Casting News -- July 9, 2009

It's official: Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman will co-star on Broadway in A Steady Rain, a two-character play by Keith Huff. Jackman won a Tony Award for his performance in The Boy from Oz; this will be Craig's New York stage debut. A Steady Rain begins previews Sept. 10 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in NYC; the production will play a strictly limited 12-week engagement through Dec. 6.

Brooke Shields, Dick Van Dyke, Ken Jeong, and Samantha Bee have joined the cast of Furry Vengeance, a live-action family comedy starring Brendan Fraser as a real estate developer who gets more than he bargained for from a band of raccoons. Shields will play Fraser's wife in her first mainstream film role in a decade.

Comedy Central has ordered 10 episodes of a new sitcom in which Jon Heder stars as an out of work computer IT specialist who returns to his small home town and moves back in with his parents and younger brother.

Hope Davis will replace Julianne Moore as Hillary Clinton in The Special Relationship, an HBO movie about "the unique and sometimes turbulent political relationship between newly installed British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s." Dennis Quaidwill star as President Clinton, with Michael Sheen as Prime Minister Blair. Moore pulled out because of a scheduling conflict.

Savannah Wise will officially take over the the lead role of Sherrie in Rock of Ages, effective immediately. Wise understudied the role since performances began on Broadway March 17, and has been playing the role on stage since original star Amy Spanger departed the Broadway production after the Tony Awards.

Jonathan Root has joined the cast of the Off-Broadway musical The Toxic Avenger. Root replaces original cast member Matthew Saldivar as "White Dude."

Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk are starring in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, an indie horror comedy about two good-natured hillbillies mistakenly accused of being psycho killers by a group of college kids camping at the same lake. Tudyk stars as Tucker and Labine stars as Dale. Katrina Bowen (30 Rock) also stars.

Leo Ash Evens has been cast in the Weston Playhouse's upcoming production of Rent as Mark Cohen. The cast also features Kristoffer Cusick as Roger Davis, Jordan Barbour as Tom Collins, Joshua Denning as Benjamin Coffin III, Jeremy Leiner as Angel Schunard, Stacey Sargeant as Joanne Jefferson, Rona Figueroa as Mimi Marquez, and Christina Bianco as Maureen Johnson. The musical will play the Vermont venue July 30-Aug. 22.

-- Daniel Lehman