Preview 2004-2005: The Overview

Like the last two seasons, the 2004-2005 Broadway season will see two musical openings in the summer. Two years ago, the new title was Hairspray, with the Roundabout's unfortunate Boys from Syracuse opening the same week. Last summer, there were no all-new titles; July brought in Roundabout's well-received revival of Big River along with the Broadway re-opening of Avenue Q.

But this season, Broadway gets its first pair of new musicals before Labor Day. Because it's an expansion of a 1974 work, and because it has never had a professional staging in New York or been reviewed by New York drama critics, Lincoln Center Theater's production of The Frogs, opening July 22 at the Vivian Beaumont, will surely be considered a new musical at Tony time. August 16 sees the opening at the Belasco Theatre of Dracula, Broadway's first musical with a score by Frank Wildhorn since The Civil War 1999.

And the summer also sees a return engagement of Forever Tango, opening July 13 as a fill-in attraction at the Shubert Theatre, which was recently vacated by Gypsy and won't be receiving a new musical until the winter.

Unlike recent seasons, however, the early fall months appear to be relatively light in terms of Broadway musical openings. The next scheduled show after Dracula is Brooklyn, the musical that tried out in Denver in the spring of 2003 and which is looking toward an October 21 opening at a Shubert house. After Brooklyn, there doesn't appear to be another arrival until December, which will see the openings of two revivals, Pacific Overtures, at Roundabout's Studio 54 on December 2, and La Cage aux Folles, December 9 at the Marquis. Pacific Overtures is apparently not expected to run more than a couple of months, as Natasha Richardson in A Streetcar Named Desire has been announced for Studio 54 in March.

Beyond those titles, what's set with a date and/or theatre? After a fall run at San Diego's Old Globe, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has a Broadway opening date of March 17, possibly at the Imperial, currently housing The Boy from Oz. One week later is the scheduled opening of All Shook Up, bringing a brace of tunes associated with Elvis Presley, probably to the Palace Theatre. Monty Python's Spamalot could be headed for the Shubert Theatre after its December-January run in Chicago.

Lincoln Center Theater has another musical scheduled for the spring, when it brings the Adam Guettel-Craig Lucas The Light in the Piazza to the Vivian Beaumont. What with Piazza taking over the Beaumont in the spring and Nathan Lane making the film of The Producers in early 2005, it would appear that The Frogs isn't destined to run much beyond its currently scheduled closing date of October 9. Of course, should the show prove a hit, a transfer could be made and Lane could be replaced.

The second Broadway revival of Sweet Charity has set an April 21 opening but hasn't yet announced a venue. Just as the last Thursday in April 2004 saw the Broadway opening of a London import, Bombay Dreams, the London hit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is scheduled to open on April 28, 2005 at the Ford Center.

And we mustn't overlook a number of important titles that could come to Broadway during the season, several of which already have regional runs booked. These include The Color Purple, Little Women, The Little Princess, Lennon, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, Death Takes a Holiday, and Masada. And dare we bring up Harmony, a title that has been a fixture of season previews for the last seven years?

Other titles mentioned as revival possibilities include The Wiz March 2005, Roundabout's Threepenny Opera, The Pajama Game, Dreamgirls, and West Side Story. A couple of those seem likelier for the following season; already looking set for 2005-2006 is Glenn Close in Trevor Nunn's A Little Night Music, with Liam Neeson in Camelot and Nunn's Anything Goes also possible during that semester.

And while we're on the subject of the new Broadway season, let's also note the substantial number of straight plays already set. These include The Pillowman, Democracy, Brooklyn Boy, Hitchcock Blonde, Gem of the Ocean, Syncopation, Terrible Advice, and a possible Broadway transfer of the solo show Bridge and Tunnel.

Straight-play revivals are also abundant. There will be two by Mamet Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo and two by Williams The Glass Menagerie and Streetcar. 2004-2005 began with Manhattan Theatre Club's Sight Unseen, a Broadway premiere of a play previously presented off-Broadway that should qualify as a revival. The same should hold true for MTC's upcoming Reckless as well as Roundabout's Broadway premieres of Twelve Angry Men and Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. The summer brings in Roundabout's After the Fall. And there will also be revivals of 'Night Mother, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Barefoot in the Park, and Steel Magnolias. No doubt one or more of these titles will drop off the list or get postponed as the season proceeds.

And while last season failed to produce a single candidate for the Tonys' "special theatrical event" category, there are already several possibilities for the new season, including Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays; Martin Short's as-yet-untitled show with music; Michael Moore's possible solo performance; Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance; and Eve Ensler's The Good Body.

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