Theatre alum Ryan Bogner ’15 will co-produce the first Broadway production and newest iteration of satirical musical revue, Forbidden Broadway, opening at the Hayes Theater this summer. Created by playwright and parodist Gerard Alessandrini, who has recreated the show over a dozen times, the long-running revue parodies the tropes, plots, and songs of Broadway musicals in a series of performances that vary in levels of absurdity, but always retain Alessandrini's singular, theatrically comedic tone.
Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song—the newest version of the revue—will parody this Broadway season’s shows including Company, The Great Gatsby, Hell’s Kitchen, Into the Woods, Merrily We Roll Along, The Notebook, Sweeney Todd, and Water for Elephants.
Forbidden Broadway has performed off-Broadway for decades, but this year marks an exciting turn for the show as it gets its Broadway premiere. “I’d never have believed that Forbidden Broadway would end up on the street that we love—and love to lampoon,” said Alessandrini, cheekily nodding to how far the show has come. The transition to Broadway is indeed exciting—and unique—for a production that began with a small cult-following and has now achieved mainstream recognition in the New York theatre world, as well as internationally, where iterations of the show are also performed.
Driving the show’s Broadway debut is Bogner’s production company Broadway and Beyond Theatricals, which played an instrumental role as the show’s official producer. Co-founded by Bogner and his collaborators Victoria Lang and Tracey Stroock McFarland, Broadway and Beyond Theatricals has produced shows on and off-Broadway, and is committed to acquiring, creating, and distributing high quality works of theatre. A graduate of the Theatre Management and Producing concentration, Bogner is a Tony-Award nominee and has worked on shows including The Woodsman, Here Lies Love, Big Fish, Doctor Zhivago, as well as doing development, production, financing and licensing of theatrical productions with Theatrical Rights Worldwide, CBS, The Public Theater, and others.
Forbidden Broadway begins previews on July 29, 2024 at the Hayes Theater, running in a limited engagement until November 1. Tickets will be available soon.
