Illinoise, the acclaimed dance-musical stage adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 concept album Illinois, will transfer from Off Broadway‘s Park Avenue Armory to Broadway’s St. James Theatre next month, arriving just a day before this season’s Tony Award eligibility cut-off date.
The musical, with direction and choreography from Justin Peck and a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, begins performances with a matinee at the St. James on Wednesday, April 24, which will serve as the engagement’s Tony-qualifying opening performance. Broadway reviews will be embargoed to Friday, April 26, a day after the April 25 Tony cut-off.
Illinoise has received overwhelmingly positive reviews in prior sold-out stagings at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the current Park Avenue Armory production on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Those reviews (and ticket sales) no doubt emboldened Broadway producers Orin Wolf, John Styles, and David Binder (in association with Seaview, and Executive Producer Nate Koch) to squeeze the dance-musical hybrid into the Tony season with cast and crew intact.
The strictly limited Broadway engagement will run through Saturday, August 10...READ MORE