WAKE UP with BroadwayWorld - Wednesday, April 2, 2014 - Encores! 'HAPPY FELLA' Begins Tonight, WICKED Tour Welcomes New Faces and More!

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? For your most important theatre meal of the day, we've rounded up the big news you missed yesterday, what's on the agenda today, and a few extras to start your day off right.

The Bacon: See what's on the griddle today...

• The Encores! presentation of THE MOST HAPPY FELLA opens tonight at New York City Center, featuring Laura Benanti, Cheyenne Jackson and more!
• The casts of Broadway's CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN (with Daniel Radcliffe) and Paper Mill Playhouse's SOUTH PACIFIC will meet the press today, so stay tuned for photos and footage later on...
• Laurel Harris, Kara Lindsay and Gene Weygandt join the Second National Tour of WICKED today in Fresno, and WICKED alumna Mandy Gonzalez returns to 54 Below with LOVE, ALL WAYS tonight!

Cup of Joe: Perk up and revisit yesterday's big stories...

• The Tony Awards will honor Rosie O'Donnell with 2014 Isabelle Stevenson Award. Check out BWW's 10 reasons to love the star!
• In other awards news, Jesse Tyler Ferguson will host this year's Drama League ceremony; plus, the Obies announced their starry lineup of presenters, including Harvey Fierstein, Kelli O'Hara and more.
• HERE LIES LOVE and 'GREAT COMET' lead the 2014 Lucille Lortel nominations - read the full list here!
• We got a first look at Broadway's ACT ONE (here) and THE REALISTIC JONESES (here).
• Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad) and Billy Magnussen (Into the Woods) are set to star in Second Stage's SEX WITH STRANGERS.
• The WICKED movie seems to be quite a ways off, but composer Stephen Schwartz said he's "gearing up" the project.
• THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN's Daniel Radcliffe says he wants to star in a revival of COMPANY.
• And finally, CABARET's Alan Cumming and the Kit Kat Band will be the first Broadway guests on THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON next week!

Broadway Weather Forecast: Partly cloudy with a high of 61 (warmer every day!), light showers later in the day.

Quote of the Day: Remember, theatre is the star, not you...

"Our job is to make manifest the story, to be it. In a sense, the theatre is such a big star itself, bigger than any Shakespearean actor I could hire, that we should take the opportunity to fill it with voice and verse and movement, not interpretation."
-- Mark Rylance (via BrainyQuote)