B'way Update: Skeleton and Paradise Shift Dates, Joan Copeland Dies

COVID and Omicron are still necessitating changes on Broadway. Skeleton Crew, Dominique Morriseau's drama presented by Manhattan Theater Club starring Phylicia Rashad, has suspended all performances through Jan. 9 due to breakthrough COVID cases in the company. The opening, originally scheduled for Jan. 19 will be postponed to a later date to be announced.

Chilina Kennedy and Joaquina Kalukango
in Paradise Square during its Chicago run.
Credit: Kevin Berne

Paradise Square, the new musical about the owner and multi-racial customers of a tavern in NYC's Five Points neighborhood during the Civil War, has also pushed back its opening dates. The show will now begin previews at the Barrymore Theater on March 15 in advance of an April 3 opening (The original opening was set for March 20).

“During Christmas week, when there were over 560,000 positive daily cases in the US, over 70,000 positive daily cases in NYC and scientists suggested that the virus had yet to peak, we grew deeply concerned for the ongoing safety of our cast, crew and creative team, who were scheduled to begin Broadway rehearsals this month,” commented producer Garth H. Drabinsky. “We hope that a later start date for rehearsals and performances after the current wave is predicted to subside will better protect our company, audience and theatre community.” 

Also, Flying Over Sunset will be closing three weeks earlier than its original limited engagement. The musical imagining Cary Grant, Clare Booth Luce and Aldous Huxley taking LSD together running at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont, will end its run on Jan. 16 instead of Feb. 6.

Joan Copeland

B'way Update: Doubtfire Pauses, Proud Closes, Jackman Sidelined

A scene from Mrs. Doubtfire
which will pause performances
at the Stephen Sondheim.
Credit: Joan Marcus 

Here's the first David Desk blog of 2022 and it's not good news:

The omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus continues to wreak havoc on the New York theater scene. In an unprecedented move, Mrs. Doubtfire will halt performances at the Stephen Sondheim Theater for nine weeks from Jan. 10 through March 14 when it is hoped the current surge of COVID cases will have died down. Producer Kevin McCollum states that raising costs for COVID testing, loss of revenue due to cancelled performances and the production's high weekly running expenses would have forced the show to close permanently if not for this pause. All 115 cast and crew will be laid off with the promise of being rehired when the show re-opens.  

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 19: More Movie Spoofs

As 2021 comes to an end and I am recovering from being in an auto accident (I was struck by a car while crossing a street while I had the light), here is a new installment in our series on the Carol Burnett Show. This time we focus on the series' brilliant movie parodies.

Season Seven
Dec. 15, 1973: Ruth Buzzi, Richard Crenna

Harvey and Carol in 
Raised to be Rotten

(Full episode found on YouTube) The high point of this segment is a salute to Bad Girls of the Movies. Ruth plays Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate and then Richard comes in as Benjamin, the much younger object of her seduction--dressed in a boy scout outfit. Then Carol does her over-the-top Bette Davis impersonation while Vicki plays Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington from All About Eve. After Vicki smears Carol with make-up and smacks her with a powder puff to make her look bad, Vicki then takes Carol-Bette's dress and imagines replacing the great star. Carol throws Vicki out of the dressing room. Then Harvey as Gary Merrill comes to comfort Carol, but tries on the dress himself. (More condescending gay/trans/cross-dressing humor).

B'way Update: Strange Loops Into the Lyceum; Pill Swallowed by COVID

The cast of A Strange Loop
at Woolly Mammoth Theater.
Credit: Marc A. Franklin

Yesterday I posted about the Lyceum becoming available because MacBeth was moving to the Longacre. I speculated about A Strange Loop or Kimberly Akimbo snapping it up. Well, today Strange Loop made the move. The Woolly Mammoth Theater's production of Michael R. Jackson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical will begin performances at the Lyceum in the spring of 2022. Specific dates and casting are to be announced. The show had a limited Off-Broadway engagement in 2019 at Playwrights Horizons and went on to cop not only the Pulitzer but also the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Drama Desk awards for Best Musical. The autobiographical piece follows a gay, African-American musical theater writer putting together a show about a gay, African-American musical theater writer (hence the loop).

