Broadway Journal

WILL ANGELS IN AMERICA MAKE ‘BACK TO THE FUTURE’ A BLAST ON BROADWAY? (EXCLUSIVE)

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More than three decades after the chandelier first plunged at Phantom of the Opera and a helicopter flew out of Miss Saigon, a souped-up DeLorean will star in a planned Broadway transfer of the Olivier Award-winning musical Back to the Future.

Producer Colin Ingram is in talks to bring a big-budget adaptation of the 1985 Michael J. Fox blockbuster to a Shubert house next summer, people familiar with the London hit said. Last week, Ingram filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $23.5 million for the Broadway production.  Co-producers of the show on the West End, which has been running for nine months and recently extended to February 2023, include the Frankel-Baruch-Viertel-Routh group, Hunter Arnold and Gavin Kalin — all familiar names around the Main Stem.Continue Reading

WILL ‘FUNNY GIRL’ REIGN OVER BROADWAY’S REVIVAL PARADE?

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Broadway producers are people who need people — especially courageous people willing to congregate indoors during a pandemic. And maybe even get excited about a new take on a classic musical.

Four new musical revivals are expected on Broadway over the next eight months. The latest to throw its hat in the ring is Funny Girl, scheduled to begin performances on April 2, 2022, per a recent casting notice. It will star Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart), according to industry sources.Continue Reading

GOODBYE CAR & DRIVER: EQUITY LOOSENS RULES FOR VACCINATED WORKPLACES

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Actors’ Equity Association says if everyone in a theater company has been vaccinated, a show may go on without adhering to the union’s pricey pandemic protocols.

“Vaccination will be a game changer for all of us,” Actors’ Equity Executive Director Mary McColl wrote to the membership Friday afternoon, while announcing guidelines for theaters and rehearsal spaces in which actors and stage managers are fully vaccinated. “Vaccines will not only add a significant layer of protection for each individual stage manager and actor, but also allow us to loosen some of the safety restrictions required in a pre-vaccine world.”

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WEAR A MASK, AVOID THE INTERMISSION: LESSONS FROM THE COVID THINK TANK TOWN HALL

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The rapid rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine has increased optimism about indoor theater swiftly reopening in the U.S. Infectious disease specialists Thursday afternoon said Covid 19-testing, enhanced theater ventilation and continued mask-wearing are also key to restarting the industry, which must be done gradually.

“I try to remind people, there’s not going to be one flip-the-switch moment in society,”  Andy Slavitt, White House senior advisor on the coronavirus, told an audience of about 500 streaming live.  “There will be a moving of the dial, step by step.”Continue Reading

ACTORS PAN THEIR UNION’S COVID PROTOCOLS

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Actors’ Equity Association recently announced far-reaching health protocols that producers complained would prohibitively increase the cost of presenting theater and delay the industry’s restart after a year of being sidelined by Covid-19.  This week, some 2,000 actors and stage managers signed a petition calling the procedures impractical and criticized their union’s leadership for inadequately communicating with members.

“Equity’s protocols from just over a week ago seem to be based on science from six months ago,” the actors wrote to Equity President Kate Shindle and Executive Director Mary McColl. “We are hopeful that the issue of realistic and detailed protocols to return to work can be prioritized so that funds can return to our union.”Continue Reading

MASKED AUDIENCES, CAR & DRIVERS FOR CAST: ACTORS’ EQUITY WANTS PRICEY PROTECTIONS BEFORE MEMBERS RETURN

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EXCLUSIVE: For theater actors, a car and driver is generally a perquisite reserved for bankable stars.

In this pandemic, the labor union Actors’ Equity Association considers private transport a basic necessity.

“Mass-transit will not be used and if needed, dedicated transportation arrangements will be arranged by the employer,” Equity announced last week in a post on its website that details safety protocols for indoor productions with an audience. Equity, which represents actors and stage managers, lists just one “dedicated transportation arrangement” (presumably in addition to walking, biking and operating one’s own vehicle): a private car service with a driver who’s masked and gloved.Continue Reading

SCOTT RUDIN TAGS DUSTIN HOFFMAN FOR POST-COVID ‘OUR TOWN’ REVIVAL (EXCLUSIVE)

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When the pandemic gives way to live performance, producer Scott Rudin plans to present an American classic about the gift of being alive.

Rudin is assembling cast and creatives for the first Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town  in nearly two decades, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. It’s to star Dustin Hoffman, whose last Broadway credit was The Merchant of Venice,  in 1989, the same year he won the second of his two Academy Awards, for Rain Man.  In 1984, he starred on Broadway as Willy Loman in a revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.Continue Reading

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