Broadway will be singing a new ballad in 2025. Floyd Collins makes its Broadway debut in the the first major revival since the show's off-Broadway premiere in 1996. Floyd Collins will arrive on Broadway 30 years after its original premiere and 100 years after the incident on which it is based.
The musical started as a collaboration between Adam Guettel (music and lyrics) and Tina Landau (book)- both students at Yale University. Landau brough the idea to Guettel after reading about the real man whose story inspired the show.
William Floyd Collins (born 1887) was an American cave explorer from Kentucky, who in the 1920s, took part in "the Kentucky Cave Wars," seeking out caves for commercial profit from tourists. Known today as Mammoth Cave National Park, the region is home to the longest known cave system in the world. Collins' story, as told in the musical, begins when he finds a small passage leading to Sand Cave. Collins becomes trapped in that passage, triggering a national media sensation (using the new technology of broadcast radio) and effort to rescue him.
Early versions of Floyd Collins were called Deathwatch Carnival before it the duo renamed the show for its leading character. It premiered at the American Music Theater Festival, in Philadelphia, in 1994 before opening off Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.
Directed by Landau, the cast included Christopher Innvar as Floyd Collins, Don Chastain as Lee Collins, Martin Moran as Skeets Miller, Jason Danieley as Homer Collins, and Theresa McCarthy as Nellie Collins, Cass Morgan as Miss Jane, and Brian d'Arcy James, Matthew Bennett and Michael Mulheren in the ensemble. It ran for just 25 performances.
Ben Brantley wrote in his New York Times review: "Floyd Collins cannot and should not be dismissed. Ms. Landau and Mr. Guettel may be clunky wordsmiths, but they have other skills that gleam with promise. As she demonstrated in her open-air production of "Stonewall: Night Variations," Ms. Landau has a lyrical and lucid sense of stage imagery... And Mr. Guettel establishes himself as a young composer of strength and sophistication, weaving strands from the Americana of Copland and the uneasy dissonance of Sondheim into a score that projects the ambivalence the text and lyrics don't capture."
Despite the show's short run, it won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical in 1996. Due to its enduring cast recording, the musical has achieved a devoted following. The musical's final song, "How Glory Goes," has achieved its own special status as a much covered song by Broadway's best, including a version by Audra McDonald featured on her solo album of the same title.
The new Broadway company features Jeremy Jordan as Floyd Collins, Jason Gotay as Homer Collins, Sean Allan Krill as H.T. Carmichael, Marc Kudisch as Lee Collins, Lizzy McAlpine as Nellie Collins, Wade McCollum as Bee Doyle, Jessica Molaskey as Miss Jane, Taylor Trensch as Skeets Miller, Cole Vaughan as Jewell Estes as well as Kevin Bernard, Dwayne Cooper, Jeremy Davis, Charlie Franklin, Kristen Hahn, Happy McPartlin, Kevyn Morrow, Zak Resnick, Justin Showell, Colin Trudell, and Clyde Voce.
Floyd Collins will have sets by dots, costumes by Anita Yavich, lighting by Scott Zielinski, sound by Dan Moses Schreier, and projections by Ray Sun, with dance sequences by Jon Rua, casting by The Telsey Office, Patrick Goodwin, CSA and music direction by Ted Sperling. Bonnie Panson will be the stage manager. Lincoln Center Theater is producing FLOYD COLLINS in association with Creative Partners Productions and Mark Cortale & Charles D. Urstadt.
Floyd Collins, featuring a haunting exploration of the American dream by Landau and a glorious folk and bluegrass-inspired score by Guettel, tells the transcendent tale of a true American dreamer.
The pleasures of Floyd Collins are many, but they’re often diffuse, like bits of gravel and sandstone that’s been chiseled away… While Jordan remains on stage for most of the show, there are vast stretches when the focus shifts to the ensemble—sometimes to the detriment of achieving narrative momentum… And yet you can see (and hear) the seeds of the talent Guettel would display in shows like A Light in the Piazza... Jeremy Jordan is magnificent in his opening solo, ‘The Call’... Vocally, the real standouts are the two actors playing his siblings—whose determination to save Floyd is far more apparent than our sympathy for the reckless daredevil who’s only sketchily drawn.
Whatever its deficiencies, Floyd Collins delivers a mighty central character that musically, if not dramatically, is the male equivalent of Rose in Gypsy. Jordan’s magnificent work here is one for the record books, one of the all-time great musical performances. Don’t miss it... The Broadway debut of Floyd Collins makes a good case for the musical without being a revelation... Landau’s book doesn’t really take off until the second act... Her staging calls out the crass American commercialism by giving us a crass Broadway circus-style production number... It is unfortunate that someone with a fresher take wasn’t engaged for this major revival.
| 1996 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 1999 | London Fringe |
London Revival London Fringe |
| 2025 | Broadway |
Lincoln Center Theater Broadway Production Broadway |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical | Jason Gotay |
| 2025 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical | Jeremy Jordan |
| 2025 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design of a Musical | Scott Zielinski |
| 2025 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design of a Musical | Ruey Horng Sun |
| 2025 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Sound Design of a Musical | Dan Moses Schreier |
| 2025 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical | Jeremy Jordan |
| 2025 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Musical | Floyd Collins |
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Musical | Scott Zielinski |
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Musical | Ruey Horng Sun |
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Bruce Coughlin |
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical | Taylor Trensch |
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | Jeremy Jordan |
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Musical | Dan Moses Schreier |
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