Neil Patrick Harris will play the Devil in a Broadway revival of “Damn Yankees” next spring, with Julianne Hough as his seductive aide Lola and Austin Scott as the ballplayer who sells his soul.
Producers unveiled the casting Sunday at Yankee Stadium, ahead of the team’s final regular-season home game, which rain wiped out. Previews start March 24, 2027, at the Marquis Theatre, a day before the Yankees open their season. Opening night falls on April 20. Tickets are on sale now.
Harris, who won a Tony in 2014 for “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” takes the role of Applegate. Hough, an Emmy winner known for “Dancing With the Stars,” makes her Broadway musical debut after appearing in the 2022 comedy “POTUS.” Scott, whose credits include “Hamilton” and “& Juliet,” plays Young Joe. Producers say more casting is coming.
Sergio Trujillo directs and choreographs this reworked version of the 1955 musical by Richard Adler, Jerry Ross, George Abbott and Douglass Wallop. Will Power and Doug Wright wrote a new book, and Lynn Ahrens contributed additional lyrics. The story now unfolds in the early 2000s, with Joe Boyd pining for a Baltimore Orioles revival rather than a Washington Senators one.
The production arrives with credentials. It sold out a run at Washington’s Arena Stage last fall, drew 13 Helen Hayes Award nominations, the most of any musical that season, and took home eight, including best musical. The Washington Post called it a winning reinvention of a classic.
Major League Baseball and its production arm, MLB Studios, have signed on as a partner, a first for a Broadway musical. Lead producer Haley Swindal, granddaughter of late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, framed the pairing as a natural one. “Baseball is mythology. Broadway is mythology,” she said. Steinbrenner himself backed six Broadway shows, among them the Tony-winning “Applause” in 1970.
The original “Damn Yankees” won seven Tonys, including best musical, and has not returned to Broadway in more than three decades. Its last Broadway revival opened in 1994. The show retells the Faust legend through baseball, following a fan who trades his soul for the chance to lead his hapless team to a pennant.
Lia Vollack and Julie Boardman join Swindal as lead producers, and Mark Shacket of Foresight Theatrical is executive producer.
