Nathan Lane might end up getting typecast if this keeps up.
"The Birdcage" actor will star in the Broadway production of "The Little Dog Laughed" playwright Douglas Carter Beane's new play "The Nance," which opens April 15 at the Lyceum Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater said Wednesday.
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Lane will play Chauncey Miles, a burlesque "nance" — that is, a character displaying stereotypically gay behavior, but typically portrayed by a straight performer — who happens to be a real-life homosexual in his off-time as well. The play will chronicle Miles' difficulties living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930s New York. Miles' burlesque antics on the stage "stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life," according to Lincoln Center, which is producing.
"The Nance" will be staged by Tony Award-winning director Jack O'Brien ("The Full Monty," "Hairspray").
Lane has previously appeared in Lincoln Center Theater's production of Richard Nelson's "Some Americans Abroad," and wrote the book and starred in its production of the Stephen Sondheim/Burt Shevelove's musical "The Frogs."