{"id":95312,"date":"2026-07-27T00:21:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=95312"},"modified":"2026-07-27T00:21:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:21:56","slug":"casting-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2026\/07\/27\/casting-surprises\/","title":{"rendered":"Casting Surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Broadway <\/em>is known for its revolving door when it comes to casting.&nbsp; <strong><em>The Rocky Horror Show<\/em><\/strong> already lost <strong>Juliette Lewis<\/strong>, who was replaced by <strong>Sherie Rene Scott<\/strong>.&nbsp; <strong>Michaela Jae Rodriguez <\/strong>departed the role of Columbia, which is now being played by <strong><em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em><\/strong> alum, <strong>Valentina<\/strong>.&nbsp; The hunky <strong>Andrew Durand <\/strong>is leaving the role of Brad in the capable hands of \u201cGlee\u201d alum Kevin McHale (who has turned into quite a little hunk himself).&nbsp; When <strong>Stephanie Hsu <\/strong>leaves the role of Janet, she will be succeeded by <strong>Lorna Courtney<\/strong>.&nbsp; And then there\u2019s <strong>Luke Evans<\/strong>.&nbsp; He\u2019s scheduled to stay through the summer.&nbsp; And then what?&nbsp; It\u2019s just been announced that he will be replaced by <strong><em>Scissor Sisters<\/em><\/strong> front man <strong>Jake Shears<\/strong>.&nbsp; He\u2019ll join the show on September 11<sup>th<\/sup> \u2013 an ominous date, to be sure.<\/p>\n<p>Speculation is brewing over who will headline the upcoming national tour of <strong><em>Oh, Mary!<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp; I can tell you that <strong>Alaska Thunderfuck <\/strong>will kick off the tour and stay with it until January 17<sup>th<\/sup> (Saint Paul \u2013 oh, the humanity).&nbsp; Alaska will be joined by <em>Tony <\/em>winner <strong>J. Harrison Ghee <\/strong>as Honest <strong>Abe<\/strong>.&nbsp; But, here\u2019s the juicy part \u2013 after Alaska leaves the tour, Harrison will take over the leading role!&nbsp; But, shhh, an official announcement hasn\u2019t been made yet.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>When it comes to men in dresses, <strong>J. Edgar Hoover <\/strong>holds a special place in history.&nbsp; So it\u2019s no surprise that a new musical about the FBI director is wowing audiences in London.&nbsp; One critic describes the show thusly: \u201cIf <strong>Mel Brooks <\/strong>and <strong>Harvey Fierstein <\/strong>collaborated on an old-fashioned musical comedy about one of the most controversial figures in 20th century American history, I imagine this would be the result.\u201d&nbsp; Well, doesn\u2019t that make you wanna run out and buy a ticket?&nbsp; Alas, unless you\u2019re already in London, you might be too late.&nbsp; <strong><em>Here Comes J. Edgar!<\/em><\/strong> is slated to run until August 4<sup>th<\/sup> at the <em>King\u2019s Head Theatre<\/em>.&nbsp; And in the leading role is our very own <strong>Bryan Batt <\/strong>\u2013 and we hear he\u2019s amazing.&nbsp; There is talk of the production transferring \u2013 perhaps to someplace in NYC.&nbsp; Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Broadway is known for its revolving door when it comes to casting.&nbsp; The Rocky Horror Show already lost Juliette Lewis, who was replaced by Sherie Rene Scott.&nbsp; Michaela Jae Rodriguez departed the role of Columbia, which is now being played by RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race alum, Valentina.&nbsp; The hunky Andrew Durand is leaving the role of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95313,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95312\/revisions\/95313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}