Neil Patrick Harris is returning to Broadway as the man offering a baseball fan the deal of a lifetime.
Harris will play Applegate in a new revival of Damn Yankees, alongside Julianne Hough as Lola and Austin Scott as Young Joe. The production will be the musical’s first Broadway revival in more than 30 years.
The three stars helped unveil the production at Yankee Stadium on September 27. Major League Baseball and MLB Studios are partnering on the revival, bringing professional baseball directly into a musical built around one fan’s desperation to defeat the Yankees.
Performances begin March 24, 2027, at the Marquis Theatre, with opening night scheduled for April 20. Tony Award winner Sergio Trujillo will direct and choreograph the production, according to Broadway.com.
Harris Will Play the Man Behind Joe Boyd’s Deal
View this post on Instagram
Damn Yankees centers on Joe Boyd, a devoted baseball fan desperate to see his team overcome the New York Yankees. Applegate offers him the chance to become Young Joe Hardy, a gifted player capable of changing his team’s fortunes, but the transformation comes with a catch.
Harris takes over the role of Applegate, while Hough plays his accomplice Lola and Scott portrays the transformed Young Joe.
The revival substantially updates the setting. The story now takes place in 2000, when the Yankees were coming off three consecutive World Series championships, and Joe is a Baltimore Orioles fan rather than a supporter of the Washington Senators.
Trujillo told MLB that the creative team considered which modern team could replace the Senators and settled on Baltimore because the Orioles preserved the American League rivalry needed for the story.
The new adaptation has a book by Will Power and Doug Wright, with additional lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. The original score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross remains, including songs such as “Heart” and “Whatever Lola Wants.”
Julianne Hough Will Star in Her First Broadway Musical
View this post on Instagram
Hough made her Broadway debut in 2022 in Selina Fillinger’s comedy POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, but Lola will mark her first role in a Broadway musical.
Her dance background will be central to a character associated with “Whatever Lola Wants.” Hough won an Emmy for choreography and became widely known through Dancing with the Stars, first as a professional dancer and later as a judge and host.
Harris praised his new co-star while speaking to MLB at Yankee Stadium. “Julianne is such a triple threat,” he said, adding that he expects Trujillo to push her abilities as a dancer, singer and actor.
Scott brings extensive musical theater experience to Young Joe. He previously played Alexander Hamilton on Broadway and on the national tour of Hamilton, originated Joe Scott in Girl From the North Country and later appeared as Shakespeare in & Juliet.
The Revival Changes More Than the Baseball Team
The updated setting is accompanied by changes to Young Joe himself. In the new adaptation, Scott’s character is Black, plays for the Orioles and possesses abilities described by MLB as superhuman.
Scott said the changes make Joe’s transformation more personal while allowing the team onstage to reflect the diversity of modern baseball. He also acknowledged that he is learning the sport while preparing for the role.
During the cast’s Yankee Stadium visit, Aaron Judge helped Scott with some of baseball’s details. Scott said he had already been studying footage of Judge and was particularly interested in the Yankees star’s confidence as he developed his version of Joe.
The production also has an unusual connection to professional baseball. Major League Baseball and MLB Studios are partnering with the revival, marking the first time the league has been directly involved with a Broadway musical.
This Version Already Had a Sold-Out Washington Run
Trujillo’s reimagining of Damn Yankees previously played a sold-out engagement at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The production received 13 Helen Hayes Award nominations, more than any other musical that season, and won eight awards, including Outstanding Production of a Musical.
The Broadway transfer introduces Harris, Hough and Scott as its three leads while retaining Trujillo and the updated adaptation by Power, Wright and Ahrens.
The original Damn Yankees opened on Broadway in 1955 and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Based on Douglass Wallop’s novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, it returned to Broadway in 1994 for a revival that ran for more than 500 performances.
For Harris, Applegate follows a Broadway career that includes Cabaret, Proof, Assassins, Peter Pan Goes Wrong and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. His performance in Hedwig earned him the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Additional casting for the 2027 revival has not yet been announced.
