With Rob McClure, who plays Daniel, sitting next to her on stage, Miranda plays a confessional piano ballad, titled “Let Go”, about her unsatisfying marriage. This flagship moment supplants a less likeable number, “I’m Done,” which was cut after the Seattle test in 2019. Reviews for this production were mixed, although McClure’s performance was widely praised.
To further contextualize the robed man schtick, costume designer Catherine Zuber helped create the contrasting character of Andre, the gender-nonconforming brother-in-law (played by J. Harrison Ghee, who took over the role by Billy Porter in “Kinky Boots”).
Andre wears flowing caftans as a fad rather than a joke. And he saves the day by distracting a court-appointed social worker who shows up at Daniel’s dilapidated apartment.
McClure, meanwhile, changes his Doubtfire costume and ends up with a pie in his face, repeating an iconic image from the film. “This is all going to end badly. You know that, don’t you? Andre impassive after the ordeal.
Standing up for families and fatherhood is what drew the Kirkpatricks to the story of “Doubtfire”.
Their first Broadway musical, the 2015 show “Something Rotten! , About an Elizabethan theater group struggling to compete with Shakespeare’s Globe, was completely original.
They had hoped their second would be too, but McCollum persuaded them to choose from a library of 20th Century Fox films he had been hired to work on. The team chose “Mrs. Doubtfire” because “we could relate to this story of a father who would do anything to be with his children,” Karey said. (Collectives, the three writers and their producer are fathers of 10 children.)
The Kirkpatricks’ own father was a Southern Baptist music minister, himself later called to the pulpit. He moved the family from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Baton Rouge to lead a non-denominational church.
