Steve Kazee to Join Audra McDonald in 110 in the Shade

Steve Kazee will play Starbuck in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt-N. Richard Nash musical 110 in the Shade. The show is scheduled to run April 13-July 15 at Studio 54 and to open officially on May 9; it will star four-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald as Lizzie and will be directed by Lonny Price. Additional casting will be announced shortly.

Based on Nash’s play The Rainmaker and set in Texas in the 1930s, the musical tells the story of Lizzie Curry, a single woman on the verge of becoming an “old maid,” whose life changes when the charismatic rainmaker Starbuck comes to town. The musical has been seen only once before on Broadway, during the 1963-1964 season, with Inga Swenson as Lizzie and Robert Horton as Starbuck. A 1992 New York City Opera production starred Karen Ziemba and Brian Sutherland.

The creative team of the Roundabout production includes Dan Knechtges (choreography), Paul Gemignani (musical direction), Jonathan Tunick (orchestrations), Santo Loquasto (sets and costumes), Christopher Akerlind (lighting), and Dan Moses Schereier (sound). Among Price’s many directorial credits are the Broadway musicals Urban Cowboy and A Class Act, and concert versions of Passion, Kismet, Candide, and Sweeney Todd.

Kazee has been seen on Broadway in Monty Python’s Spamalot and Seascape; additionally, he starred in the Kennedy Center production of The Subject Was Roses and in the The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of As You Like It.