Last Week on Broadway: Monday, Sept. 21, 2026

BroadwayRadio

The episode begins with a somber tribute to the passing of composer Duncan Sheik and his lasting impact on musical theater. It then transiti

Key takeaways

• Tony and Grammy winner Duncan Sheik has passed away at age 56 due to heart failure.
• New York Yankees legend Bernie Williams is joining the 'Buena Vista Social Club' cast as a guitarist.

Main topics

• Death of Duncan Sheiente
• Broadway casting updates

Notable quotes

Spring Awakening was a watershed moment... for what they thought of musical theater could be.

Conclusion

An essential briefing for theatergoers to track significant industry l

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Welcome to Last Week on Broadway for Monday, September 21st, 2026. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamanini. On today's episode, I'm going to run you through all of the theatrical news that has come out since our midweek episode last week. Then I will dive into the goings on around New York theater, both on and off Broadway. Unfortunately, we do have to start with the news of the passing of Tony and Grammy Award winner Duncan Sheik, who passed away last week at the age of 56 following a sudden decline in health. His mother confirmed that he passed away from heart failure that led to cardiac arrest and organ failure. Sheik was a mid-90s pop star known most notably for the song Barely Breathing. Before he began his career writing musical theater, having partnered with poet Stephen Sater on the show that became known as Spring Awakening. For Spring Awakening, Sheik won both the Best Original Score and Best Orchestration awards. He also won Outstanding Music for The Drama Desk and Outstanding New Score for The Outer Critics Circle. In addition to Spring Awakening, he wrote a number of other shows that have played both in New York and around the country, including Whisper House, Alice by Heart, Because of Winn-Dixie, American Psycho, The Secret Life of Bees, and Memoirs of a Morris Gentleman, which is getting ready to begin its off-Broadway run later this week. Sheik's passing comes at a time when he is going to be represented off-Broadway in the coming months by not one but two shows. I mentioned Memoirs of a Moorish Gentleman, which is getting ready to begin performances at the Culture Club, which is the former home of Sleep No More. It's a musical based off of a manga novel, but is quite glamorous, set in Paris. And it is going to star Sofia Ann Caruso and is co-written with Liana Nako Winkler. But then also, as we talked about last week, the cast for the upcoming off-Broadway revival of Spring Awakening was announced last week. That show is going to begin performances later this fall at Studio Seaview. Obviously, after he passed away last Thursday, undoubtedly by now you have heard quite a bit about his life and career. But for many, many people, especially in the older millennial era. Spring Awakening was a watershed moment, not only for them as musical theater fans, but for what they thought of what musical theater could be. The show challenged some of the saccharine bubblegum images that musical theater had had for generations and showed them that dark emotional material that spoke specifically to younger generations was possible, not only in musical theater, but specifically on Broadway stages. The original cast of Spring Awakening, both on Broadway and on tour, led to star turns of dozens of people. Obviously, the names of Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff and Lily Cooper and John Gallagher Jr. and Skylar Astin, Gideon Glick, Krista Rodriguez are in there as well. But then you look at the tour where you had. Matt Doyle, Andrew Durand, I Saw Christy Altomare, Caitlin Kinnunen, Hunter Parrish, Julie Benko, Kaminco Glenn, Andy Miantis, and many, many more. Spring Awakening is inarguably one of the most influential shows in at least the 21st century of musical history. And while, of course, we wish that Duncan Sheik was here to celebrate this off-Broadway revival, we hope that this opportunity to not only have that, but also his new show, Reminds people of just how important his work on stage has been. So whether you are someone who knew Duncan Sheik personally, worked with him, met him at a stage door or something, or just a theater and music fan who was impacted by the songs that he wrote, our thoughts are with you today. Speaker 1 (3:49) All right, let's get into some show and casting news. We will start on Broadway. You'll remember a few months ago, we talked about the fact that Jose Iglesias, who is a former Major League Baseball player who has become a Latin music star known as Candelita, had joined the production on Broadway of Buena Vista Social Club