Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals

Upcoming Musicals - Further Out

Following up on yesterday's list of immediately impending Broadway musicals, here are some shows that are a bit further out on the horizon:

EVER AFTER:
Source: Based on Drew Barrymore movie "Ever After," itself based loosely on the Cinderella story.
Cast: None yet announced.
Creators: Music by Zina Goldrich, lyrics by Marcy Heisler (Junie B. Jones, numerous Disney projects). Mauritius playwright Theresa Rebeck will co-write the book with Heisler.
Staff: Doug Hughes (Doubt, Mauritius) will direct, Rob Ashford will choreograph.
Status: The show will have a pre-Broadway tryout at San Francisco's Curran Theater in April 2009.
My Take: Goldrich and Heisler are unknown to me. Rebeck and Hughes are pros, but new to musical theater. Ashford's the only true musical veteran on board. I should probably see the movie before I make any grand proclamations about the quality of the source material, but I hear good things.

TURN OF THE CENTURY:
Source: None! (An original idea? What a concept.) The musical centers on a female singer who can't catch a break, and a male piano player. At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 1999, they both receive a fantastical power and set out together to "discover" America's most popular songs.
Cast: Jeff Daniels and the always delightful Rachel York.
Creators: Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, of Jersey Boys fame. The score will comprise various standards "from the American songbook."
Staff: Tommy Tune will direct and choreograph.
Status: September 19th to 26th at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Will the show head to Broadway after that?
My Take: That's a pretty dull, generic title, but any show that creates the possibility of Tommy Tune returning to New York is reason to celebrate. Compilations scores are never a good idea (Big Deal, anyone?), but this one seems to fit in with the theme of the show, so we'll have to see how they pull it off.

THE ADDAMS FAMILY:
Source: Duh.
Cast: No roles have yet been cast for the Broadway production, but Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth will be part of reading in August. Lane was supposed to appear in the upcoming Catch Me If You Can, but according to Michael Riedel, "may find the role of Gomez Addams too good to pass up."
Creators: The very busy Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice are writing the book. The score will be by Andrew Lippa of The Wild Party fame.
Staff: Improbable Theater founders Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (Shockheaded Peter) will direct and design.
Status: Scheduled for the 2009-2010 Broadway season following an out-of-town tryout.
My Take: I'm not personally thrilled at the prospect of Morticia and Gomez bursting into song, but it could be fun if the creators find the right story to tell and the right way to tell it.

That's all for now. I'm off to New York City to see [title of show], Bash'd, and Damn Yankees. I'll also be revisiting a few shows, including Adding Machine, A Catered Affair, and Passing Strange. Look for my reviews next week.

Upcoming Musicals - Coming Soon

There's certainly no shortage of musicals, both new and classic, settling into Broadway berths for the next season. Some have already found a home and are even selling tickets (Shrek, Billy Elliot, A Tale of Two Cities, [title of show]). Other have been announced, but are either waiting for a suitable theater to open up, or just haven't started to sell tickets yet (The Story of My Life, Pure Country, 13). Then there are the shows that are a little bit further on the horizon, but remain distinct possibilities for the coming season:

GODSPELL:
Cast: Gavin Creel
Staff: The upcoming Broadway production will reunite the creative team from the recent Paper Mill Playhouse production: Daniel Goldstein (All Shook Up) will direct, and Christopher Gattelli (South Pacific, 13) will choreograph.
Status: Details have been scant, but according to Broadway.com, Godspell will begin previews at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in September and open in October.
My Take: "I know I've seen this show before, in some old high school gym, on someone's basement floor..."

VANITIES:
Cast: Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles, and Anneliese van der Pol
Creators: Book by Jack Heifner, who wrote the play Vanities, upon which the musical is based. Music and lyrics David Kirshenbaum (Summer of '42)
Staff: Judith Ivey will direct, Dan Knechtges will choreograph.
Status: The show will play the Pasadena Playhouse from August 22 to September 28, before bowing on Broadway, reportedly in the fall 2008.
My Take: I saw the play many years ago, and recall it being fun but slight. A group of high school friends meet in the bleachers to talk about their lives: Will this wind up being Glory Days with girls?

9 TO 5:
Cast: Allison Janney, Stephanie J. Block, Megan Hilty, and Marc Kudisch
Creators: Score by Dolly Parton, book by Patricia Resnick, based on her original screenplay.
Staff: Directed by Joe Mantello, choreographed by recent Tony winner Andy Blankenbueler.
Status: Will play the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles from September 3rd to October 19th. Possible Broadway bow shortly thereafter?
My Take: Great source material, fantastic cast, and Dolly Parton's first Broadway score. The show has so much going for it, but then so did Cry-Baby.

Tomorrow: Upcoming Musicals - Further Out

Dirty Dancing Headed to Broadway?

The producers of the upcoming national tour of Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story on Stage are billing it as the "pre-Broadway American premiere."

Thanks for the warning.

I'll be catching the show during the Boston leg of its tour in February. Never let it be said that I'm unwilling to give even the most cynical, venal, and misconceived shows the opportunity to prove me wrong.

After all, I saw Happy Days. And after an extended period of intensive therapy, I may yet be able to mitigate the damage to my psyche. Just in time for Dirty Dancing.

13 Headed to Broadway

Add yet another small-but-ambitious musical to the 2008-2009 season. According to Playbill.com, the musical 13 will be the next tenant at the Jacobs Theater, after The Country Girl ends its limited engagement. The Jason Robert Brown tuner will transfer to Broadway after its one-month run at the Goodspeed Opera House.

