lady’ for 2023-24 season
Next season, the Best of Broadway series will bring to Spokane a beloved Disney adaptation, a jukebox musical about an R&B and rock icon, a buzzy show centered on the six wives of Henry VIII and, for the first time since 2012, a straight play.
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Aaron Sorkin’s Tony-nominated adaptation of the Harper Lee classic, will come to Spokane Dec. 5-10. Directed by Bartlett Sher, the original Broadway cast featured Jeff Daniels as Atticus Finch, with Ed Harris and Greg Kinnear filling in later in the run. Richard Thomas (“The Waltons”) is currently playing the role on tour. (Whether he’s still with the tour when it comes to Spokane’s First Interstate Center for the Arts remains to be seen.)
“To Kill a Mockingbird” is the first nonmusical to be included in the Best of Broadway series since “War Horse” in 2012.
Kicking off the season on Sept. 19 will be “Tina,” which traces the journey of Anna Mae Bullock from her life in Nutbush, Tennessee, to superstardom as Tina Turner.
The original Broadway production featured a Tony-winning performance from Adrienne Warren in the title role, and former Coeur d’Alene actor Steven Booth in the dual role of producer Phil Spector and songwriter Terry Britten. The show features all of Turner’s biggest hits, including “River Deep Mountain High,” “Proud Mary,” “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”
In 2024, “Six” will come to town. The rock musical about the six wives of Henry VIII – “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived” – is still playing to full houses at the Lena Horne Theater in New York 18 months after it opened. Set up like a pop concert with the queens as the performers, “Six” premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017, and opened on the West End in 2019.
“Six” will run at the FICA Jan. 23-28.
The 2018 revival of “My Fair Lady,” also directed by Sher, will come to town April 2-7, 2024. The production opened to acclaim, and earned 10 Tony nominations – winning for best costume design. As the New York Times noted in its review, the show has been reimagined for modern times: “… Sher’s production uses the current climate of re-examination not only to restore the show’s feminist argument – so lively in the George Bernard Shaw play ‘Pygmalion,’ on which it’s based – but also to warm it up considerably. He achieves this with only minor additions to the text, all drawn from the 1913 original or from Shaw’s screenplay for the 1938 film starring Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard. Fittingly, the effect of these tweaks, along with some major nonverbal alterations, is transformative.”
Rounding out the season with a 12-day run will be Disney’s “Frozen.” The story of sisters who discover the magic in their lives and the love that binds them will run July 24-Aug. 4, 2024.
The add-on specials next season include “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (Nov. 10-11), “Les Miserables,” Nov. 14-19, “Million Dollar Quartet Christmas” (Dec. 23), “Stomp” (Feb. 23-24) and “Mean Girls” (March 5-6).
“We’re excited to announce a season that brings a lot of variety to Spokane, including the hottest new Broadway hits as well as old favorites,” Justin Kobluk, WestCoast Entertainment president said in a news release. “Many of these shows are touring across the country for the very first time. Others are ones that people have been clamoring to see again.
“Everyone will find something to love in this season – and many people will discover a new favorite or two!”
Season tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at BroadwaySpokane.com. Single tickets for all shows will be available to the general public beginning July 12.