A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Stage Door

Posted on November 27, 2009 by David Fick

There is a series of photos from the stage door up at BroadwayWorld. Here’s just one:

Catherine Zeta-Jones Stage Door

A glamorous life, indeed!

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HAIRSPRAY Sequel Outline

Posted on November 27, 2009 by David Fick
HAIRSPRAY

HAIRSPRAY

Adam Shankman has revealed a possible outline for Hairspray 2, the proposed sequel to the recent hit film musical based on the Broadway show Hairspray. With the view of a July 2010 release, the John Waters penned outline takes Tracy Turnblad (played by Nikki Blonsky in the first film) and company through the super-political period of the late 1960s, with the music of that time period focusing their journey. The aim would be to track history in a comedic way and to incorporate the the British music invasion in a storyline for Link (who was played Zac Efron in the recent film).

More news as it comes, folks – but that’s it for now…

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NEWSFLASH: Kelsey Grammar for Broadway’s LA CAGE?

Posted on November 26, 2009 by David Fick
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, click on the image above.

We all know by now that the London production of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s La Cage aux Folles is Broadway bound and now the first casting rumours are out. The New York Post says that Kelsey Grammar will play Georges opposite Douglas Hodge’s Albin. (Riedel also says it was almost Mandy Patinkin who opted for Paradise Found instead – thank goodness, I guess.)

BroadwayWorld has an interview with Douglas Hodge. He says the deal with the Georges is still to be done, but he knows who it is and he’s thrilled.

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A Sneak Peek of FELA!

Posted on November 25, 2009 by David Fick

There’s a sneak peek of Fela! at BroadwayWorld, with some footage from the show. The show’s unique feel is clear even here, visibly drawing on pan-African performance traditions that meet head-on with conventions of the Broadway musical over at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. More and more, it seems as though Fela! might be a major contender for the Best Musical Tony, with possibly only The Addams Family offering any decent competition – unless things get all nostalgic and Million Dollar Quartet sideswipes them both. Go see it for yourself if you can!

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VIDEO: LEGALLY BLONDE on CHILDREN IN NEED

Posted on November 21, 2009 by David Fick

The cast of Laurence O’Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach’s Legally Blonde performed on Children in Need last night. Here’s the footage:

Unfortunately, the performance is terrible. It’s under-rehearsed and very clear that the cast is not ready for a performance like this yet. Made up this way, Sheridan Smith looks too old for the role and she sounds awful. So much so that she and co-star Duncan James seem less talented than almost anyone in the chorus. Incredibly disappointing.

Smith sounds much better in this promotional video for the production, which has been out for ages:

Problem is she still looks like she’s been for a few too many rounds on the tanning bed and like she’s using a truckload of makeup to cover it up. The look will matter less on stage though, and I hope she has less of an issue with pitch in the theatre than she does in the live performance at Children in Need.

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Return of THE CAPEMAN

Posted on November 21, 2009 by David Fick
THE CAPEMAN

Purchase Songs from THE CAPEMAN on Amazon.

Michael Riedel tries to introduce his article on the possible return of the flop musical The Capeman with a story about how Sutton Foster will play the title role in the upcoming reading of Carrie. Can we just take a moment so say… EPIC FAIL…?

Anyways, the actual content of the article deals with the possibility of The Public Theater reviving The Capeman:

Michael Riedel wrote:
(Oskar) Eustis… wants to do a concert version of the show. The book – by Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott – will pretty much be eliminated, which is a good thing because it’s dreadful. But Walcott’s lyrics – and Simon’s tunes – are haunting.

Why does everyone suddenly want to produce concert versions of flop musicals lately? Give me a reading, like Carrie is doing, any day. At least it shows that the creators genuinely want to work on the material, not just make a quick buck off of what they can salvage in a form that hardly ever does justice to the “theatre” part of musical theatre.

