Tony Award Winner Santonio Fontana to Star in Industry Reading of 'The Pianist:' Is This Play Bound for Broadway?
Santonio Fontana is set to star in an industry reading of the new play The Pianist.
Santonio Fontana is a name that comes up again and again in both the on screen and on stage worlds. He starred brilliantly as Greg in the hit series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He then moved on to star in the Broadway production of Tootsie, for which performance he received the Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Musical. He made a short pitstop as Prince Han in Frozen in there, before recently released a single recording of Stephen Sondheim's "Another Hundred People," for a charitable cause.
Now, he is set to return to the stage in an industry reading of the new play The Pianist.
The Pianist has its sights set for Broadway, and this reading is the first step. The show is based off of the memoir of the very talented Polish-Jewish pianist Władysław Szpilman.
In this original drama, Fontana will take on the role of Szpilman - a deviation from much of Fontana's normal work. He is known for appearing in musicals. Even Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was television version of a musical. The Pianist, however, is not a musical. While there will be musical elements throughout, it is a play.
It will be exciting to see Fontana take on this new challenge.
The upcoming work tells a beautiful and powerful story. The producer of the show, Michael Wolk, shared:
"The Pianist tells a soaring tale of survival and triumph through music...It is a riveting story that is fiercely present tense-though it's set in the past, it shows us that just like today, worlds are destroyed when we demonize each other. And it gives us hope by showing how human connections and the power of music can transcend hate and fear and heal our hearts."
We have high hopes for The Pianist already.
