{"id":196849,"date":"2026-04-14T14:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/196849\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:33:09","slug":"brandon-lee-harris-will-be-broadways-new-michael-in-mj-musical-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/196849\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Lee Harris Will Be Broadway’s New Michael in MJ Musical This Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brandon Lee Harris<\/a>, who originated the part of Michael in the first national tour of the Tony-nominated\u00a0musical MJ, will return to the\u00a0Broadway production at the Neil Simon Theatre\u00a0and take over that role beginning July 7.<\/p>\n

Harris, who previously played a brief Broadway engagement as Michael in May\u00a02023,\u00a0will succeed original Broadway cast
\n member Tavon Olds-Sample<\/a>, who originated the role of Michael in 2021 and\u00a0will play his final show\u00a0May 31\u00a0after over 2,000 performances in the role, which sees the King of Pop as a young adult. In the interm period, the role of Michael will
\n be performed by the production\u2019s swings and understudies.<\/p>\n

The record-breaking production currently stars\u00a0Matte Martinez<\/a> in the title role.<\/p>\n

MJ\u00a0features a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage<\/a> and direction and choreography by Tony winner Christopher Wheeldon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The production also has scenic design by Derek McLane<\/a>, lighting
\ndesign by Natasha Katz<\/a>, costume design by Paul Tazewell<\/a>, sound design by
\n Gareth Owen<\/a>, projection design by Peter Nigrini<\/a>, hair and wig design by
\n Charles LaPointe, makeup design by Joe Dulude II<\/a>, musical
\nsupervision by David Holcenberg<\/a>, and orchestrations and arrangements by
\nHolcenberg and Jason Michael Webb<\/a>. Casting is by The Telsey
\nOffice’s Rachel Hoffman and Lindsay Levine.<\/p>\n

MJ, which began previews December 6, 2021, prior to an
\nofficial opening February 1, 2022, took home four 2022 Tony Awards,
\nincluding Best
\nChoreography, Best Lighting Design of a Musical, Best Sound Design of a
\nMusical, and Best Leading Actor in a Musical for original star Myles
\nFrost, who made history as the
\n youngest individual actor to win that award.<\/p>\n

The North American tour is currently playing Sacramento, California, at the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center starring Jordan Markus<\/a>; the German production plays Hamburg\u2019s Stage Theater starring Ben\u00e9t Monteiro, and the Australian production plays Brisbane\u2019s Lyric Theatre starring Ilario Grant<\/a>. MJ will soon embark on international Asian and U.K. tours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brandon Lee Harris, who originated the part of Michael in the first national tour of the Tony-nominated\u00a0musical MJ,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-196849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}