Apparently the creators are confident enough in the show that they don't feel the need to wait to see what happens at the Goodspeed. Producer Bob Boyett told Playbill that 13 will begin New York performances in September with pretty much the same cast and crew as the Goodspeed production.

(An interesting footnote: Boyett is also one of the producers of The Country Girl, as well as the following current or recent Broadway shows: South Pacific, Passing Strange, Sunday in the Park With George, Boeing-Boeing, The Drowsy Chaperone, The 39 Steps, The Seafarer, Rock 'n' Roll, Is He Dead?, The History Boys, and The Coast of Utopia. Busy guy, huh?)

So the current list of musicals for the next Broadway season is as follows: [title of show], Shrek, Billy Elliot, A Tale of Two Cities, The Story of My Life, Pure Country, and now 13. That's quite an eclectic mix, including everything from overblown spectacle to plucky little shows that could. Of course, it's great that there are so many shows taking a chance on Broadway. But as this season clearly shows, there is such a thing as too many musicals, especially in the current economy. None of the current crop of tuners has broken out to become a bona fide hit. (Yet?)

I'll be seeing 13 at the Goodspeed next month. Look for my review here shortly thereafter.

Brigadoon to Reappear in 2009

We can add another musical revival to the 2008-2009 Broadway season. The very busy Rob Ashford will direct and choreograph the upcoming revival of Lerner and Loewe's Brigadoon. The show will open in the spring of 2009 after a Boston tryout.

Ashford is a masterful choreographer, as he's demonstrated in such recent shows as Curtains, The Wedding Singer, Thoroughly Modern Millie (for which he won the Tony Award), and the recent London revival of Evita. But he's relatively untried as a director, although he did take the helm of the recent London production of Jason Robert Brown's Parade.

Brigadoon is certainly not an unknown commodity: there have already been four Broadway revivals of the show in 1950, 1957, 1963, and 1980. However, the longest run of these four was only 133 performances. Reviews for the 1980 production were kind, but whereas in 1947 the show had seemed charming, some thirty years later it was downright precious. Vincent Minnelli's dull movie version of "Brigadoon" takes out some of the best songs, and spends too much time giving Gene Kelly something to dance about.

To give the old show a new face, playwright John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation, The House of Blue Leaves) will revise Alan Jay Lerner's original book. This is a pretty standard practice for revivals of older shows, but it usually occurs for shows that were written before 1940.

The book could certainly use some revising. [SPOILER ALERT: If you've never seen the show, skip the next two paragraphs.] There's a terrific sense of time and place in the show, but there's also an awful lot that's hard to swallow. For instance, Tommy Albright takes an awfully long time catching on to the central conceit. And when one character threatens to destroy the central miracle of the show by leaving the town, he meets with a very convenient "accidental" death. "We were chasing him and he fell and hit his head on a rock. Honest."

And then there's the ending, which is just plain ridiculous, a deus ex machina if ever there was one: the strength of Tommy's love wills the bridge to Brigadoon to come back into existence. The sage Mr. Lundie explains: "You shouldna be too surprised, lad. I told ye when ye love someone deeply, anythin' is possible. Even miracles." Horse hockey.

So, overall, the horse race for best revival next season is looking pretty strong: Pal Joey, Dancin', Godspell, West Side Story and Brigadoon. Anything I'm missing, dear reader?

Shrek on Broadway in 2008

The Broadway-aimed musical version of Shrek, based on the Dreamworks movie, will bow in New York in November 2008 after a tryout run in Seattle. The show will have music by Jeanine Tesori (Caroline or Change, Thoroughly Modern Millie) and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, High Fidelity). Jason Moore of Avenue Q will direct. The cast will likely include Christopher Sieber, but it's not clear which role he'll play. The green one himself, perhaps? The princely guy from the second movie? Or maybe Lord Farquaad, the John Lithgow role?

Overall, that's some pretty high-caliber talent, but as we know all too well that is certainly no guarantee of success. Just ask David Henry Hwang about Tarzan. But you really can't blame big companies like Disney for snatching up award-winning writers: the company did the same thing when it hired Doug Wright to pen the book to The Little Mermaid. And it's unlikely to be the fault of these talented scribes, at least not totally, when the shows don't work out. It's far more likely to be the result of the inevitable writing-by-committee and art-by-consensus processes that no doubt plague the shows as they develop.

On a side note, it's interesting to note how lately Seattle and San Diego have become the tryout cities of choice. Seattle has played host to tryouts of Young Frankenstein, Hairspray, The Wedding Singer, and the abortive Lone Star Love. San Diego saw pre-Broadway productions of Cry-Baby, A Catered Affair, The Times They Are A-Changin', Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, and Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Why have Seattle and San Diego replaced Boston and New Haven? It's not as though advanced word about the shows doesn't get around anyway, thanks to the Internet and bloggers like me. Possibly it's because the real taste-makers -- the "mavens," as it were -- are less likely to schlep 3,000 miles  to see a show in tryouts.

Another possible explanation: enhancement deals. The two key venues in San Diego are the Old Globe Theater and the La Jolla Playhouse, both of which are non-profit organizations. Enhancement deals, in a nutshell, occur when for-profit companies help fund a non-profit run for a show in development in return for a share of the take should the show move on to a commercial run. Shows that have benefited from enhancement deals include Spring Awakening, The Drowsy Chaperone, Avenue Q, and Rent. Shrek, however, is unlikely to involve an enhancement deal, mostly because it's already occurring under the auspices of a deep-pocketed for-profit venture: Dreamworks Animation.

Care to speculate, dear reader, as to the tryout popularity of these fair cities?