Give my regards to . . .
Broadway stars such as Nathan Lane are on board with TV roles
Jeremy Jordan
Series: Smash ( NBC, starts in January), drama documenting the creation of a Broadway musical, now in its second season, with theater notables Christian Borle and Megan Hilty among returning cast members.
Role: Jimmy Collins, a brooding, talented young composer whose next musical poses a risk for everyone involved.
Related stage experience: Jordan earned acclaim in the 2011-12 Broadway season as a brooding, talented murderer in Bonnie and Clyde and Jack Kelly, a newsboy who leads his colleagues in taking risks in Newsies.
Lily Rabe
Series: American Horror Story:
Asylum ( FX, starts Oct. 17), second installment of American Horror Story anthology, introducing a new set of characters at New England’s Briarcliff Asylum, overseen by Jessica Lange’s Sister Jude.
Role: Sister Mary Eunice, Sister Jude’s right-hand woman.
Related stage experience: Details about Mary Eunice are being kept under wraps, but we can hope that she’ll be as intriguingly neurotic as Kate, the aspiring writer Rabe played in Theresa Rebeck’s 2011 Broadway play
Seminar — and that she’ll look as smart in a habit as Rabe’s Portia, in a 2010 revival of The Merchant of
Venice, did in her lawyer’s robes.
Andrew Rannells
Series: The New Normal ( NBC), new sitcom about a successful gay couple who decide that they want a child and hire a single mom as surrogate.
Role: Bryan, a bright-eyed young TV producer who dreams only of being a father.
Related stage experience: In the Broadway megahit The Book of Mormon, Rannells introduced the role of Elder Price, a young missionary who dreams only of going to Orlando.
Josh Gad
Series: 1600 Penn ( NBC, midseason entry), new comedy focusing on fictional American president Dale Gilchrist (Bill Pullman) and his family. (Gad also serves as co-executive producer.)
Role: First son Skip Gilchrist, whose awkward attempts to win his dad’s respect often don’t pan out.
Related stage experience: In Mormon, Gad co-starred with Rannells as Price’s less photogenic fellow missionary Elder Cunningham, whose awkward attempts to win his colleagues’ respect don’t always pan out.
Laura Benanti
Series: Go On ( NBC), new sitcom/ drama starring Matthew Perry as Ryan King, a sportscaster grappling with the loss of his wife.
Role: Lauren, the leader of a support group that Ryan attends; though not a licensed therapist, she has been a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers.
Related stage experience: In the 2009 Broadway debut of Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or The Vibrator
Play, Benanti played Catherine Givings, wife of an adventurous Victorian-era doctor. Though not a licensed therapist, Catherine helped lead her husband to a new sense of body awareness.
Colin Donnell
Series: Arrow ( the CW, starts Oct. 10), new action drama based on the adventures of DC Comics superhero Green Arrow.
Role: Tommy Merlyn, a rich playboy who is best friend to the Green Arrow’s alter ago, Oliver (Stephen Arnell), but sleeps with his girlfriend when they both think Oliver has died. As fans of the comic books know, Merlyn will become Arrow’s arch nemesis.
Related stage experience: In the 2011 Broadway revival of Anything
Goes, Donnell played Billy Crocker, a ladies’ man who falls for the fiancée of his buddy Reno Sweeney’s crush.
Nathan Lane
Series: The Good Wife ( CBS, starts Sept. 30), legal drama that has cast a number of stage stalwarts in principal and recurring roles, including Alan Cumming, Christine Baranski and Denis O’Hare.
Role: Recurring character Clarke Hayden, the law firm LockhartGardner’s appointed trustee as it goes through Chapter 11 restructuring.
Related stage experience: Lane earned one of his Tony Awards as The
Producers’ Max Bialystock, a downon-his-luck Broadway mogul who takes a creative (if not entirely ethical) approach to avoiding financial disaster.