Backstage drama won’t stop Armie Hammer’s Broadway debut

[samhexum]

What in the world is going on with Broadway’s “Straight White Men?”

 

Young Jean Lee’s dark comedy, opening this month at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater, lost two of its leading men in the last few weeks.

 

Neither of them, happily, is Armie Hammer, the “Call Me By Your Name” star, who’s making his Broadway debut as one of three sons of a patriarch named Ed.

 

Tom Skerritt was initially cast as Ed.

 

But Skerritt, 84, was struggling to learn his lines, a production source says. He left the show in June for what was described as “personal reasons.”

 

Second Stage then reached out to Denis Arndt, a Tony nominee for 2016’s “Heisenberg.” He stepped in at the last minute before previews began June 30, just one day later than scheduled.

 

Sources say Arndt agreed to do the role as Anna D. Shapiro directed it. But as the actor got into it, he decided to change things.

 

“He’s from the old school — you can’t do a role without digging into it, making it your own,” a source says.

 

Shapiro, the Tony-winning director of “August: Osage County,” believed there was no time to retool the character and the dynamic of the play, whose characters come together over takeout and board games.

 

The official statement is that they parted “due to creative differences.” Sources say there were fireworks between Arndt and Shapiro, and Second Stage sided with her. Stephen Payne, who originally understudied the role of Ed and performed the role the first week of previews while Arndt rehearsed, has since taken over the role.

 

Second Stage declined to comment, and Arndt couldn’t be reached.

 

Until Thursday, Arndt’s life-size photo was still up outside the Helen Hayes Theater, along with those of Hammer, Josh Charles and Paul Schneider, who play Ed’s sons.

 

“Straight White Men” is set to open July 23.