The 54-year-old Cuban American actor, considered one of Broadway‘s most prominent leading men since the 2000s, has joined the cast of next month’s Hollywood Bowl production of Jesus Christ Superstar, starring the Cynthia Erivo and Adam Lambert.
Esparza will play Pontius Pilate. Erivo is playing Jesus and Lambert is Judas.
Additional casting will be announced.
Sergio Trujillo directs.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical will be performed on Friday, August 1, at 8:00 pm; Saturday, August 2, at 8:00 pm; and Sunday, August 3, at 7:30 pm.
Esparza’s many stage credits include Tony-nominated performances in Broadway’s Taboo (2005), Company (2007) The Homecoming (2008), and Speed-the-Plow (2009).
Other theater credits include Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, Assassins and Evita.
On television, Esparza can currently be seen in Hulu’s limited series Candy, and he is perhaps best known for his long-running role of Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
His film credits include Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, Jonathan Ullman’sTrouble in the Heights, Wes Craven’s My Soul to Take and Sidney Lumet’sFind Me Guilty.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is celebrating a living musical theater legend.
The 40-year-old Puerto Rican composer, lyricist, singer, actor, producer and playwright, widely known for creating and starring in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton, has signed on to appear on Sunday’s Stephen Sondheim virtual birthday concert.
Miranda, who starred in Mary Poppins Returns, joins a roster of new additions that includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Linda Lavin, Laura Benanti, Neil Patrick Harrisand Ben Plattfor the all-star benefit for Artists Striving To End Poverty.
Previously announced stars participating in the concert include Annaleigh Ashford, Melissa Errico, Beanie Feldstein, Josh Groban, Judy Kuhn, Randy Rainbow and Lea Solanga.
Special appearances will be made by Victor Garber, Joanna Gleason, Nathan Lane and Steven Spielberg.
They’ll all join the previously announced Meryl Streep, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, among many others, in the special virtual concert to celebrate Sondheim’s 90th birthday.
Take Me To The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration, hosted by Raúl Esparza, is set for this Sunday, April 26, the 50th anniversary of the opening night of Sondheim’s groundbreaking musical Company.
The concert kicks off at 8:00 pm ET, and will be available for free at Broadway.comand the Broadway.com YouTubechannel.
Other artists performing songs from the Sondheim catalog will include Mandy Patinkin, ChristineBaranski, Donna Murphy, Kristin Chenoweth, Sutton Foster, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Aaron Tveit, Maria Friedman, Iain Armitage, Katrina Lenk, Michael Cerveris, Brandon Uranowitz, Stephen Schwartz, Elizabeth Stanley, Chip Zien, Alexander Gemignani and, from the cast of Pacific Overtures at Classic Stage Company, Ann Harada, Austin Ku, Kelvin Moon Loh and Thom Sesma.
Esparza starred as Bobby in the 2006 Tony Award-winning revival of Companyand in the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration productions of Sunday in the Park with George and Merrily We Roll Along in 2002, as well as the City Center Encores! production of Anyone Can Whistle and in last year’s Road Show.
“The world is in a hard place,” Esparza said in a statement, “and we are all searching for something great. Well, Stephen Sondheim is greatness personified.”
Mary-Mitchell Campbell will be the music director, with Paul Wontorek serving as director.
The online event will act as a fundraiser for ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty), the organization conceived by Campbell and Juilliard students to transform the lives of youth through art.
Miguel Cervantes is helping bring Broadway’s hottest musical to the Windy City.
The Latino actor has landed the lead role of Alexander Hamilton for the upcoming Chicago production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton.
Cervantes previously appeared on Broadway in If/Then, American Idiot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Karen Olivo, a Tony winner for the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story and an original castmember of Miranda’s breakout musical, In the Heights, will play Anjelica Schuyler. The role of King George III will be played by stage veteran Alexander Gemignani, who starred as Jean Valjean in the 2009 revival of Les Miserables and has also appeared on Broadway in Violet, Assassins, Sunday in the Park with George and Sweeney Todd.
The Chicago staging of Hamilton will feature former American Idol contestant Ari Asfar as Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, Chris Lee as Lafayette and Jefferson, Joseph Morales as Cervantes’ alternate, Jose Ramos as John Laurens and Phillip Hamilton, Wallace Smith as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison, and Samantha Marie Ware as Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds. Both Lee and Morales are alumni of the In the Heights national tour.
Casting for the joint lead role of Aaron Burr in Chicago has not yet been announced.
Performances of Hamilton begin Sept. 27 at Chicago’s PrivateBank Theatre, marking the first production of the show beyond New York.
A separate touring production kicks off next March in San Francisco, while a London production will also begin in 2017.
Hamilton has been the biggest smash to hit Broadway in decades, winning 11 Tony Awards and selling out for months in advance. The show’s cumulative box office since it began performances at the Richard RodgersTheatre on July 13 last year has hit $88 million.
Esparza will play Pontius Pilate. Erivo is playing Jesus and Lambert is Judas.
