It\'s a Bird, It\'s a Plane, It\'s a Dirty Blond: Musical Revival Casts Its \'Superman\'

City Center The actor Edward Watts.

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and with somewhat fairer coloring than we’ve come to expect from the Man of Steel, the Encores! revival of “It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman” has found the actor to play the costumed DC Comics champion of its title.

Edward Watts, who played the dual roles of Robert Semple and David Hutton in the recent Broadway musical “Scandalous,” will don the cape and tights of the Kryptonian emigre Kal-El â€"better known to us earthlings as Superman â€" as well as the garb of his meek alter-ego, Clark Kent, press representatives for the Encores! series said on Thursday. The production, directed by John Rando with choreography by Joshua Bergasse and music direction by Rob Berman, will run at New York City Center for seven performances from March 20 through 24.

Mr. Watts, who has also performed on Broadway in “Finian’s Rainbow,” Off-Broadway in “The Fantasticks” and in New York City Opera’s production of “The Most Happy Fella,” may not possess the natural jet-black hair traditionally associated with Superman. But other productions of the musical (which features a book by David Newman and Robert Benton, music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams) have not rigidly adhered to canon. When it was revived in 2010 at Dallas Theater Center (where Superman was played by Matt Cavenaugh), black actors were cast in ! two key roles: Zakiya Young played Lois Lane, while Hassan El-Amin portrayed Superman’s father, Jor-El, and Perry White, editor in chief of The Daily Planet. (Meanwhile, in Zack Snyder’s coming movie “Man of Steel,” Superman is played by Henry Cavill, who is â€" gasp! â€" British.)

Additional casting for the Encores! production, including the roles of Lois Lane and the villainous Dr. Sedgwick, were still to be announced. A press representative for Encores! said on Thursday that pre-production meetings for “It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman” had not yet been held, so details like hair coloring could still change faster than…well, you know.