BWW Flashback: Take a Look Back at ALL THE WAY's Broadway Journey Before Sequel THE GREAT SOCIETY Opens

The Great Society officially opens tonight, October 1, 2019. The play, written by Robert Schenkkan, is the sequel to the play All The Way, which played on Broadway in 2014. These plays work together to celebrate Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy.

In honor of LBJ's return to Broadway, we're looking back on All The Way's Broadway journey in 2014.

---

All the Way took audiences behind the doors of the Oval Office and inside the first year of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency and his fight to pass a landmark civil rights bill.

The play starred Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson amongst a cast that included Eric Lenox Abrams (Bob Moses), Betsy Aidem(Lady Bird Johnson), J. Bernard Calloway(Ralph Abernathy), Rob Campbell (Governor George Wallace), Brandon J. Dirden(Martin Luther King, Jr.), James Eckhouse (Robert McNamara), Peter Jay Fernandez (Roy Wilkins), Christopher Gurr (Senator Strom Thurmond), William Jackson Harper (Stokely Carmichael), Michael McKean (J. Edgar Hoover), John McMartin (Senator Richard Russell),Christopher Liam Moore(Walter Jenkins), Robert Petkoff (Senator Hubert Humphrey), Ethan Phillips(Stanley Levison), Richard Poe (Senator Everett Dirksen), Roslyn Ruff (Coretta Scott King), Susannah Schulman (Lurleen Wallace), Bill Timoney (Senator Karl Mundt) and Steve Vinovich (Rep. Emanuel Celler).

All the Way began previews on February 10 and officially opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on March 2, 2014.

We got our first look at the production in January 2014, with a promotional video posted to Facebook. Check out the original video!

On January 15, the marquee went up! The Neil Simon Theatre was transformed into LBJ's oval office, and BroadwayWorld gave you the first look!

Later in January, the cast met the press! Our own Richie Ridge chatted with Cranston and more cast and creatives at the show's press event. Check out the full video!

We got our first look at Cranston as LBJ, and the rest of the cast in action, in the production photos and show clips!

All The Way officially opened on Broadway on March 6, 2014, and the reviews were in! Get a reminder of what the critics thought of Cranston and the cast by reading our Review Roundup here!

BroadwayWorld's own Michael Dale wrote his own review on the production, where he called all the way "exciting" and said Cranston's LBJ had "a commanding presence, a quick mind and a ferocious temper." Read Dale's full review here!

Richie Ridge hit the red carpet at opening night and chatted with the show's guests. Hear what Diane Paulus, Santino Fontana, and more had to say about Cranston as LBJ below!

Richie also chatted with the show's cast and creatives at the after party!

June was a big month for All The Way! The show announced that it had recouped its investment on June 5, shortly after it played its 100th performance on Broadway! On June 8, All The Way received two Tony Awards, including Best Play and Bryan Cranston for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. The show also received four other major awards for Best Play, including the Drama League Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Critics Circle Award!

On June 28, 2014, All The Way closed its Broadway run after playing a total of 131 performances.

Little did we know that this was not the end of LBJ's Broadway legacy.

Capturing Johnson's passionate and aggressive attempts to build a great society for all, The Great Society follows his epic triumph in a landslide election to the agonizing decision not to run for re-election just three years later. It was an era that would define history forever: the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the destruction of Vietnam, and the creation of some of the greatest social programs America has ever known-and one man was at the center of it all: LBJ.

Led by Brian Cox as Lyndon B. Johnson, the cast of The Great Society features Grantham Coleman as Martin Luther King Jr., Marc Kudisch as Richard J. Daley, Bryce Pinkham as Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Frank Wooda s Senator Everett Dirksen, Gordon Clapp as J. Edgar Hoover, and Richard Thomas as Hubert Humphrey.

The 19-member ensemble includes Marchánt Davis as Stokely Carmichael, Brian Dykstra as Adam Walinsky, Barbara Garrick as Ladybird Johnson, David Garrison as Richard Nixon; Ty Jones as Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Christopher Livingston as James Bevel, Angela Pierce as Pat Nixon, Matthew Rauch as Robert McNamara, Nikkole Salter as Coretta Scott King, Tramell Tillman as Bob Moses, Ted Deasy, and Robyn Kerr.

The Great Society is currently in previews, and opens on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater for a 12-week limited engagement.