'Times' dances to Oct. B'way opening
Tharp's Dylan tuner sets date
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Following a minor scheduling snafu, "Times" pushes the opening of Nathan Lane starrer "Butley" back to Oct. 25 -- the original opening date for the play, whose producers had announced last month that its bow was moving to Oct. 26.
"Times" is Tharp's Rialto follow-up to "Movin' Out," her dance piece set to Billy Joel songs that closed last year after a Broadway run of more than three years. "Times," about a love triangle set in a dreamlike world of carnival workers, preemed in January at the Old Globe in San Diego.
Although enough of a box office hit to prompt two extensions at Old Globe, the show garnered a mixed response from critics. But that reception was tempered by the helmer's rep as a rigorous editor of her own work, which she earned when she turned "Movin' Out" into a Gotham success after it took a slew of critical brickbats during its Chicago tryout.
For the Broadway incarnation of "Times," Michael Arden and Thom Sesma reprise their roles as a combative father-son duo, but Caren Lyn Manuel ("Brooklyn") replaces thesp Jenn Colella, who originally played the part of the animal trainer who comes between the two men. John Selya, a Tony-nommed performer in "Movin' Out," joins the cast in an ensemble role.
Produced by (among others) James L. Nederlander and Hal Luftig, who also backed "Movin' Out," "Times" begins previews Sept. 25.
