Broadway stars including Jay Armstrong Johnson, Taylor Iman Jones, and Jelani Remy are going back in time to one of the bloodiest plots in European royal history. Anjou: The Musical Horror Tale premieres January 29 at 8 PM ET as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
The streaming event is available to watch above or on Playbill YouTube. While free to enjoy, donations are encouraged to support BC/EFA. Click here to donate.
Flip through the digital Playbill program for Anjou:
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Performed in the style of a Broadway concept album, actors split roles throughout the performance. The cast includes Jones, Julia Murney, Bianca Marroquín, and Kristie Dale Sanders as Catherine de’ Medici; Johnson, Remy, Jonathan Burke, Adam Roberts, and Roberto Araujo as Henry of Anjou; Caroline Bowman, Shereen Pimentel, and Eva Tavares as Margot de Valois; Javier Muñoz as Charles IX; Austin Colby as Arthur; and Nathan Cockroft, Kevin Curtis, Gabriel Hyman, and Michael Perrie Jr. as Spirit/Mignon. Marroquín also serves as the Narrator.
READ: Five Fast Facts to Know About Anjou: The Musical Horror Tale
Anjou is a modern Mexican opera with music by Guillermo Mendez M. and lyrics by Mendez and Guadalupe Sandoval, with a new English translation by Javier Vilalta. The streaming production is directed and edited by Roberto Araujo with Grammy and Emmy winner John McDaniel (Annie Get Your Gun, The Rosie O’Donnell Show) as music director. Araujo and Vilalta produce.
Fusing Renaissance-inspired melodies, modern orchestrations, and Latinx-influenced tunes, Anjou turns a tragic moment in history into a exploration of kindness and acceptance against today's backdrop of injustice. The musical follows Charles IX as he is crowned the new monarch in France while Queen Catherine de’ Medici plots with the Catholic Church to eradicate Protestantism. The treacherous queen has a plan of her own: to remain in power through her beloved and overly-conceited son, Henry of Anjou, and to plan her daughter’s wedding with a Protestant knight, while executing one of the bloodiest events in history.
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has raised more than $300 million for essential services for people with HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and other critical illnesses across the United States.
