Broadway Journal

IDINA MENZEL LOOKS LIKE A GO FOR ‘FUNNY GIRL’ (EXCLUSIVE)

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Idina Menzel is in talks to play Fanny Brice this fall in the first Broadway revival of Funny Girl, the hit 1964 Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Isobel Lennart musical that starred Barbra Streisand.

The show would be directed by Michael Mayer and overseen by the U.K. producers Sonia Friedman and David Babani, according to two people familiar with the project. In 2015, Mayer staged a Funny Girl revival at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory (where Babani serves as artistic director) starring Sheridan Smith. The production had a revised book by Harvey Fierstein and transferred to the West End.Continue Reading

‘SING STREET’ LIKELY TO OPEN AT THE LYCEUM IN APRIL (EXCLUSIVE)

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The producers of Sing Street  are in talks to transfer their musical to the Shubert Organization’s Lyceum Theatre this spring, in time to qualify for Tony Award nominations.

The adaptation of the highly-regarded 2016 movie, about Dublin schoolboys who form a band influenced by Duran Duran and other English pop groups of the era, would begin previews in late March ahead of an April 19 opening, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. A developmental production at New York Theatre Workshop opened on Dec. 16 and is scheduled to close on Jan. 26. Continue Reading

ACTORS’ EQUITY ENDS STRIKE AGAINST BROADWAY LEAGUE

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After 33 days, Actors’ Equity has ended its limited strike against the Broadway League over how its members are compensated for developing new work.

Actors had sought profit share and a raise from the current $1,000 weekly salary when participating in a developmental lab, which are multi-week workshops to create new plays and musicals.Continue Reading

‘OKLAHOMA!’ IN DUMBO IS A BOLD TAKE ON A PERFECT MUSICAL: REVIEW

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Rebecca Naomi Jones & Damon Daunno/Teddy Wolff

Some theatrical ideas are so ambitious it almost doesn’t matter whether they succeed or fail – the fun is in seeing them play out. In his audacious, stripped-down staging of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!,  which opened Sunday at St Ann’s Warehouse, director Daniel Fish exposes the repression, lust, and violence that always lay beneath the surface of this seminal musical.

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FONTANA FANTASTIC IN JUICY ‘TOOTSIE’ ROLE: REVIEW

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The marquee in Chicago

CHICAGO — “Being a woman is no job for a man,” Michael Dorsey (Santino Fontana) concludes in the winning but inconsistent Broadway-bound musical comedy Tootsie,  which opened last night at the Cadillac Palace Theatre here. So how come his Dorothy Michaels holds the stage as well as his Michael Dorsey?

In an auburn wig, beige high heels and glasses, Fontana is sublime as Michael/Dorothy, the temperamental, opinionated, unemployed New York actor who finds stardom and self-awareness after putting on a dress and posing as an actress. Fontana borrows a gesture or two from Dustin Hoffman’s performance in the brilliant 1982 Columbia Pictures comedy. But Fontana makes the role his own with fine timing, crisp dancing and a gender-bending vocal range interpreting David Yazbek’s varied and mostly wonderful score. (Plus, of course, nonstop changes of William Ivey Long’s wry costumes.)Continue Reading

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL ‘BE MORE CHILL’ IS EXPLOSIVE FUN: REVIEW

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The musical Be More Chill has some baggage. It’s about high school angst that verges on cliché, and it’s a showcase for the kind of head-banging pop, in this case by composer/lyricist Joe Iconis (Smash), that’s commonplace in today’s musical theater.  It also has an out-there sci-fi premise: Hopelessly uncool high school sophomore Jeremy Heere (Dear Evan Hansen’s Will Roland) swallows a pill-shaped supercomputer called a SQUIP that implants itself in his brain and instructs him in the finer points of teenage social etiquette.Continue Reading

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