Derek Klena Will Return to Broadway in The Great Gatsby on December 5

Tony nominee Derek Klena will return to Broadway in The Great Gatsby, taking over as Jay Gatsby at the Broadway Theatre beginning December 5, 2026, Playbill reported today. He succeeds Ryan McCartan, whose final performance is December 4. Klena will play the role through March 14, 2027 — and at the end of the engagement, he returns to the Savannah Bananas for their 2027 season.

The Bananas chapter

If the Bananas are new to you: they are an exhibition baseball team that plays its games as part sport, part show, and Klena has spent his season with them pitching and singing. Broadway.com summed up today's announcement as "swapping the Bananas for the bourgeoisie," and the line earns its keep — Banana Ball is performance with a scoreboard, and Jay Gatsby is a man performing a version of himself for a crowd. Klena keeps getting hired to do versions of exactly that.

His Broadway record is the credential. He originated the role of Nick Healy in Jagged Little Pill and was nominated for a Tony for it; he has played Christian in Moulin Rouge! and Fiyero in Wicked, and he was in the original Broadway companies of Anastasia and The Bridges of Madison County. Gatsby is a different kind of assignment from all of them: not the young man watching the story, but the mystery standing in the middle of it — a title role, in a big house, carried through the winter.

The company he's joining

He joins China Anne McClain (Descendants) as Daisy Buchanan, Corbin Bleu (High School Musical) as Nick Carraway, Naturi Naughton-Lewis (Power) as Jordan Baker, Max Monnig (Glory of the World) as Tom Buchanan, Linedy Genao (Bad Cinderella, On Your Feet!) as Myrtle Wilson, Charlie Pollock (Urinetown) as George Wilson, and Eric Anderson (Moulin Rouge, Waitress) — an original cast member — as Meyer Wolfsheim.

The musical, with music and lyrics by Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen, a book by Kait Kerrigan and direction by Marc Bruni, won the 2024 Tony Award for costume design. Tickets are on sale through June 6, 2027 — Klena's March exit is a chapter change, not a closing notice.

The house he's walking into

The house is healthy, too. In the week ending November 1, The Great Gatsby grossed $860,019 and played to 79% of its seats across eight performances, according to the Broadway League's weekly table. That's not a show gasping for a star; it's a long-runner doing what long-runners do — refreshing the name above the title for the winter crowd.

Which makes the calendar the story: December 5 to March 14, eight shows a week, then back to the ballpark. A ticket whose star's closing date is printed in the casting announcement is a rare thing. If you want this particular Gatsby — the pitcher, the Tony nominee — that is the window.