The year ahead in US theatre

I’m not given to making predictions about what will happen in the weeks and months to come, but as this is my final regular column of 2014, I’m willing to look into my crystal ball and ask a few apposite questions…

Having posted a surprisingly low gross of only $437,209 last week, might Mamma Mia! be heading towards the end of its lengthy Broadway run? And did moving from the Winter Garden to the Broadhurst (to make way for Rocky the Musical) play any role in the sales decline?

Idina Menzel is reportedly under contract in the musical If/Then only until the spring, and her summer concert schedule bears that out, so will the show be able to successfully replace her or will it depart Broadway along with its ever more famous leading lady?

With Motown closing just after the first of the year after a relatively short run for a show that burst out as a hit during previews, will we actually see it return to Broadway in 2016?

Was the revival of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, originally announced for the spring, completely scuppered by the departure of James Corden, or will the producers regroup and mount the show in 2015?

Both the National Theatre of Scotland/Royal Court production of Let The Right One In and the Goodman Theatre production of The Iceman Cometh will land in the New York borough of Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, but might one or both of the shows end up on Broadway yet?

Will Annie Baker’s Pulitzer-winning The Flick finally make it back onto some New York stage next year, as it so richly deserves?

So many questions – and so many theatrical surprises to look forward to. But first, back to 2014 and back to reality…

Diner at Signature Theatre

Barry Levinson’s 1982 film directing debut, Diner, is one of those movies with a young cast that went on to such solid individual success that you want to give a retrospective award to the casting director. It included Ellen Barkin, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern and Tim Daly among others. For the new stage musical version, written by Levinson (from his screenplay) and composer Sheryl Crow, Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, has fielded a cast that’s not quite so unknown in theatre circles, but all still up-and-comers nonetheless, including Bryan Fenkart (Memphis), Matthew James Thomas (Pippin) and Whitney Bashor (The Bridges of Madison County). Kathleen Marshall directs and choreographs the world premiere of the ’50s-set story of buddies growing up and perhaps apart; the show was originally announced for a Broadway launch in 2013.

Something Rotten steps into Side Show’s spot

Despite solid reviews of its out-of-town runs and equally positive notices once it landed on Broadway, the revival of the musical Side Show, about conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, will be folding its tent on January 4 (the original production closed on January 3 in 1998). The new production, retooled by film director Bill Condon, making his Broadway debut, will have lasted for only 77 performances, failing to even match the show’s first outing, which managed 122. However, the St James Theatre already has its next tenant: the new musical Something Rotten, a comedy about the world’s first (mythical) musical from way back in 1595, conceived to compete with a certain William Shakespeare, who had the drama scene all sewn up at the time. Book of Mormon helmer Casey Nicholaw directs and choreographs, and Christian Borle and Brian d’Arcy James, alumni of TV’s Smash, will star. Losing out in Something Rotten’s Broadway opportunity is Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre, where the show was slated to play an out of town engagement this spring. While the Seattle ticketholders will get a replacement show locally and are reportedly being offered complimentary seats on Broadway, they’re not being offered the complimentary airfare and hotel accommodations in New York to accompany the freebie.

Angela Lansbury back on stage in Blithe Spirit

Angela Lansbury just doesn’t let up. After playing Madame Arcati on Broadway in 2009 and later in the West End, she’s communing with spirits again in Blithe Spirit in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre. Considering she didn’t appear on Broadway at all from 1983 to 2007, she appears to be making up for lost time, having also played in Deuce, The Best Man, A Little Night Music and Driving Miss Daisy (in Australia) in recent years. But considering she’s now 89, her dedication and stamina is truly amazing. And the word is she has thoughts about what she’d like to do next.

The Heart of Robin Hood in Toronto

Last year at this time, Parsonsfield (formerly Poor Old Shine) and David Farr’s The Heart of Robin Hood was offered as holiday entertainment at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now the Royal Shakespeare Company-originated show is back for the holidays, this time at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre, where it’s scheduled to play through to March 1, once again directed by Gisli Orn Gardarsson, but now with director Walter Bobbie credited as ‘creative consultant’, often a euphemism for ‘show doctor’. After that it will dash down to New York for the start of a Broadway run beginning March 10 at the Marquis Theatre, where it’s announced as a limited engagement through August 23.

Dave Malloy’s Ghost Quartet at the McKittrick

When I led the American Theatre Wing and the organization took over the administration of the Jonathan Larson Grants (which recognise emerging musical theatre writers), our first round of grants included funding to Dave Malloy for his spiky, dark Beowulf – a Thousand Years of Baggage. When I informed Malloy of the award at the time, he confessed that he wasn’t really a musical theatre writer. But his early support from the Wing and many other organizations has been borne out as prescient by a string of inventive and successful music-theatre pieces by Malloy, ranging from his Schubert tribute Three Pianos to his War and Peace inspired Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. His most recent work, the supernatural Ghost Quartet, played a successful run at Brooklyn’s Bushwick Starr this fall, and was praised by The New York Times as a mashup of “gospel, folk ballads, honky-tonk anthems of heartbreak, electropop, doo-wop and jazz a la Thelonious Monk.” The piece moves to Manhattan for eight performances in early January, playing an unconventional but fitting setting: the McKittrick Hotel, the vision-filled home of New York’s long-running version of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More.

The Obie awards for Off-Broadway work

While I avoid opining on the Tony Awards, given my personal connection to them over eight years at the American Theatre Wing, I’m pleased about the Wing’s new involvement in another set of awards beginning this year, namely the venerable Obie awards, for Off-Broadway work. Established by the Village Voice, the legendary alternative weekly newspaper, the awards were at risk as ownership changes and staffing shifts resulted in the departure of the paper’s longtime critic and Obies leader Michael Feingold. But the Wing picked up the mantle and announced this year’s judging panel earlier this week: Feingold, playwright Adam Bock, orchestrator Bruce Coughlin, director Lear deBessonet, scenic designer Mimi Lien, critic David Rooney, Village Voice critic Tom Sellar, and director Liesl Tommy. The 60th anniversary Obies will be presented in May.

Second Stage Theatre Broadway acquisition set for February

In 2008, Second Stage Theatre, one of the larger Off-Broadway companies, known for producing new work by a diverse array of American playwrights, announced it would follow in the footsteps of Lincoln Center Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company and Manhattan Theatre Club by acquiring a Broadway home, specifically the Helen Hayes Theatre, the smallest of the 40 Broadway houses. Publicly, there’s been little news about their progress until this week, when the New York Times reported the purchase is on track to close in February. Originally announced as a $35 million fundraising campaign, it is now reported that Second Stage is raising $58 million dollars to cover construction cost increases, an expanded renovation program for the theatre’s interior, and the establishment of a reserve fund to support the company’s budget, which is expected to double to $16 million when it begins Broadway production. Second Stage says it has raised 70% of its goal.

The Lion returns to Off-Broadway

Following its debut at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Off-Broadway venue and a subsequent run at London’s St James Theatre, Benjamin Scheuer will return to Off-Broadway in February with his one-man musical The Lion, for a two-month run at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre in Greenwich Village. The announcement of the show’s return coincides with more news from The Lion’s director, Sean Daniels – he’s been named as the new artistic director of the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts, and he’ll begin planning the season there shortly in advance of fully taking up the reins this summer.

That’s all for 2014. Best wishes for the holidays and the new year.

Read more US theatre columns from Howard Sherman