Devil at the Stadium, Neil Patrick Harris Joins Damn Yankees
A called off game in the Bronx sets up Broadway's biggest baseball bet in decades
The Yankees' last regular season game never happened. On Sunday rain washed out their date with the Baltimore Orioles in the Bronx. But before the game was scrapped, the stadium hosted a press conference with a different kind of pitch. Damn Yankees is coming back to Broadway, and Neil Patrick Harris is playing the devil.
He will be Applegate, the devil who turns a middle-aged fan into a young slugger in exchange for his soul. Julianne Hough will play Lola, the temptress Applegate sends to close the deal. It is her first Broadway musical. Austin Scott, who New York audiences know from Hamilton, will play the young Joe Hardy. Tony winner Sergio Trujillo directs and choreographs.
The show is scheduled to begin previews at the Marquis Theatre on March 24, 2027, timed to the start of the new baseball season, with an official opening set for April 20. According to Playbill's report from the press conference, Major League Baseball and its production arm, MLB Studios, have signed on as partners. Playbill reports it is the first time a Broadway musical has partnered with a major sports league.
A Classic With a New Lineup
The original Damn Yankees opened in 1955 and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Richard Adler and Jerry Ross wrote the songs. George Abbott and Douglass Wallop wrote the book, adapted from Wallop's novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. Bob Fosse did the choreography, and Gwen Verdon originated Lola and introduced "Whatever Lola Wants." Bebe Neuwirth took on the role in the 1994 revival. The show has not been back on Broadway since.
This version is not a museum piece. It began last year at Arena Stage in Washington, where it played to sold out houses with Rob McClure, Ana Villafañe and Jordan Donica in the leads and collected 13 Helen Hayes Award nominations. Will Power and Doug Wright wrote a new book. Lynn Ahrens added lyrics. The songs everyone knows stay in.
The biggest changes are to the story itself. The action moves from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Joe Boyd no longer pines for the Washington Senators, a team that does not exist anymore. He roots for the Baltimore Orioles. Joe and his younger self, Joe Hardy, are now Black men, and Joe's father is written as a player from the Negro Leagues who never got his shot in the majors.
Trujillo explained the thinking at the stadium. "I wanted to tell this story through an America that is diverse, an America that reflects today," he said, as Playbill reported. He also wanted a real underdog. The Orioles made the most sense, he said, because the creative team wanted "a David and Goliath story." Baltimore also carries a deep history in Black baseball, which gives the new version of Joe more to play for. The Goliath, of course, wears pinstripes.
Playing someone that's devilish is always good. It's always fun to be naughty.
The Devil Knows Broadway
Harris is the easy part of the sell. He won a Tony in 2014 for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a role that showed how completely he can own a room. He has five Emmys. A generation of television viewers still knows him best as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother. Applegate asks for all of that at once. The part needs comic timing, a showman's ease and a touch of menace under the charm.
He sounds ready. "Playing someone that's devilish is always good. It's always fun to be naughty," Harris said at the press conference, according to Playbill. He said Trujillo hooked him with the idea of bringing the show up to date and dropping some old tropes that might not sit well with an audience now.
He also made a point of praising his co star. Hough is an Emmy winner best known from Dancing With the Stars, and Lola is a dancer's role through and through. Harris called her "so triple threat" and said he could not wait for Broadway audiences to see what she can do.
Scott, for his part, has been looking to the Bronx for inspiration. He told reporters that Aaron Judge helped shape his idea of Joe Hardy, especially the physical side of the role. What caught his eye was not just the power, he said, but the stillness and the confidence.
Baseball and Broadway, Same Neighborhood
The two worlds have flirted before. The NFL produced the play Lombardi in 2010. MLB worked with Bronx Bombers, a play about Yankees history, in 2014. But the original Damn Yankees and its 1994 revival never formally partnered with the sport they were named for. This time the league is at the table.
Lead producer Haley Swindal framed the match as natural. "Baseball is mythology. Broadway is mythology," she said in a statement quoted by Playbill. She produces alongside Lia Vollack and Julie Boardman. Noah Garden, MLB's deputy commissioner for business and media, said in the same announcement that the league wants the sport to reach into other corners of the culture.
There is something very New York about the whole setup. A musical about hating the Yankees, announced in their own ballpark, on a day the Yankees could not play. The Marquis sits on West 46th Street in the Theater District. According to New York Theatre Guide, the Yankees are scheduled to play at home against Milwaukee on April 20, the night the show opens. Baseball and Broadway will share the same big night.
Tickets are already on sale, Broadway.com reported. The fall on Broadway is already crowded with big names, from Billy Crystal's return to the stage to a string of limited runs. But this one is built for the long season. Opening night is still months away. The devil, as ever, is patient.
