Shakedown on Broadway
As big musicals enjoy longer and longer runs, Broadway theaters in the 1,400-plus seat range are increasingly at a premium. Newcomers such as "Spamalot," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "All Shook Up" don't look likely to give up their respective venues any time soon. None of which is good news for producers of 2005-06 musicals, especially the high-priced kind that need a big theater to turn a profit.
"Mary Poppins" and "The Color Purple" are currently circling, waiting for the right house. "Princesses" and "The Pajama Game" have already announced fall 2005 preems, but not a theater.
"I'm waiting for a shakedown," says
Stewart F. Lane. His show "Princesses" plays Seattle in August. "We could store the set," he says, and open later. "Or squeeze into a 1,200-seat house," he says.
Those options aren't available to the producers of "The Pajama Game."
"The crunch is on," says
Jeffrey Richards. "We have a major star,
Harry Connick Jr., for 'Pajama Game,' and we can't pin down a major theater."
Richards & Co. have Connick for an eight-month window, including rehearsals, which begin in late summer. "Then he has other commitments in (summer) 2006," says the producer.
Monty on stage
Montgomery Clift is the next movie legend to receive the bioplay treatment.
Patricia Bosworth is adapting her 1978 bestseller, "Montgomery Clift," to the stage. Her collaborator on the project is director
Larry Moss, who developed and helmed
Pamela Gien's "The Syringa Tree."
"We're looking for the right actor to play Monty," says Moss, who expects to workshop the bioplay in 2006.
Before then, Moss directs
Richard Kalinoski's "Beast on the Moon," set to open April 27 at the Century Center. There are also at least two projects for Off Broadway in the fall: the prostitution-themed "Sugar" by
April Daisy White; and
Jack Holmes' "The Awful Grace of God," about Bobby Kennedy.
Obviously, Moss has moved back to Gotham from L.A., where his acting school continues. On the West Coast, he developed a strong rep, not only for directing and teaching but coaching. In her 1999 Oscar acceptance speech,
Helen Hunt thanked Moss for coaching her in "As Good As It Gets," and similar gigs soon followed with
Jim Carrey ("The Majestic"),
Michael Clarke Duncan ("The Green Mile"),
Leonardo DiCaprio ("The Aviator") and
Hilary Swank ("Boys Don't Cry," "Million Dollar Baby").
"There is no rehearsal in film," Moss explains. "There's this thinking in Hollywood: To get to the truth, let's see if we can catch lightning in a bottle. Sometimes they do catch lightning. But I'm a rehearsal guy."
Since Moss has helped film actors win Oscars, it is no surprise that he's now pursued by legit producers with Tonys in their eyes.
Shortly before "All Shook Up" began its Broadway previews, Moss was brought in to work with its newcomer-headliners,
Cheyenne Jackson and
Jenn Gambatese.
Where other teachers take weeks or months, "Larry cuts to the chase in two hours," says Gambatese.
Return to 'Pond'
"On Golden Pond" has been performed as a play, a movie, a musical and a TV show. The current Broadway revival, starring
James Earl Jones and
Leslie Uggams, is what author
Ernest Thompson calls "an amalgam of all those productions, none of which are very different from each other." It opens April 7 at the Cort Theater.
Thompson expected to do more rewriting to accommodate the current revival's African-American cast. He knew that at least one line had to go: "There are no Negroes in the state of Maine."
Jones, however, asked to keep that one. "You don't think there's prejudice in the black community?" he asked Thompson.
"That sort of set the bar," says Thompson, who thought back to the original pond of his childhood. "It's a white world, but in 1960, there was a black family living on the lake," he recalls. Thompson feels a black family's sense of isolation fits into the play's theme of fear and prejudice. Producer
Jeffrey Finn had the concept for the nontraditional casting. His was good timing. "I had just come back from Tokyo where I'd seen a production with Japanese actors," says the playwright.
Thompson won an Oscar for his "On Golden Pond" screenplay, but it is probably not his favorite version of the work. "It was a little soft around the edges for my taste," he says, referring to Katharine Hepburn and
Jane Fonda's relationship in the film. "Hepburn was so affectionate to Jane, which is contrary to both women's true personality. Hepburn and Fonda don't add up to a warm body."
Hepburn headlined Thompson's "West Side Waltz," in 1981. "I knew her well. She was not that huggy, affectionate person. In real life, she was more the women I wrote."
Contact Robert Hofler at
bob.hofler@variety.com