Musical Theatre

On Monday, the German-language version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster musical “Hamilton” won the prize for best production at the German Musical Theater Awards. But the timing of the honor was bittersweet. On Sunday, the show will play its final performance in Hamburg, after a yearlong run at the 1,400-seat Operettenhaus.

The rise and fall of “Hamilton” in Hamburg is a tale of incredible determination, sky-high expectations, critical acclaim and an uneven box office.

“Economically, it makes more sense for us to have a wonderful one-year run, instead of losing the money that you’ve made by prolonging it for too long,” said Stephan Jaekel, a spokesman for Stage Entertainment, the Amsterdam-based company that produced the show.

Although sales were healthy overall, the show performed below expectations during the Christmas season, Jaekel said. Noting that tickets for musicals are “the number one German Christmas present,” he added that the holiday season box office was a “good indicator” of whether a show is “flying, whether it’s solid, whether it’s declining.” He added that even when sales were at their most brisk, “Hamilton” never sold out completely.

When its closure was announced in March, the show had reported sales of over 200,000 tickets. Jaekel said that twice as many people will have seen it by the final performance on Sunday afternoon.

“Four hundred thousand, to us, seems like a very good number of people to have been in touch with a new form of musical,” he said, “because the German musical audience is not as developed, is not as refined, not as used to variety as, say, the British or the American musical audiences are.”

Hamilton in Hamburg was the first (and still the only) production not in the English language. Sera Finale and Kevin Schroeder spent nearly four years working through the show’s more than 20,000 rapid-fire words. Their German-language version has been widely praised as a masterpiece of translation.

A little over a year ago, “Hamilton” in Hamburg celebrated a glitzy gala opening, with Miranda in attendance. It opened to strong reviews — but even the most positive critics wondered whether the show’s unique qualities might be lost in translation.

“Can this American success story also work here?” wrote Judith Liere in the German newspaper Die Zeit. She paper applauded the translation, but complained that the story was unfamiliar and hard-to-follow. And though Liere praised the music and the energetic performances, she also asked: “Will that be enough to excite the average German musical audience, who are otherwise used to more accessible and effects-laden material?”

At a recent weekend performance, the Operettenhaus was nearly full. I spotted young women decked out in “Hamilton” T-shirts and hoodies, as well as couples old and young and groups of 20-somethings, but relatively few young families, who are one of the main audiences for musicals in Hamburg.

The crowd was fired up throughout the three-hour-long show, whooping and applauding as characters made their entrance (Lafayette! Washington! Jefferson! King George!) and the famous line “Einwanderer — we get the job done” was met with a mid-performance howl. The show was every bit as electrifying as it had been on opening night.

In an interview afterward, Denise Obedekah, a director who worked on the production, said she still considered the Hamburg production a success. It “did start something in Germany,” she said: “an awareness that there are other musicals out there than just Disney shows.”

She added that a show with “Hamilton’s” level of sophistication was able to attract people who might previously have thought “musical theater is only for old people, or is something really kitschy.”

Chasity Crisp, the actress who plays Angelica Schuyler, said that “Hamilton” in Germany had “kind of made musical theater cool.” Noting that the majority of the 34 cast members aren’t white, and hail from 13 countries, she added that it had contributed to the “ongoing development of inclusivity and diversity” in the country’s entertainment industry.

The show also opened the door for “a new generation of musicals” in Germany, she said: Stage Entertainment is set to import German-language versions of “MJ: The Musical,” “& Juliet” and “Hercules” to Hamburg in versions either partially or fully translated into German.

“Hamilton” may have struggled, partly, because it led this charge, said Daniel Dodd-Ellis, who plays Lafayette and Jefferson. Telling such a sophisticated and diverse story “was a huge learning curve for German musical theater audiences, for the German musical producers, and for marketing,” he added. The show’s promotion might have been too focused on the feat of translating “Hamilton,” rather than the merits of the show itself, he said.

Although this “Hamilton” didn’t catch fire the same way it did in New York, it would be wrong to suggest, as some in the German press have, that the show was a flop. Revisiting the production a year after its opening, my admiration for the ingenious translation was undimmed (like the original English, the verbose songs reward multiple hearings) and I was transported anew by the raw energy of the production and the performances.

