TCB
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Darin Murphy heads to Broadway.
photo by John Anderson

Broadway Bound

Darin Murphy is well-known around Austin for his uncanny renditions of Beatles songs, even posting them on DarinMusic.com as the "Fab Fourgeries." Now Broadway audiences are about to get a taste. Murphy recently signed on as an understudy for Lennon, the new musical from writer/director Don Scardino that premieres in July at the Great White Way's Broadhurst Theater. Murphy, who had no previous theatrical experience, wrangled an audition by convincing a friend to tell Scardino about the Fourgeries. The director listened to them and flipped. "We hit it off immediately," Murphy says. "There was a terrific chemistry, and I had a really strong audition." In addition to John Lennon's songs, Scardino also asked Murphy to sing "Boxing Day" from 2001's Haunted Gardenias CD. When he got called back for a second audition in December, Lennon's widow Yoko Ono – who also OK'd the use of three previously unreleased songs – was in the audience. "I didn't actually meet her, but she was right there front and center, looking majestic," Murphy reports. Concentrating on the years after he met Ono, Lennon celebrates Lennon's life by shifting between his notable attributes: the clown, the bohemian, the rock star, the househusband, and so forth. "Everyone picks up different aspects of his personality as he's searching for the real John," says Murphy, who plays one last local gig at Flipnotics Saturday before rehearsals start in New York Feb. 14. "By the end of the show, he's finally content with who he is."