Daniel J. Watts joins Lincoln Center Theater’s revival of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars as Canewell, stepping in for Jason Dirden. Previews begin November 5 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.
Ruben Santiago-Hudson won his first Tony Award for playing Canewell in the 1996 Broadway premiere of Seven Guitars. Three decades on he is directing the play for Lincoln Center Theater, and the part that made his name has just been recast: Daniel J. Watts joins the company as Canewell, the theater announced on Monday.
Watts takes over from Jason Dirden, who was announced in the role earlier and leaves the production for a television opportunity. Watts was nominated for a Tony Award in 2020 for originating the role of Ike Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. His other Broadway credits include Hamilton, The Color Purple, Memphis, In the Heights and After Midnight; Off-Broadway they include Lights Out: Nat King Cole at New York Theatre Workshop, which brought an Audelco Award, and The Refuge Plays at Roundabout.
The revival plays nine weeks at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on the Lincoln Center campus, at 150 West 65th Street. Previews begin on Thursday, November 5, opening night is set for Monday, November 23, and the engagement closes on January 10, 2027.
Watts joins a company led by Russell Hornsby as Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton, with Chanté Adams as Ruby, Kristolyn Lloyd as Vera, Michael Potts as Red Carter, Roslyn Ruff as Louise and John Douglas Thompson as Hedley. Taylor Elise Jackson, Warner Miller, Simone Moore and Kevyn Morrow complete the company as understudies.
Wilson set the play in 1940s Pittsburgh, around a blues guitarist trying to win back the woman he loves and to build something durable out of a career that keeps slipping away from him. What the friends gathered around Barton say about him, and what they leave unsaid, is where the play does its work.
Santiago-Hudson has spent much of his career inside Wilson’s American Century Cycle. He directed the Broadway revival of Jitney, and this year was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance as Bynum Walker in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
The creative team is Kenneth L. Roberson (choreography), Michael Carnahan (scenic design), Karen Perry (costume design), Rui Rita (lighting design), Justin Ellington (sound design), Nikiya Mathis (hair and wig design) and Junior Mack (original music), with casting by The Telsey Office. Support for the production comes from the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation.
Tickets are on sale now through Lincoln Center Theater.
