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'All The Way' And Bryan Cranston Heading To Broadway

Playwright Robert Schenkkan had a special gift for the cast of “All the Way” Friday night. He and New York producer Jeffrey Richards assembled the cast and announced that the production was going to Broadway, with Richards as lead producer.

Schenkkan Sunday confirmed the report in the Sunday Globe about the play's transfer. Bryan Cranston, still basking in the adulation for his portrayals of both Lyndon Johnson and Walter White on "Breaking Bad," will be going, as will most of the cast, so theatergoers who were shut out by the sold-out run in Cambridge will have another chance to see it.

“A bare handful had signed on for projects over a year ago and we will probably lose one or two actors,” said Schenkkan. “We would have loved to keep the cast intact, but they’re very popular actors who have been in demand. The only one I can speak of who won’t be coming is Dakin Matthews [excellent turns as Richard Russell and Emanuel Celler] who has been working with the “Rocky” project.”

Schenkkan said that the theater and scheduling are still being worked out, but “I expect we’ll be in New York sometime around the beginning of the year.” Cranston has signed on “for a healthy commitment” to the New York run: “He’s thrilled. This is exactly what he wanted.” Cranston is scheduled to begin shooting a film about Dalton Trumbo sometime in 2014.

The Pulitzer-prize winning playwright added that the play and production will continue to be tweaked. “It’s all about clarification, sharpening, increasing the dramatic tension. It’s not a major rewrite, just a continual process of refinement.”

Bill Rauch, who directed "All the Way" and is artistic director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where the play premiered, emailed,
"At the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we had a dream of creating work that spoke to the urgent issues of today by dramatizing moments of change in American history. The fact that Robert’s brilliant play, birthed in Ashland and further developed at the wonderful A.R.T., will be reaching even more audiences in New York is deeply meaningful and moving to all of us."
More on "All the Way" and Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston delivers the agony and ecstasy of LBJHere's Robert Schenkkan talking about the play when it debuted at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:

Radio Boston interviews Bryan Cranston

Cranston will play Dalton TrumboRobert Schenkkan on playwrights and history

'All The Way' — Did LBJ Break Bad, Too?

This program aired on October 6, 2013. The audio for this program is not available.

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Ed Siegel Critic-At-Large
Ed Siegel is critic-at-large for WBUR.

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