Why didn’t local audiences thrill to “Hamilton?” Was the story too quintessentially American? Was its “brand visibility” too low compared to Disney and jukebox musicals? Whatever the reason, nearly half a million people here have discovered “Hamilton” auf Deutsch and that seems momentous. And there are lots of places where this show could find a new home: Vienna, Zurich, Stuttgart. This “Hamilton” hasn’t necessarily thrown away its shot.

At a recent performance of “Gutenberg! The Musical!” on Broadway, Jesse Green gave us an inside look at his review process.

Article highlights:

“Gutenberg!” was one of more than 100 shows that Green, who reviews almost every new Broadway production and many Off Broadway shows and regional productions, would see this year. He had attended a performance of “Merrily We Roll Along,” the starry new revival of the 1981 Stephen Sondheim musical, the previous night.

Green, who has been a theater critic for The Times since 2017, was, proudly, a theater geek in high school. After graduating from Yale with a double major in English and theater, he moved to New York City and began working as a gofer, or errand runner, for Broadway shows, working his way up to musical coordinator positions. At one point, he apprenticed for Hal Prince, who produced or directed many of the most enduring musicals in theater history, including “West Side Story,” “Sweeney Todd” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”

His time with Prince not only honed his taste, but also taught him how important it is for a show to forge a connection with an audience.

“I approach theater criticism as a form of reporting,” said Green, who has reviewed nearly 1,000 shows over his decade-long career as a critic. His reporting reflects his feelings — his connection with the show being staged in front of him.

“That’s the fun of reviewing,” he told me.

Critics generally attend one of a few press performances, which occur before a show’s official opening night. Green sees the first one he can so that he has ample time to write his review, which usually comes out on opening night.

“The first thing I do after a show is transcribe my notes,” Green told me. “They’re unreadable half the time, but they’re still helpful to jog my memory.”

When the show began, Mirer leaned over, signaling to his watch — 8:04. Though shows post their run time on their websites, it is not always precise; Green ensures readers have accurate information.

During the first act, which featured Gad and Rannells dancing in a kickline and performing a farcical song about biscuits, Green jotted down notes often. His expression remained inscrutable, except for an occasional smile or a chuckle.

“I’m looking for a number of things,” he told me later. “Lines that help me understand what the play wants to do and how it seems to be succeeding or failing.” He considers moments and design choices that will help readers understand what it feels like to experience the show. Occasionally, he admits, he finds himself writing “Help” or “Will this ever end?”

The first act of “Gutenberg!” provoked a continual stream of laughter from the audience and selective applause from Green — he tries not to show too much emotion during a performance. When the house lights came on for intermission, a woman seated nearby turned to her seatmate. “That’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Green stood up. “I don’t want anyone else’s influence,” he said. To avoid inadvertent eavesdropping, he goes for a walk during intermission, even if it’s just up the aisle.

Act 2 began at 9:15, which Green dutifully recorded in his notebook. He took fewer notes during the second act, which, he said afterward, is not always the case. He explained it this way: “As a rule, the better the show, the fewer notes I take, because I get too caught up.”

When Gad and Rannells took their bows at 10:08, most of the audience stood and applauded. But Green perched on the tipped-up edge of his seat, craning his neck to watch. Times critics do not typically stand at the end of shows, a practice Green said was not a formal policy but an unwritten code among critics.

“We know we are being watched, and we don’t want to disclose too much,” he told me. And, he added, “I still believe that standing ovations are for truly extraordinary events.”

Green planned to read the script for the show on his phone on the train to their home in Brooklyn. He never reads the script for a new show before seeing it — he wants to experience it “as the playwright intended” — but he does afterward, to dig deeper into the meaning of the work, check whether any moments were improvised and confirm quotes.

While he writes his review, he emails questions to the show’s press agents, asking how it has changed over its development, or, in the case of “Gutenberg!,” how many trucker hats the actors wore during the performance (99). He also checks facts that he is including in his review.

