Zach Braff To Star In ‘Bullets Over Broadway’
Scrubs star Zach Braff will make his Broadway debut in the stage musical adaptation of Woody Allen’s 1994 comedy Bullets Over Broadway.
Braff will play aspiring playwright David Shayne, who was played by John Cusack in the film. In order to finance his play, David hires Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly), who is a gangster’s girlfriend. Her escort, Cheech, (Chazz Palminteri), helps David come up with ideas to revise the play, but David claims the ideas as his own.
Lenny Wolpe (Wicked) will play theater producer Julian Marx, and Vincent Pastore (The Sopranos) will play Nick Valenti, Olive’s gangster boyfriend. Helene York (Masters of Sex) will play Olive, and Brooks Ashmanskas (The Producers) will play Warner Purcell, the play’s leading man.
The role of Helen Sinclair, who was played by Dianna Wiest in the film, has not yet been cast.
Bullets Over Broadway will be directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman (The Producers). The musical will be produced by Letty Aronson and Julian Schlossberg.
Zach Braff previously appeared Off Broadway in the Paul Weitz play Trust at Second Stage Theatre. Braff is currently working on his second feature film, Wish I Was Here, which has been funded through Kickstarter. The 38-year-old set a goal of $2 million, which it met in four days. Since the funding period ended on May 24, the campaign has received $3,105,473 from 46,520 backers.
However, Braff’s Kickstarter campaign hasn’t been with criticism. Some wondered why Braff turned to a crowd-funding source instead of going through the usual channels. Braff, who saw the success of the Veronica Mars campaign, said he was “about to sign a typical financing deal” in order to get the money for Wish I Was Here, but felt that “it would have involved making a lot of sacrifices that [he thought] would have ultimately hurt the film.
“I’ve been a backer for several projects on Kickstarter and thought the concept was fascinating and revolutionary for artists and innovators of all kinds,” Braff said. “But I didn’t imagine it could work on larger-scale projects. I was wrong.”
Bullets Over Broadway will begin previews March 11, 2014 at the St. James Theatre, with opening night set for April 10.
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