Dreamcasting OPPENHEIMER for Broadway
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Could Oppenheimer go from Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards to future Best Play at the Tony Awards? Stranger things have happened…
Unlike seemingly everyone else on the planet, I waited to watch Oppenheimer until it began streaming on Peacock, and even then, I begrudgingly turned on the three hour film knowing little of what was to come. Little did I know I was in for the watch of a lifetime, and that’s not just my opinion! The picture took home seven of its thirteen nominations at the 2024 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.), Best Cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), Best Original Score (Ludwig Göransson), and Best Film Editing (Jennifer Lame).
After my Barbie article, the next natural step would be to dream cast Oppenheimer, somehow an even larger task than my first piece. It goes without saying that the cast of Oppenheimer is superb in every way, and if I could just have everyone from the film play their role in the stage adaptation, I would. But that wouldn’t be much fun, so rather than casting Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Tom Conti, and all the other incredible members of the cast, I’ve put together my own cast list of Broadway talent below!
The Cast:
- Paul Alexander Nolan as J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Scarlett Johansson as Kitty Oppenheimer
- Oscar Isaac as Leslie Groves
- Bryan Cranston as Lewis Strauss
- Amber Ardolino as Jean Tatlock
- Brian d’Arcy James as Ernest Lawrence
- Kevin Cahoon as Niels Bohr
- David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi (reprising his role from the film)
- Brandon Uranowitz as Edward Teller
- Jelani Alladin as Richard Feynman
- Chris Herbie Holland as Kenneth Bainbridge
- Rob McClure as Kenneth Nichols
- Julian Cihi as Frank Oppenheimer
- Norm Lewis as Roger Robb
- Chip Zien as Albert Einstein (reprising his role from Harmony)
On top of a star-studded cast, this production would need to have a stellar creative team of writers, designers, and a director with the perfect vision for translating this nonlinear narrative just as well as the film did.