While new shows are being announced, there have been more COVID-related cancellations and one total closing. Jagged Little Pill which reopened at the Broadhurst will not be returning after a series of performances were cancelled. The musical based on Alanis Morrisette's Grammy-winning album played its final performance on Dec. 17. 

B'way Update: Little Prince, COVID Cancellations, MacBeth Moves

Lionel Zalachis and Charlotte Kah in
The Little Prince at the Sydney Opera House.
Credit: Prudence Upton

While Broadway is in turmoil over multiple performance cancellations and uncertainty due to the rapid spread of the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus, a new production has been announced for the spring--The Little Prince, a stage version of the classic 1943 novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupery about the titular boy royal who seeks companionship on a journey to many different planets. Described as a theatrical experience with musical elements, the show combines elements of acrobatics, circus arts, dance, and video. It is the creation of director-choreographer Annie Tournie and has had runs in Paris, Sydney and Dubai. Previews begin March 4 at the Broadway Theater with an opening set for March 17 for a run through Aug. 14. The show features a libretto by co-director Chris Mourin who also plays the narrator, and music by Terry Truck. It's not clear if this presentation is a traditionally musical, a play with music, and a sort of Cirque du Soleil show. A spokesperson stated it would be up to the Tony Eligibility Committee to determine its status for awards consideration. For our purposes, I have listed it as a new musical under the list of productions for the 2021-22 Broadway season. After seeing it, I might shift it to Special Presentations.

Director Tournié said, "We are thrilled for our company to continue The Little Prince’s world journey to the bright lights of Broadway and New York. On his journey, the Little Prince shares a message of humanity with the many different people and cultures he encounters. We are humbled to bring his story of friendship, loneliness, love, and caring for others and our planet back to the melting pot where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first created this beloved tale.”

Theater Memories Part 14: Sondheim

Sondheim
Credit: Erika Kapin Photography

Just yesterday, my husband and I were driving back from Philadelphia after a visit to my mother for Thanksgiving. For some unknown reason, I got the urge to listen to Sondheim. We had not been listening to the radio news, so I didn't know about his death. I punched his name into the Spotify search engine we heard A Little Priest, Another Hundred People, The Ladies Who Lunch, The Miller's Son, Hello, Little Girl, and Now You Know. A loving and unexpected tribute to the greatest musical theater writer of the 20th century. Then we get home, I opened my computer and got the shocking news.

He was 91, so it wasn't unexpected and he did go out on a high note. There are new productions of Assassins and Company playing as well as a new film version of West Side Story about to open. In addition, he was working on a new show, Square One, with David Ives. He recently revealed on Stephen Colbert's talk show, it had just been workshopped with Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters and he was hoping for it to open on Broadway next season. Let us all pray that comes to pass.

B'way Update: for colored girls Sets Dates and Theater

The cast of for colored girls
at the Public Theater in 2019
Credit: Joan Marcus

The previously announced revival of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has set definite dates and a theater. The new production of the long-running "choreopoem" will begin previews on March 4, 2022 at the Booth Theater where it debuted on Broadway in 1976 and ran for 742 performances. 

Tony nominee Camille A. Brown (Once on This Island) who recently made history as the first black woman to direct a production at the Metropolitan Opera with Fire Shut Up in My Bones, will direct and choreograph for colored girls. Brown choreographed the 2019 revival at the Public Theatre (which was directed by Leah C. Gardiner)

“Of all the shows to be given as an opportunity to debut as a first-time Broadway director and choreographer, for colored girls… feels like a gift,” said Brown in a statement. “I’m thrilled that I’ve been entrusted to combine all the parts of myself—dance, music, and theatre arts—to shape and share this timeless story again with the world.”