Simply irresistible
LONDON -- "Contact" should be cutting the rug across the Atlantic in about a year's time. Producer Michael White is looking at a February or March 2002 West End preem for the Tony-winning dance show, with plans to open the show this autumn scuppered by director-choreographer Susan Stroman's ever-busy schedule."It's the only show I've ever seen that I'd like to be in,'' enthuses White, whose previous Broadway-to-London transplants include "She Loves Me'' and "Crazy for You.'' The latter was choreographed by Stroman.
White is hoping for a reasonably budgeted production -- "well under the £3 million ($4.4 million) mark," he says -- as well as a company peppered with a visiting American or two, though any specific makeup of the ensemble, is, for the moment, "too early to tell.''
Among theaters, White is aiming for something in the 1,100-1,200 seat range: "I think it's a show that's intimate, and I've ruined some shows by going into too big a theater. Nobody's ever cried because they were in too small a house.''
What's best about the Stroman-John Weidman triptych, says the London legit veteran, "is that it's not a revival. People say 'My Fair Lady' is the event of the year, and I thought, it shouldn't be. If we can't come up with a new show, there's something wrong.''
ON THE 'FENCE(S)'
North London's Tricycle Theater turns 21 in August and would like to do something to celebrate -- which is where the presence of a visiting African-American film name would not go amiss.
During the 1990s, the theater staged the London premieres of three August Wilson plays -- "Joe Turner's Come and Gone,'' "The Piano Lesson'' and "Two Trains Running,'' all directed by Paulette Randall -- and would like now to revive "Fences,'' which barely made a dent on the West End in a commercial staging (not involving the Tricycle) a decade or so ago; Yaphet Kotto was the star.
The only problem? The theater doesn't have a ready-made talent at hand to play Troy Maxson, the titanic part of the Pittsburgh sanitation worker that won a Tony back in 1987 for James Earl Jones. "We're a reputable theater, and a good black actor on a project like this would be welcome,'' says Nicolas Kent, who has been Tricycle a.d. since 1984.
Kent speaks longingly of importing the likes of Laurence Fishburne or Morgan Freeman, if they would ever consider London "fringe'' wages of less than $500 a week. (On the other hand, points out Kent, the Donmar Warehouse and the Almeida have regularly attracted comparable talent -- think Nicole Kidman and Kevin Spacey, for starters -- on equally stingy pay.)
"It's lovely that those theaters get such people,'' says Kent, "but the black audience gets shortchanged, and that's a real shame.''
Interested parties are invited to apply; in the meantime, the Tricycle is throwing its own birthday party early, at a Savoy Hotel gala Feb. 14 for which actress-turned-politico Glenda Jackson has promised a sketch.
RICH AND HAPPY?
Jan. 25 was the Donmar Warehouse's third you-set-the-price night, with every seat held back for customers who decide on the night what they would like to pay. And the tally -- drumroll please -- is now in: Two people paid a penny each to see "Merrily We Roll Along" -- the normal weeknight top is £25.50 -- while one paid four pence and someone else paid five. (Enabling the night to take place at all is Allied London Properties, the evening's sponsor.)
Lest financial largesse seem a thing of the past, one charitably minded couple did apparently pay £25 for two, while the average price paid across the theater's 251 seats was £3.03, or about one-third the price of a first-run West End cinema ticket.
By way of comparison, it may be worth noting that the average price paid on the same scheme this past summer during "Orpheus Descending," with Helen Mirren, was £3.30. (For that one, the queue began forming some four hours earlier: Ewell, it was the summer.)
For what it's worth, it seems that Sam Mendes' autumn staging of "To the Green Fields Beyond'' attracted the most salubrious on-spec theatergoers. The average price spent on that production's you-set-the-price night was a whopping £4.10.
COME TOGETHER
Can the British theater cohere? That's the hope of a forthcoming conference, "Theater 2001 -- Future Directions," that looks set to be Britain's first-ever cross-industry pow wow roping in the country's three major theater management orgs: the Society of London Theater, the Independent Theatrical Council and the Theatrical Management Assn.
A model of sorts can be found in Act 2, last summer's comparable Harvard confab for the American theater, though the London team are keen to emphasize that work was well under way on the U.K. jamboree before the U.S. one took place.
Over March 1-3, "Theater 2001" will focus on five crucial areas, from creativity and building and spaces to audiences, management and leadership, and theater and its social context. Of particular interest may be a panel discussion confirmed for March 2 that will bring in David Aukin, David Puttnam, Nicholas Hytner and Alan Parker, among others, to discuss the synergy -- or not -- between British theater and film.
In a country seemingly addicted to crisis, does this conference regard the theater as being in one? Not quite, says SOLT prexy Martin McCallum, who also attended the Act 2 event last year. Instead, he says, "I think we've realized that unless we do some forward planning, the future is going to be very uncertain. Our theater has a lot of very able and talented people working in disparate groups; what we're trying to do is being people together."
The conference, to be held at 1 Great George St., SW1, off Parliament Square, can accommodate some 400 delegates, and spaces are still available.
For further booking details, contact 44 (0) 870 842 2209 or www.theatre2001.com .
