LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? BECOME A "FOLLOWER"!
WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEK:
- March 7: DVD REVIEW: Les Miserables: 25th Anniversary Concert
- March 8: CASTING: The People in the Picture
- March 9: Spider-Man: Turn on the Blame Game
- March 10: An Open Letter to the New Spider-Man Creative Team
- March 11: LOGOS: Anything Goes
- March 12: GAME: All "Eyes" on Broadway!
TOPS AND BOTTOMS (February 28 - March 6)
- Top Gross: Wicked ($1.38M)
- Top Attendance: Wicked (98.1%)
- Bottom Gross: Colin Quinn: Long Story Short ($162K)
- Bottom Attendance: La Cage aux Folles (45.1%)
- $1M Club: The Lion King, Spider-Man:Turn Off the Dark and Wicked
- SRO Club: No members this week.
ON BROADWAY - IN PREVIEWS AND OPENING THIS WEEK:
- Anything Goes: Previews – March 10; Opening April 7
- Arcadia: Previews - February 26; Opening - March 17
- Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo: Previews – March 11; Opening March 31
- The Book of Mormon: Previews - February 24; Opening - March 24
- Catch Me If You Can: Previews – March 11; Opening April 10
- Ghetto Klown: Previews - February 21; Opening - March 22
- How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: Previews - February 26; Opening - March 27
- Priscilla Queen of the Desert: Previews - February 28; Opening - March 20
- Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark: Previews - November 28, 2010; Opening – June 14
BROADWAY BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK:
- March 7: Andy Blankenbeuhler, Actor/Choreographer/Director (Fosse/In the Heights/Bring It On)
- March 8: Lynn Redgrave, Late Actor (Shakespeare for My Father, Sweet Sue)
- March 9: Brian Lane Green, Actor (Starmites, The Life, Big River -original)
- March 10: Jasmine Guy, Actor (Chicago, Grease -1994, Leader of the Pack)
- March 11: Terrence Howard, Actor (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
- March 12: Edward Albee, Playwright (The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, Seascape)
- March 13: Mike Stoller, Composer/Lyricist (Smokey Joe's Cafe, Dancin', The People in the Picture)
THIS WEEK IN BROADWAY HISTORY:
The Most Interesting Date in Broadway History: March 13:
- 1750: The Oldest Opening of the Week: Spanish Friar, opened at the Nassau Street Theatre
- Musketeer Day: On this date, three different plays with "Musketeer" in the title opened: 1899, both The Musketeers and The King's Musketeers, and in 1928, The Three Musketeers.
- 13 Years - The Longest Time Between Openings: 1973: Irene at the Minskoff Theatre and 1986: Execution of Justice at the Virginia Theatre.
- 25 Years - The Longest Time Since an Opening: 1986: Execution of Justice opened at the Virginia Theatre, where it ran for 12 performances. The cast of 23 included several well know actors, including Stanley Tucci and Wesley Snipes!
- 1961: Mary, Mary opened at the old Helen Hayes Theatre, starring Barbara Bel Geddes. The show ran a very impressive 1,572 performances.
March 9:
- 1965: Catch Me If You Can - mystery thriller - starring Tom Bosley opened at the Morosco Theatre. It played 103 performances. (Let's hope the other version runs much longer!)
- 2008: In the Heights opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it ran 1,184 performances. It was named Best Musical of 2008.
March 10:
- 1965: The Odd Couple, a play which would change comedy forever, opened at the Plymouth Theater. It starred Art Carney and Walter Matthau. It was nominated for 5 Tonys, and won 4, including "Best Author" for Neil Simon. Oddly, the play was NOT named Best Play.
- 1975: The Rocky Horror Show opened at the Belasco Theatre, where it Time Warped for 45 performances.
March 11:
- 2010: Next Fall opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre. It ran 132 performances. It seem much longer than a year ago, doesn't it?
March 12:
- 1987: Les Miserables opened at the Broadway Theatre, winning 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It ran 6,680 performances.
BROADWAY NEWS THIS WEEK:
March 7:
- The film version of Rock of Ages will have Alec Baldwin as Dennis, and as I feared, Julianne Hough will be Sherrie to Tom Cruise's Stacy Jaxx. Ick.