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Another Seasonal Musical: A CHRISTMAS STORY

Posted on November 20, 2009 by David Fick

A Christmas Story: The Musical opens tonight in Kansas and is hoping to make a Broadway bow in 2010. From Playbill:

Scott Davenport Richards penned the score to the musical based on the Jean Shepherd stories and the 1983 MGM film. The libretto is by Joseph Robinette…. Based on the stories of radio humorist Jean Shepherd, the classic holiday story follows Ralphie Parker, whose holiday wish is a Red Ryder 200 Shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. The 1940s-set comedy follows Ralphie through his holiday campaign for the gift of his dreams, complete with a visit to Santa at Higbee’s Department Store, a racy lamp, the family’s exploding furnace, an experiment with a wet tongue on a cold lamppost and more. Songs in the production include “Getting Ready for Christmas,” “Take That!,” “I Won (A Major Award),” “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!,” “Ho, Ho, Ho!,” “I’m Awake,” “On Christmas, We Go Eat Chinese” and “There Must Be Something We’ve Forgotten.”

Apparently there was a New York reading of this last year. So… are we eventually going to end up in a world where regular shows on Broadway shut down for the Christmas productions?

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NEWSFLASH: GIRL CRAZY for Encores!

Posted on November 19, 2009 by David Fick
GIRL CRAZY

Above: Ginger Rogers in the original GIRL CRAZY

From Playbill: Encores! will be producing Girl Crazy, the ‘Gershwins’ fanciful Depression-era musical of 1930′, ‘the tale of a sophisticated New Yorker… marooned in a dusty Western cow town with no one who understands him but the Yiddish-speaking cabbie… who brought him there and no one to love but the only woman… within 50 miles’, with the following cast:

  • Chris Diamantopoulos as Danny Churchill
  • Becki Newton as Molly Gray
  • Ana Gasteyer as Kate Fothergill
  • Wayne Knight as Gieber Goldfarb
  • Marc Kudisch as Slick Fothergill
  • Mylinda Hull as Patsy West
  • Richard Poe as Jake Howell
  • Daniel Stewart Sherman as Lank Sanders
  • Gregory Wooddell as Tom Mason

Girl Crazy – with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and book by Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan – is, of course, is the show that was adapted into Crazy For You,
Ken Ludwig who wrote the book for that production said of Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan’s book:

All those musicals’ books of the ’20s and ’30s were awful, but Girl Crazy seemed to me the awfullest (sic) of all! It was dumb, silly, beyond silly. And full of ethnic humor that wasn’t funny at all. I decided I’d have to rewrite from scratch.

So we’re back to silly gags and ethnic humour then? I don’t know that I’d call that a plus point – although the book, it turns out, is undergoing some reworking, according to Jerry Zaks in an article at BroadwayWorld

The book was partly incoherent and mildly amusing…. David Ives went to work on it with me and my associate, and we spent hours taking a hard look at it and… not changing the story in any way, but resequencing the order of events in a way that made sense, you know? Or more sense.

I’m not sure what the physical result of that is going to be. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Still, it’s a great score and, as it stands, I pretty much prefer Crazy for You all around. Whether or not the Ives/Zaks revisions will change that remains to be seen.

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A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Website Launched

Posted on November 18, 2009 by David Fick

The official website for the A Little Night Music revival on Broadway has been launched. There isn’t much content yet, but I’m certain there will be as we get closer and closer to opening night. I’m looking forward to this revival a great deal.

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NEWSFLASH: Full Production for THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS

Posted on November 17, 2009 by David Fick
SCOTTSBORO

To purchase SCOTTSBORO: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY, click on the image above.

The Vineyard Theatre has announced that The Scottsboro Boys, the John Kander-Fred Ebb-David Thompson musical that received an invitation-only reading in June, will have its debut as a fully-staged production at their Off-Broadway theatre in 2010.

Susan Stroman will direct the show, which deals with the infamous 1930s “Scottsboro” case, in which a group of young African American teenagers who were unjustly accused of raping two women on a freight train to Mississippi. Perhaps, on first glance, this seems to be unusual subject matter for Kander and Ebb, but given the range of topics approached by the pair in their considerable body of work, maybe it isn’t.

Roll on 10 March 2010; we’ll be looking forward to it!

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