Broadway News Round Up #16

Each week, The Broadway Critic will be featuring the news that you don’t want to miss! A lot has happened since we posted about Yank!, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, Dreamgirls and Little House on the Prairie.

• Playbill.com is reporting that Catch Me If You Can is aiming for Broadway in Spring 2011. Already, it seems there’s going to be problems. Team members, Jerry Mitchell (choreographer) and Jack O’Brien (director) are double-booked. Love Never Dies, which they are both working on, has pushed back their opening date to Spring 2011 as well. So, how are they going to be doing two shows at once? Someone has got to give. I wonder where they are gonna end up. Both shows had mixed reviews so I don’t think there’s a clear answer there. (I heard a recording of CMIYC and had to turn it off, because it was so bad.) Maybe they should scratch both projects and work on something else. Both seem to be a bit of a disaster.
• Addams Family is opening tonight, April 8th 2010. Did you see their performance on Letterman? It was cute and fun but I’m not totally sold that I could sit through 2 hours of that. Looking forward to seeing the reviews that come out tonight.
• Apparently, Andrew Lloyd Weber fears bloggers (like me)! And, frankly he should. I’m tired of people complaining that they need previews to make the show “work”. If you are truly working on the piece and don’t want people to review it as the “final” production, then don’t charge up the butt for tickets. Yes, I know it’s pricey to produce a musical, and yes somethings just need tweaking, but it’s 2010 – the internet isn’t a new invention. Welcome to 2010, Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber. “I dread to think what anybody would have said about the first preview of Cats or, frankly, Les Misérables, which was a huge undertaking and wasn’t right at the beginning,” he said. I dread just thinking about what it was like to sit through a first preview of Cats – what a disaster.
• A Little Night Music cast recording was released this past Tuesday. I posted a little preview of Catherine Zeta-Jones singing “Send in the Clowns”. I asked whether or not anyone liked the dialogue on the cast recording. I honestly hate it. It bothers me that I have to wait through two minutes of dialogue before I actually get to hear Zeta-Jones sing. Why couldn’t they have made them separate tracks? That way, if you want to listen to the entire script you can, and the days you just want music you could just listen to music tracks. There’s all sorts of opinions on Broadwayworld.com. Make sure you enter to win a copy!
• Everyone is excited about the new production of Anyone Can Whistle at City Encores this weekend. I can’t wait to hear the buzz!
• Last night, Duncan Sheik (composer of Spring Awakening and Whisper House) started a three-night engagement with the San Francisco Symphony. I’ll be there on Saturday night.
• It seems that Million Dollar Quartet has a million different lawsuits. What a mess! The Missus saw this show and after was approached by one of the producers who asked her what she thought about it. She honestly replied, “Meh! It was okay, I guess.” Twenty minutes later, the producer got an ear full about the lack of plot, character inconsistencies and general boredom. I hope he does something with that information.

New shows that are starting previews and/or opening on Broadway in the next couple weeks:

• 4/08/10: Addams Family (opening)
• 4/08/10: Enron (opening)
• 4/11/10: Million Dollar Quartet (opening)
• 4/18/10: La Cage aux Folles (opening)
• 4/20/10: American Idiot (opening)
• 4/22/10: Sondheim on Sondheim (opening)
• 4/25/10: Promises, Promises (opening)

Until next week…