Billy Porter Joins Producing Team Of Broadway-Aimed Billy Strayhorn Bio-Musical Starring Darius De Haas
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Billy Porter has joined the producing team of the Broadway-aimed Billy Strayhorn: Something to Live, a new musical about jazz great Strayhorn set to make its world debut at next month at the O’Reilly Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Porter, a Pittsburgh native, will serve as a producer of the musical, which runs from September 19 to October 8 at the O’Reilly.
Starring as the great jazz composer, lyricist and arranger (“Take the ‘A’ Train,” “Lush Life,” among many others) will be Darius de Haas, whose Broadway credits include Shuffle Along, Rent and Carousel, was most recently provided the vocals for the Shy Baldwin character on The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel. J.D. Mollison (Les Miserables) will portray Strayhorn’s frequent collaborator Duke Ellington. “People don’t know or appreciate who Billy Strayhorn was,” said Porter in a statement. “He was an accomplished musical genius and an openly gay Black man back in the day.
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