Preview '05-'06: Certain, Likely, and Mentioned--Part One
People have been wondering for some time what the next Disney musical on Broadway would be. London already has Mary Poppins, a co-production of Disney and Cameron Mackintosh. But while it appears that Poppins will hit New York in the fall of 2006, Disney will have a new show on Broadway this coming spring. That would be Tarzan, with a book by David Henry Hwang Aida, Flower Drum Song, M. Butterfly, based on Disney's 1999 animated feature and the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Phil Collins, who wrote the songs for the film, will be writing additional ones for the stage.
Disney has hired Pichon Baldinu, creator of the circus-style success De La Guarda, to create the effects that Tarzan will need if it is to work on stage. The director of Tarzan is Bob Crowley, who is also the designer of the sets and costumes, and the choreography will be by Meryl Tankard. The show is rumored for the Richard Rodgers Theatre, and Oklahoma! Tony winner Shuler Hensley is expected to have a leading role.
Producer Margo Lion had a huge success with one musical adaptation of a sweet film comedy, Hairspray. This time around, she's producing The Wedding Singer, based on the similarly sweet 1998 Adam Sandler film comedy, which did for the '80s and New Jersey what Hairspray did for the '60s and Baltimore. Directed by Frank Coraci, Sandler played New Jersey native Robbie, a former rock-band singer who now performs in a wedding band. Robbie finds himself left at the altar by his fiance, but finds a new love in waitress Julia Drew Barrymore, who is, unfortunately, engaged to an unfaithful stockbroker.
The book and lyrics for the musical version of The Wedding Singer are the work of Chad Beguelin, with the book co-authored by Tim Herlihy, who wrote the screenplay. The music is by Matthew Sklar. Beguelin and Sklar were the team responsible for The Rhythm Club, a musical that was announced for runs that never happened on Broadway and at the Manhattan Theatre Club. More recently, Beguelin was "scenarist" for Disney's On the Record touring musical. It has been reported that the stage version of The Wedding Singer will include two songs written by Sandler and Herlihy for the film.
For a March, 2005 reading directed by John Rando and choreographed by Rob Ashford, Stephen Lynch and Alli Mauzey were Robbie and Julia, with other roles taken by Amy Spanger, Felicia Finley, Daniel Reichard, Jason Antoon, Rita Gardner, and Richard H. Blake. Confirmed for the Broadway run are Lynch, Finley, Antoon, Gardner, and Blake, with Matthew Saldivar also set. Laura Benanti will make a welcome return playing Laura.
Like Hairspray and this season's Princesses, The Wedding Singer will have its world premiere at Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre, where it's scheduled to run from January 31 to February 19. After that run, it's said to be headed for a Jujamcyn house on Broadway, with previews in March and an opening in April.
Running at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre from January 25 through March 5 is a show that has thus far been referred to as the Twyla Tharp/Bob Dylan project. With the long-running Movin' Out, Tharp had a major Broadway success choreographing a ballet to pre-existing Billy Joel tunes. Here, she would appear to be trying something similar, although one suspects that Tharp is not the sort to repeat herself, and that the result will be a stylistic original.
Urban Cowboy and Slut leading lady Jenn Colella and Justin Bohon Oklahoma!, All Shook Up look set to star in the San Diego run, with Michael Arden and Paul Kandel also mentioned for the cast. With an Old Globe opening set for February 2, there might be time to get the show to Broadway this season, even if it seems likelier for the following season.
Another show getting a pre-Broadway mounting in California is The Drowsy Chaperone, which was apparently a cult hit in Toronto. This one involves a musical-theatre fan who recounts the story of his favorite show, the imaginary, eponymous musical from 1928. With book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, music by Greg Morrison, and lyrics by Lisa Lambert, The Drowsy Chaperone's musical-within-the-musical concerns a Broadway star whose producer attempts to sabotage her wedding, with the characters including the groom, a chaperone, a chorine, a Latin lover, and some gangsters.
The Drowsy Chaperone is scheduled to play Los Angeles's Ahmanson Theatre from November 8 to December 24, and a Broadway run might follow. Spamalot choreographer Casey Nicholaw is both director and choreographer of the new show, for which Sutton Foster, Robert Martin, and Georgia Engel have been mentioned as possible cast members. This one sounds like it will be in line with the theatre's current fondness for winking, tongue-in-cheek, self-referential musical comedy.
Long in development, Jill Santoriello's musical version of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is scheduled to have its world premiere at Chicago's Chicago Theatre on February 9, and is aimed for a Broadway opening in April. The production's progress could be delayed by the fact that the show recently lost its director, David H. Bell.
Reviewing the elaborate 2002 concept album for this Tale of Two Cities last summer, I found the score too stylistically similar to that of Les Miserables and to a couple of that blockbuster's successors like Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Pimpernel. It's a style that tends, these days, to be frowned upon by New York drama critics, so it's rather daring to revive it with A Tale of Two Cities. Historic note: The same Dickens novel was musicalized as Two Cities at London's Palace Theatre in 1969. It lasted forty-four performances.
It's possible that Lennon and Jersey Boys won't be the only jukebox musicals to hit Broadway during 2005-2006. Also announced for the semester is Girl Group Time Travelers, in which a teen is taken back forty years to learn about love via the sounds of more than two dozen hit songs from the '60s. The book is by TV writer Jim Geoghan, with Debbie Allen Carrie scheduled to make her Broadway debut as director-choreographer. Said to be included in the show are such immortal numbers as "Downtown," "Theme from 'A Summer Place'," "Where the Boys Are," "It's My Party," "My Boyfriend's Back," and "Leader of the Pack," the latter the title of a previous Broadway jukebox musical.