Film and TV star Beau Bridges has signed on to replace Tony winner John Larroquette as J.B. Biggley in the hit Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Bridges will join the show on January 3 for a six-month run, through July 1. Larroquette and fellow original star Daniel Radcliffe will play their final performance together at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on New Year’s Day.
“When the musical How to Succeed came my way, I jumped at the chance,” Bridges said in a statement. “Samuel French recently published Acting: The First Six Lessons, a play I co-authored with my daughter Emily. We performed the play in Los Angeles for two months, and that experience reignited my desire to be on stage. I am very much looking forward to again spending time in the heart of New York City.”
Bridges began his career on the Broadway stage in Where’s Daddy? (1966) and Who’s Who in Hell (1974) and appeared in the original Los Angeles production of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine and in Jane Anderson’s Looking for Normal at the Geffen Theatre. He has acted in more than 100 films, including the forthcoming The Descendants (co-starring George Clooney), The Fabulous Baker Boys (co-starring his brother, Jeff Bridges), The Other Side of the Mountain and Norma Rae. He won Emmy Awards for HBO’s The Second Civil War, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom and Without Warning: The James Brady Story.
How to Succeed opened on March 27 and currently features Rose Hemingway as Rosemary Pilkington, Tammy Blanchard as Hedy La Rue, Christopher J. Hanke as Bud Frump, Rob Bartlett as Twimble/Wally Womper, Mary Faber as Smitty, Ellen Harvey as Miss Jones and Michael Park as Bert Bratt. Bridges will co-star with incoming leading men Darren Criss (January 3-22) and Nick Jonas (January 24-July 1).