On Sunday night, James Van Der Beek announced that he would be bowing out of the highly anticipated live "Dawson’s Creek" reunion event, citing "two stomach viruses" as the culprits. Taking his place for the one-night-only live reading of the pilot script will be none other than Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The star-studded gathering, set to benefit the organization F Cancer, is slated to feature the original cast members: Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, Mary Beth Peil, John Wesley Shipp, Mary-Margaret Humes, Nina Repeta, Kerr Smith, Meredith Monroe, and Busy Phillips. The event is scheduled to unfold on Monday at the iconic Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York City.
Van Der Beek, who last year disclosed his diagnosis of stage 3 colorectal cancer, broke the news on Instagram. “This is the evening I’d been eagerly awaiting since my angel Michelle Williams first mentioned she was organizing it, all the way back in January... So you can only imagine how utterly devastated I was when two stomach viruses conspired to sideline me at this most inopportune moment,” he penned. “Despite every effort and prayer... I won’t be able to make it. I won’t have the chance to stand on that stage and express my heartfelt gratitude to every soul in the theater for rallying around me and standing up against cancer when I needed it most.”
He also couldn't help but express his awe and disbelief that the creative genius behind "Hamilton," Lin-Manuel Miranda, would be stepping into the shoes of Dawson Leery, the character Van Der Beek portrayed on the show from 1998 to 2003. “But I DO have an understudy,” he quipped. “A ridiculously overqualified replacement who would have topped my wishlist (had I ever dared to dream he’d be available). Someone my kids would undoubtedly view as a definite upgrade over me… Plus, he already knows his way to the theater. So that’s handy.”
Van Der Beek first learned of his cancer diagnosis in August 2023 and chose to share the news publicly in November 2024, revealing that it was detected through a colonoscopy.