What is clear after spending time with Green is that he feels being a critic is part of his identity, not just his job. Even when he is not reviewing a show, he is soaking in culture: He is an admirer and voracious reader of Walt Whitman and Jane Austen, for example, and a puzzle enthusiast.

Green, it should be said, wants a show to succeed. He’s a theater geek, after all. Even if he does not enjoy a performance, he understands it may still have merit or add to a cultural conversation. But he will not hesitate to pan a show if he feels it deserves it. “If I have any value, it’s in having some consistency of taste and knowledge from many, many years of seeing plays and writing about them,” he said. “People who get used to reading my stuff may say, ‘Oh, I never agree with him,’ which is actually good. That way, when I dislike something, they know they’ll like it — and vice versa.”

When he’s reviewing, Green is thinking through big-picture questions: What does this play want? How well does it achieve that? Is it worth achieving? And, of course, he’s doing it on deadline.

“Even after a thousand reviews, staring down a deadline fills me with fear,” he said. “After all, you start with nothing but what’s in your head and a few nearly illegible scribbles in your notebook.”

But writing, he said, should be a pleasure, not a curse. “It must grow from fear to enjoyment,” he said. “It remains an amazement to me that it so often does.”

A sluggish environment complicates the fortunes of productions birthed since the pandemic.

One afternoon last week, the ticket-holder line outside the Broadway Theatre, where “Here Lies Love” is running, stretched two blocks. Unfortunately for the David Byrne and Fatboy Slim musical, the crowd was queuing for the show on the next block: “Late Night With Stephen Colbert.”

Such has been the frustrating early days of “Here Lies Love,” a pulsatingly alive musical that has seemed to have everything going for it since its official opening in July: stellar reviews, world-famous songwriters, an immersive party atmosphere, proven appeal in previous productions. The expectation by producers was that the fall would be smooth sailing. Instead, “Here Lies Love” is struggling to stay alive. Its weekly running costs (about $700,000) have exceeded its weekly box-office take ($500,000 to $620,000). Which means it is losing money at a point in the run when it needs to be raking it in.

“What I didn’t anticipate was really the struggle for it to find its audience,” said Diana DiMenna, one of the lead producers. “I’m flabbergasted that there are not lines of people around the block.” She is part of a core team of five lead producers who are attempting to innovate their way out of the doldrums afflicting “Here Lies Love.” And it is not the only new show limping along. Broadway has returned only sluggishly since the pandemic shutdowns of 2020 and 2021. New productions have been especially hard hit.

The warhorses, like “Wicked” and “The Lion King,” are doing fine. But lavish, recently opened musicals such as “New York, New York,” “Once Upon a One More Time” and “Bad Cinderella” shuttered rapidly. Even better-reviewed entries like “Some Like It Hot” are not doing so hot: That show, which has received more Tony nominations than any production this year, is closing in December. The 2023 Tony winner for best musical, “Kimberly Akimbo,” has not been immune either, with erratic box-office results and some weeks when the house is only 75 percent filled.

“All of the new musicals are struggling,” said Robert Wankel, the chairman and chief executive of the Shubert Organization, which owns and operates 17 of the 41 theaters on Broadway, including the Broadway. “We still haven’t had back all of our audience, and that doesn’t help.” Everyone is trying to understand why. Though tourists are returning to New York City, the numbers are below levels before the pandemic: According to New York City Tourism & Conventions, about 63 million visitors are expected this year, down from nearly 67 million in 2019. (Tourists traditionally account for about two-thirds of Broadway ticket sales.)

A corresponding decline has occurred in many of the nonprofit regional theaters across the nation. Changes in entertainment habits, high ticket prices and the graying of the audience are all factors. On Broadway, another complication has been the decline in people working from their Manhattan offices, the potential patrons who used to seek weeknight diversions in the city.

The difficult path “Here Lies Love” has encountered, trying to build momentum at the box office, is a troubling case in point. In a group interview at the theater, the producers outlined a passel of initiatives to entice audiences of all ages to the musical, a rollicking, 90-minute party under a glittering disco ball. The show is a rock-opera account of the despotic regime of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos (Jose Llana) and his wife, Imelda (Arielle Jacobs), who ruled the Asian nation from 1965 to 1986.

