Bryan Cranston to Make Broadway Debut as President Lyndon Johnson
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From Walter White to the White House, Breaking Bad's leading man is keeping busy.
Bryan Cranston is set to make his Broadway debut this winter, reprising his role as President Lyndon Baines Johnson in All the Way.
The play, from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan (The Kentucky Cycle), is a three-hour historical drama centering on the 36th President of the United States during his first year in office, from his ascension to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, to his election the following year. The play also centers on Johnson's vital role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act, in addition to key stories involving significant historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., J. Edgar Hoover and Hubert H. Humphrey.
All the Way is currently nearing the end of its sold-out run at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., but Schenkkan jumped the gun by leaking the news of his play's Broadway transfer on Facebook and Twitter. The transfer puts it in competition for this season, making it an immediate contender for the Tony Awards, despite the lack of any concrete dates, theater information, or cast beyond Cranston. However, with the play is still expected to open before the end of the 2013-2014 season, which ends in May. This will put Cranston in competition with such lauded performances as Denzel Washington in A Raising in the Sun, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in No Man's Land and Waiting for Godot, Daniel Craig in Betrayal, Ethan Hawke in Macbeth, Mark Rylance in Twelfth Night and Richard III, and Zachary Quinto in The Glass Menagerie. But then, Cranston is no stranger to heated awards competition, having won three Emmys and three Screen Actors Guild awards for his role as Walter White on AMC's recently-departed Breaking Bad.
Cranston is already receiving rave reviews for his performance in All the Way, with Joel Brown of The Boston Globe writing, "Cranston delivers Johnson's outsize presence, his cackling humor and sudden rages, his canny maneuvering and his self-pity."
Sounds like a ringing endorsement to me.