"How To Succeed" Sets a Date

The producers of the upcoming 50th Anniversary revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying have released this adorably dorky photo of Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role of J. Pierrepont Finch. 

According to Playbill.com, the musical will open at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre on March 27, 2011.  The Hirschfeld was recently home to the hit revival of Hair, which ended its run last month, and will host a musical version of Elf over the holidays before How To Succeed moves in next year.     

The rest of the cast has yet to be announced, although David Hyde Pierce recently confirmed that he may be co-starring as Radcliffe's boss in the revival.  The production will be directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford.

The musical is the story of a window washer who, with the help of a book called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, manages to climb to the top of the corporate ladder of the World Wide Wickets Corporation.

Robert Morse, who originated the lead role in the original 1961 production, won a Tony for his performance.  Matthew Broderick won the same award for the 1995 revival.  So...no pressure, Daniel.

I'm sure I've said this before, but I do find movie stars who find time to put in some serious theater work in between superhero franchises and big action movies (sometimes both) automatically 10 times cooler.  There's been some complaining lately about how Hollywood seemed to take over this year's Tony Awards (and to be fair, the telecast itself was pretty bad this year), but there were some damn good performances from these Hollywood types who showed up on stage this year, which shouldn't be surprising, since a lot of them started on the stage in the first place.  I got to see Scarlett Johannson, Liev Schreiber, Hugh Jackman, and Daniel Craig on stage last season, and they were all pretty amazing.

Also, because I'm still kicking myself for missing Radcliffe's Broadway debut in Equus, which he got terrific reviews for, I'm looking forward to seeing this (I assuming he can sing?!) when it opens next year, even more so if David Hyde Pierce joins the cast...I loved him in Monty Python's Spamalot.