Kelsey Grammer’s last stint in a Broadway musical earned him a Tony nomination for his role as a St. Tropez drag club owner in the 2010 revival of La Cage aux Folles. He returns in the spring as a more orthodox theatrical impresario, the London stage producer trying to dissuade J.M. Barrie from writing a children’s fairy tale in Finding Neverland.
Adapted from the 2004 Miramax film of the same title, which starred Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, the musical begins previews March 15 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with opening night scheduled for April 15.
The show recounts the story of Scottish playwright Barrie and the family who inspired him to create the classic Peter Pan character, a boy with a never-ending childhood.
The long-rumored casting of Glee star Matthew Morrison in the lead role of Barrie was confirmed earlier this week. Grammer’s return to Broadway is to be announced on Thursday morning’s Today show, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Read more Matthew Morrison Returns to Broadway in ‘Finding Neverland’
Morrison and Grammer will take on the roles played by Jeremy Jordan and Michael McGrath, respectively, in the musical’s pre-Broadway engagement this summer at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. The female lead at A.R.T., Laura Michelle Kelly (Mary Poppins), will remain with the production for its New York bow.
Diane Paulus directs the musical, which marks frequent Broadway investor Harvey Weinstein’s first stage venture as lead producer. The show has a book by James Graham, based on David Magee’s screenplay and Allan Knee’s play The Man Who Was Peter Pan. Music and lyrics are by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy.
Grammer has won five Primetime Emmy Awards, four of them for his role as the title character on Frasier. His former co-star on that long-running NBC sitcom, David Hyde Pierce, will also be back on Broadway in the spring, this time as director of the new musical It Shoulda Been You, which begins previews just two days after Finding Neverland, on March 17.
