Preview '05-'06: Certain, Likely, and Mentioned--Part Two
While the show apparently touches on the history of an art form, it features no pre-existing material; the score is entirely new. When it was presented at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum in November 2003, it was directed by Gordon Davidson and choreographed by Patricia Birch. For its new incarnation, Dirk Decloedt and Maurice Hines have taken over those functions. The Taper cast included Patti Austin, Cleavant Derricks, Harry Groener, Jack Sheldon, and Lillias White.
Pamela's First Musical was a charming children's book written by Wendy Wasserstein and illustrated by Andrew Jackness. In it, a child named Pamela gets her birthday wish when her aunt Louise takes her to see Broadway biggest musical hit. Now Wasserstein has written the book for the musical version of Pamela's First Musical, and the question is how such a slender story can be successfully translated into a full-length musical.
Pamela boasts another Coleman score, with lyrics by his City of Angels collaborator David Zippel. Zippel is a busy fellow these days, what with The Woman in White and Princesses. Zippel will also have Pamela's First Musical playing its world premiere at Goodspeed's Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, Connecticut throughout November. Graciela Daniele will direct and choreograph.
Speaking of musicals with a deceased author, nothing much has been heard in the past year from Death Takes a Holiday, the Peter Stone-Maury Yeston collaboration that was to have marked Antonio Banderas' return to Broadway musicals, with his Nine director, David Leveaux, at the helm.
Announced for this spring on Broadway although looking likelier for the following season is the musical version of another popular film comedy, Legally Blonde. The writing team assigned to the project includes Heather Hach for the book and a score by the husband-and-wife team of Larry O'Keefe Bat Boy and Nell Benjamin. Jerry Mitchell is scheduled to make his Broadway debut as director-choreographer with this show. No word yet on who will play Reese Witherspoon's role of Elle Woods, who goes to Harvard Law School in an attempt to win back the boyfriend who dumped her at graduation.
Those Urinetown writers Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann have completed a new show, The Man in the White Suit, based on the droll Alec Guinness film from 1951. Urinetown leading man Hunter Foster, Kerry Butler, and Michael Rupert had the leads in this summer's presentation of the show at New York Stage and Film, directed by David Petrarca.
Much as one may be reluctant to face it, Barry and Fran Weissler have announced that their musical version of TV's The Apprentice is aimed for a spring 2006 Broadway opening. Donald Trump is co-producing the show, which is said to be a love story using the popular TV show as its background.
We should, of course, mention Jerry Springer--The Opera, the British National Theatre musical that at one time was among the hottest potential imports. It even scored a rave notice from Ben Brantley in The New York Times. Since that time, though, issues have arisen that have slowed the show's progress to Broadway. For one thing, its commercial-transfer run at London's Cambridge Theatre proved not to be as potent at the box office as was the show's initial run at the National. Variety quoted one of the show's producers as stating that the commercial run lost 90% of its capitalization. As a result, a conflict arose among the producers over the budget and size of the Broadway production.
And while the Richard Thomas/Stewart Lee musical played its London run without significant objection, protests from right-wing religious activists arose when the show was televised by the BBC in the U.K. in January. These protests have apparently affected a proposed U.K. national tour as well as financing for the Broadway run. A scheduled pre-Broadway run in San Francisco was cancelled, although a 2006 Broadway run remains a possibility. Personally, having very much enjoyed a DVD recording of the U.K. telecast, I feel like I've seen Jerry Springer. I do feel, however, that it's a work worth presenting in New York, even if a full-scale Broadway production could be risky.
Speaking of London imports, there are, of course, those twin British blockbusters, Mary Poppins and Billy Elliot. Despite talk that the latter might make it to Broadway later this season, both would appear to be set for 2006-2007.
In terms of Broadway musical revivals, it's apparent that the genre has become increasingly exhausted. None of last season's entries La Cage aux Folles, Pacific Overtures, Sweet Charity caused much of a sensation. For the new season, only three titles have been confirmed, and only one of them --the new Sweeney Todd-- is a commercial production.
Otherwise, we have two Roundabout productions, the first, Threepenny Opera, already noted. The third musical revival set to happen this season is the new production of the 1954 smash The Pajama Game, opening March 2 at the American Airlines Theatre, where the Roundabout staged its revivals of the musicals The Boys from Syracuse and Big River.
The new Pajama Game will star Harry Connick, Jr., and is directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, with Peter Ackerman supplying book revisions. Like another bright '50s musical comedy, Wonderful Town, Pajama Game could be a tough sell to today's audiences. So it's probably just as well that this revival was not mounted as a commercial Broadway production, as originally announced.
The Pajama Game has already had three major New York returns. A 1973 Broadway revival Hal Linden, Barbara McNair, Cab Calloway at the Lunt-Fontanne lasted two months. In 1989, New York City Opera presented it, with Judy Kaye and Richard Muenz. And in 2002, Encores! staged it, with Karen Ziemba and Brent Barrett. It may be worth noting that critics for all three of these returns were somewhat less than ecstatic about the work itself.
Are there any other revival possibilities for the season? There is another Sondheim title, one that was once firmly announced for this season, but about which little has been heard of late. That would be A Little Night Music, starring Glenn Close and directed by Trevor Nunn. This one does not appear to be happening at the moment, but it remains a tantalizing prospect.
There's the possibility that the Kennedy Center's revival of Mame, starring Christine Baranski, could, if well received, make it to Broadway. The recent La Cage aux Folles was announced as the first of a trio of Nederlander-produced Jerry Herman revivals for Broadway. The fact that it flopped was not a good sign, as Mame and Hello, Dolly! are even trickier to revive than La Cage, at least on Broadway.
Announced for the last two seasons has been a Des McAnuff-directed, Dodger-produced revival of The Wiz. With the Dodgers' reported retrenching last season and the failures of their productions of Dracula and Good Vibrations, this Wiz went quiet, with the Dodgers instead concentrating on getting Jersey Boys to Broadway.
Instead of a fifth Broadway stand, Cathy Rigby's local return in Peter Pan will play Madison Square Garden. An announced Broadway revival of Purlie seems unlikely to happen given the negative reception accorded Encores!' version of the show earlier this year. A Chorus Line looks set for 2006-2007, and My Fair Lady and West Side Story could have fiftieth-anniversary revivals during that season as well.