{"id":31560,"date":"2014-11-14T17:03:21","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T09:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=31560"},"modified":"2014-11-14T17:03:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T09:03:21","slug":"glee-star-matthew-morrison-excited-to-be-heading-back-to-broadway-so-fans-can-see-new-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/11\/14\/glee-star-matthew-morrison-excited-to-be-heading-back-to-broadway-so-fans-can-see-new-side\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Glee\u2019 star Matthew Morrison excited to be heading back to Broadway so fans can see new side"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Matthew<\/a>
Matthew Morrison. Peabody Awards<\/a> \/ Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK\u2014Matthew Morrison says he\u2019s looking forward to trading in his choir director role on \u201cGlee\u201d for a return to Broadway and letting fans see him \u201cin a different light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying Will Schuester for six seasons has been amazing but, honestly, there comes a point where you\u2019re struggling to find something new,\u201d says Morrison. \u201cI\u2019m excited to not have any more handcuffs, so to speak, and to go back to where my roots are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrison, who has played Schuester for six seasons, had previously starred on Broadway in \u201cHairspray,\u201d \u201cSouth Pacific\u201d and \u201cThe Light in the Piazza,\u201d for which he was nominated for a 2005 Tony Award.<\/p>\n

This week, he was announced as the star of the Broadway production of \u201cFinding Neverland,\u201d a musical directed by Diane Paulus that explores the Peter Pan book\u2019s back story. Previews begin in March.<\/p>\n

Morrison will play J.M. Barrie, the \u201cPeter Pan\u201d author. The musical is adapted from the 2004 whimsical film of the same name about a widow whose four young sons inspired Barrie to write the children\u2019s classic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis character is so different\u2014like night and day\u2014from Will Schuester. So I can\u2019t wait for people to see me in a different light,\u201d says Morrison. \u201cThey\u2019ll go maybe expecting to see Matt Morrison from \u2018Glee\u2019 and walk out with a new respect or appreciation for what I can bring to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrison, who got married this summer to model Renee Puente, has been hoping for a return to the stage for many years. \u201cGlee,\u201d which has its final season air next year, films for 10 months of the year, leaving not enough time to really slip into a theatre role. The actor has put out two albums and said he toured \u201cto fill the void.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadway is my home and I\u2019m just excited to go home,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s something so exciting about originating a role in a new musical. No one can really take it away from you. You\u2019re the one. I can\u2019t wait to do all the things that go along with that\u2014the original Broadway cast recording and showing off our show at the Tony Awards.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, Morrison might be reaping what he\u2019s sown: The popularity of \u201cGlee\u201d has been a boost for musical theatre and Broadway. Morrison says he\u2019s seen glee clubs pop up even across Europe and hopes the TV show\u2019s fans will show up at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just exciting to see how music is accepted and it\u2019s OK to be different and especially all the other themes that we\u2019ve hit upon on \u2018Glee\u2019\u2014bullying, being gay in high school, teenage pregnancy. I think there were a lot of great issues that were talked about on that show that a lot people ran away from. We really hit them straight on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK\u2014Matthew Morrison says he\u2019s looking forward to trading in his choir director role on \u201cGlee\u201d for a return to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":31562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hollywood","mauthors-mark-kennedy","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}