The Front Page will star Nathan Lane as Walter Burns, John Slattery as Hildy Johnson, John Goodman as Sheriff Hartman, Jefferson Mays as Bensinger, Holland Taylor as Mrs. Grant, and Sherie Rene Scott as Mollie Malloy, with additional casting to be announced.
The show is set in the press room of Chicago's Criminal Courts Building which is buzzing with reporters covering the story of an escaped prisoner. When star reporter Hildy Johnson (Slattery) accidentally discovers the runaway convict, he and his editor Walter Burns (Lane) conspire to hide the man from the other reporters, while they chase the biggest scoop of their careers.
No doubt Walter would inform me that you, my impatient audience, have already stopped reading by now. But though 'The Front Page' is all about the adrenaline rush that turns journalists into deadline junkies, it's hard to work up the proper urgency about Jack O'Brien's production. So to finish the thought I started before I so rudely interrupted myself, the latest edition of 'The Front Page' is ... diverting. Pretty darn good. At moments, very funny indeed.
Look, we're all depressed this election year. We're sick of seeing know-nothing politicians; of hearing obscene language insulting women and minorities; and we're disgusted by the media's bottomless appetite for sensationalism. The only antidote I can suggest for this national malaise is a visit to the Broadhurst Theatre to see the 5,000-volt revival of The Front Page. What's it about? Oh, all that stuff I just mentioned-but whipped into a hellacious comic frenzy by one of the best acting ensembles you and I may ever see. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's 1928 evisceration of the newspaper racket is a summit of American screwball comedy, and Nathan Lane, John Slattery and two dozen other actors climb it and plant their flag. It's strange to feel so invigorated and refreshed by a spectacle of rampant cynicism in which love, truth and loyalty are systematically demolished. But see this brutally brilliant masterpiece, and you'll be inoculated against the viciousness of the world.
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