Broadway's Best Show About Faith: A Tolstoy Adaptation

Last weekend, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 — Dave Malloy's electro-pop adaptation of Tolstoy's War and Peace — closed on Broadway after a casting controversy: The show's producers had asked the male lead, Hamilton's Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan, who is black, to step aside early to “make room” for the more established (and white) Mandy Patinkin, who later withdrew from the production after social media backlash. It was an ignominious end for one of the most exciting musicals of recent decades — one that reimagined Tolstoy's epic classic for a new generation.