- This is the reason I really need to win the lottery or something: two of my favorite TV actors are joining the cast of The Normal Heart: Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) and Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies).
March 8:
- Broadway Bears XIV raised over $100,000 for BC/EFA! Add this to my when-I-win-the-lottery list.
- The Lion King - Broadway and touring companies - have raised over $5.5M to date for BC/EFA. $2.5M of that has gone to BC/EFA charities in the United States, and $3M has gone to AIDS relief efforts in South Africa, in honor of the hundreds of cast members of the show who are natives of that country. This amazing total was announced yesterday by executive director Tom Viola.
- Mary Poppins is practically perfect in every way once again, as the original, Ashley Brown flies into the New Amsterdam and joins her original co-star Gavin Lee. She will be with the show through mid-July!
March 9:
- It was just a question of when it would officially be announced, really. All week, rumors were swirling around the community. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark would not be helmed by Julie Taymor anymore, though she reamins a part of the creative team, and Philip William McKinley would be in as director, with Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa as book doctor. The Opening Night was pushed back to "early summer." See above for related blogs on this topic.
March 10:
- Anything Goes began previews today at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.
- By the time it closes, American Idiot will have played just over 1 year at the St. James Theatre. But closing it will be, on April 24. Billie Joe Armstrong the most "put your money where your mouth is" guy on Broadway will return as St. Jimmy for the final three weeks of the run.
- Please, God, no! Kathy Griffin has offered her services as Tony Awards host.
March 11:
- Catch Me If You Can begins previews today at the Neil Simon Theatre.
- Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo begins previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre today.
- Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony begins performances today at the Belasco Theatre.
- Broadway great guy Christopher Sieber joins the cast of La Cage aux Folles tonight, a full 4 days earlier than scheduled. Meanwhile, "my hips hurt too much to do a Broadway show afterall" Jeffrey Tambor just signed on for a new TV pilot.
- OK, I need to get to church more. God isn't listening. Now Disney wants to do a stage musical of the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland. Isn't one new Alice enough?
- One of my favorite Broadway actors, Douglas Sills (The Scarlet Pimpernel) will be playing the record producer in the controversial and Broadway bound new musical White Noise. Look for an "On the Radar" blog about this one shortly.
- The rest of the story came out today: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will close for three + weeks to implement the huge changes promised by producers. It will resume performances in mid-May, with an opening night of June 14. Among the changes openly discussed: getting rid of the shoe song, adding at least two new songs, more flying sequences, more focus on Mary Jane and Peter, less on Arachne, and the fate of the Geek Chorus remains a mystery, but will be addressed.
- It is official: Tony winner Levi Kreis will NOT be returning to Million Dollar Quartet for his final performances through March 15. He had been out of the show since March 3 with a non-show related injury.
- Sad news: Hugh Martin, who composed both the film and stage versions of Meet Me in St. Louis including the standards, "The Boy Next Door," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and the rousing "Trolley Song." He also wrote the scores to several Golden Era Broadway musicals, including Make a Wish, Best Foot Forward and High Spirits, the musical version of Blithe Spirit. He was 96.
March 12:
- So much happened in the last two days, how could there be news today?
March 13:
- Let's give some time, thoughts and prayers to the devastation ocurring in Japan, and be thankful for our own safety and well-being.
1. Mary Faber in American Idiot and How to Succeed...
2. Sutton Foster in Anything Goes
3. Kate Shindle in Wonderland
4. Brian Bedford in The Importance of Being Ernest
5. Judith Light in Lombardi
6. Beth Leavel in Elf: The Musical and Baby It's You!
7. Joshua Henry in American Idiot and The Scottsboro Boys
8. Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act
9. Patti LuPone in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
10. Sebastian Arcelus in Elf: The Musical
11. Billie Joe Armstrong in American Idiot
12. Benjamin Walker in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
13. Jennifer Damiano and Reeve Carney in Spder-Man: Turn Off the Dark
14. Aaron Tveit in Catch Me If You Can
15. Kyle Dean Massey in next to normal
16. Andrew Rannells in The Book of Mormon
17. Donna Murphy in The People in the Picture
18. Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed...
19. Will Swensen in Priscilla Queen of the Desert
20. Colin Donnell in Anything Goes
Comments? Leave on here, email me at jkstheatrescene@yahoo.com or Tweet me!
Jeff
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