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Jake Gyllenhaal will open on Broadway this spring, inaugurating the newest house on the Street — but not in the show originally announced. The extensively refurbished Hudson Theatre will
reopen in February with Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize winning musical _Sunday In The Park With George_. The revival, starring Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, was first
presented in October at New York City Center in concert form and was acclaimed a highlight of the fall season. Deadline called it “a total home run of a production.” Ambassador Theatre
Group, which took over the Hudson with a long-term lease a year ago, has been upgrading the 970-seat house and had announced plans to open in the spring with Gyllenhal starring in a revival
of the Lanford Wilson drama _Burn This_. Those plans were scuttled when Gyllenhaal’s film commitments precluded a rehearsal and Broadway run, according to a spokeswoman for the Hudson. WATCH
ON DEADLINE With the stars and director Sarna Lapine’s concert presentation ready to go, however, _Sunday in The Park_ looks like an easier transition. The show is scheduled to begin
performances February 11 at the West 44th Street theater, with an official opening on the 23rd and a 10-week run that will close April 23. The rest of the cast and creative team will be
announced shortly. Adam Speers for ATG is producing the show, along with Jeanine Tesori, the composer (_Fun Home_) who produced the concert production and is artistic adviser to City Center,
and Riva Marker, who heads up Gyllenhaal’s production company, Nine Stories. The Hudson will be reopening as a legitimate theater for the first time since 1968. In the interim, it’s been
used as a facility for corporate presentations and the like. UK-based ATG recently entered the Broadway market with two houses, including the 1,900-plus seat Lyric along with the Hudson. ATG
already has booked its monster hit _Harry Potter And The Cursed Child_ for the larger theater. “We are absolutely delighted to be welcoming audiences back to the historic Hudson Theater for
the first time in almost 50 years with this musical classic,” Mark Cornell, ATG’s Chief Executive Officer, said in the announcement Tuesday. “Sondheim and Lapine’s masterpiece is the
perfect inaugural offering for this Broadway treasure box. To be re- opening our most intimate of New York venues with this special work makes me excited about the future of the Hudson.”