Academy Award nominee and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actor Sean Astin will make his Broadway debut this holiday season as Santa in Elf The Musical at the Marquis Theatre.
An acclaimed actor, director and pop culture icon, Astin’s career has spanned four decades with such internationally-beloved roles as Mikey Walsh in The Goonies, the title character of Rudy, Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Doug Whitmore in 50 First Dates, and Bob Newby in Stranger Things. He adds to this list of legendary characters with yet another iconic role, when he makes his Broadway debut as Santa in Elf The Musical, opposite the previously announced Tony Award nominee Grey Henson (Mean Girls, Shucked) as Buddy the Elf.
Elf The Musical returns to Broadway for the first time in over a decade, following two hugely successful, record-breaking seasons in London’s West End. Broadway previews begin Saturday, November 9, 2024, with an official Opening Night on Sunday, November 17, 2024, for the limited engagement through Saturday, January 4, 2025. Tickets are available now on Broadway Direct, the official ticketing provider for Elf The Musical.
Elf The Musical features a book by Tony Award winners Thomas Meehan (Annie, The Producers, Hairspray) and Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone, Smash, Boop! The Musical), with songs by Tony nominees Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin (The Prom, The Wedding Singer). The musical returns to Broadway in an acclaimed production directed by Philip Wm. McKinley (The Boy From Oz, Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark) and choreographed by Olivier and Drama Desk nominee Liam Steel (Company). First staged at the Dominion Theatre in London’s West End, this production became the venue’s fastest-selling show in nearly a century and became a firm holiday favorite for London audiences, breaking its own box office records during last year’s run.
Elf The Musical is the hilarious and heartwarming tale of Buddy, a young orphan child whose life is changed forever when he mistakenly crawls into Santa’s sack of toys one Christmas Eve. Raised by elves in the North Pole, Buddy’s enormous size and poor toy-making abilities make him realize he doesn’t quite fit in. When he discovers he is human, Buddy embarks on a journey to New York City to find his birth father and, in turn, helps the Big Apple rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. Hailed by Time Out as “a slickly irresistible and fizzily enjoyable confection of a show” that will “whirl you up in a technicolor dream of Christmas,” this modern-day holiday classic returns home to New York in an acclaimed West End production that “has the magic to send you out of the theatre smiling and singing” (The Times of London).