The incoming Broadway revival of On the Town will offer a role to the Season 11 winner of FOX’s reality competition So You Think You Can Dance. The revival is set to begin previews on September 20 and open officially on October 16 at the Lyric Theatre. The winner would join the cast in the spring of 2015. If you need your dancing sailors fix before then (who doesn’t), On the Town choreographer Joshua Bergasse will choreograph a performance of the tuner’s “New York, New York,” featuring the Top 20 finalists for the July 9 episode. The new season premiered on May 28.
On the Town follows the adventures of three sailors on leave in New York City. Based on the ballet Fancy Free by Jerome Robbins, the musical features music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Toe-tapping hits from the show include “New York, New York,” “I Can Cook Too,” “Lonely Town” and “Some Other Time." The Broadway revival will star Tony Yazbeck, Jay Armstrong Johnson and Clyde Alves, alongside Megan Fairchild, Alysha Umphress and Elizabeth Stanley. John Rando will direct.
A handful of So You Think You Can Dance contestants from past seasons have made the leap to the Broadway stage, including Newsies' Jess LeProtto (who had previously appeared in Bye Bye Birdie and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!), Evan Kasprzak, Alex Wong and Thayne Jasperson (also of Matilda) and After Midnight’s Virgil Gadson.