James Van Der Beek announced Sunday that he is forced to drop out of the live Dawson’s Creek reunion due to illness. Lin-Manuel Miranda will replace him for the reading of the pilot script.
The event is set to feature Dawson’s Creek original stars Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, Busy Phillips, Mary Beth Peil, Mary-Margaret Humes, John Wesley Shipp, Nina Repeta, Kerr Smith, and Meredith Monroe. The one-night-only event will benefit the F Cancer Organization and is set to take place in New York City.
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Van Der Beek shared the news on Instagram, explaining that he contracted “two stomach viruses” that knocked him “out of commission.” The actor was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer last year after undergoing a colonoscopy.
“This is the evening I’d been looking forward to MOST since my angel Michelle Williams said she was putting it together, way back in January… So you can imagine how gutted I was when two stomach viruses conspired to knock me out of commission and keep me grounded at the worst possible moment,” he wrote. “Despite every effort… I won’t get to be there. I won’t get to stand on that stage and thank every soul in the theater for showing up for me, and against cancer, when I needed it most.”
Van Der Beek joked that his “understudy,” Manual Miranda, would be a more-than-excellent replacement to play Dawson Leery for the night.
“But I DO have an understudy,” he wrote. “A ridiculously overqualified replacement who would have been #1 on my wishlist (had I ever dreamed he’d be available). Someone my kids would definitely consider an upgrade over me… Plus, he already knows how to get to the theater. So that’s convenient.”
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