Educating potential patrons on the unique facets of “Here Lies Love” has proved tough, the producers said. The orchestra section of the theater had to be removed and the space renovated for the $22 million production. The party floor for audience members who opt to stand, and where most of the action occurs on moving platforms, displaced about 600 seats, reducing capacity to 1,100. Included in this smaller audience footprint are seats in a variety of configurations: banks of seats ringing the performance floor, dozens of rows of seats in the mezzanine, even a VIP section under the mezzanine.

“We are tasked not only with outputting artistic work, we are also tasked with creating the audience,” said Clint Ramos, the costume designer and another lead producer. He said that with a cast entirely made up of Filipino Americans, “Here Lies Love” had a goal of reaching a new cadre of fans. Indeed, as noted by Jose Antonio Vargas, another of the core producing group (and a former Washington Post reporter), on some nights those of Asian and Pacific Island descent make up as much as 25 percent of the crowd, when the norm on Broadway is in the single digits.

“You have an untraditional story told in an untraditional way,” lead producer Patrick Catullo said. “Then there is the layer of, ‘Okay, do you sit or do you stand? What is this experience?’ There are just so many more layers of introspection that you need to do for the consumer on a show like this.”

That is why the “Here Lies Love” producing brain trust, whose fifth member is Kevin Connor, spitballed a strategic plan into existence that it hopes will save the show. Its components include special matinees with free child care, an incentive program with gifts and discounts for those who want to see the show more than once, a sweepstakes offering free tickets, a subsidy program called Democracy in Action that has raised $150,000 in donations, and after-show parties on the theater floor with guest DJs.

“The bars are still open and DJ Cherish will be out here in a second!” an announcer intoned last Saturday, moments after the curtain call. Dozens of audience members milled about, drinks in hand, for an hour of entertainment unlike that in any other Broadway theater. (Cherish is one the myriad producers of “Here Lies Love” recruited from the Filipino American community, another of its attempts to broaden industry reach.)

DiMenna, for one, said much more needs to be done to revolutionize the business and eliminate the barriers to doing things in a new way. (A confrontation with the musicians union last spring over the use of karaoke resulted in adding several instrumentalists to the payroll, but it also, the producers said, disrupted the publicity momentum at a key juncture.) “There are all these rules and laws, and I get how it helps and how it serves,” she said. “I find that it slows down the rate of innovation that I think we all know is necessary.”

Whether the innovation rescues “Here Lies Love” will be known in short order, though you would not know it from the exhilarating contributions of the cast that the show is running on fumes. Wankel, the Shubert Organization chief executive, is trying to help. “We are going to be as supportive as we can be,” he said. “In the end, it is all about the money. It depends how much money you want to lose. The problem with theater is our operating costs are very high, so the question is, ‘How much money can you burn trying to build an audience?’”

Vargas said that in recent days, the box office has begun to pick up, which would be good not only at the Broadway Theatre, but for the Broadway theater. “We would love nothing more,” Wankel added, “than to make this show a hit.”

An interview with Eddie Redmayne on playing the Emcee in London a couple of years ago. Methinks this might be a sign he'll reprising the role for the Broadway season next year.

Shucked has announced it will close on Broadway Sunday, January 14, 2024. It opened on Broadway in 8 March 2023 after a season in Salt Lake City 2022.

A North American tour will launch Fall 2024, as well as productions in London’s West End at a Cameron Mackintosh theater Winter of 2025, and in Sydney, Australia in the Spring of 2026.

A French language production of Les Miserables will be produced at the Théatre du Châtelet in November 2024, according to a Facebook post by Broadway à Paris.

A google translation of the post reads as follows:

In case some people don't know yet, LES MISERABLES ARE COMING BACK!!!
We've been waiting for this for years (1992 to be precise) but finally a French version of the musical by Claude-Michel Schoenberg & Alain Boublil will be performed at the Théâtre du Châtelet from November 2024!!!
And what's more, it will be a new version in a new production by Ladislas Chollat and with new words and songs from the original authors themselves!

To discover the first names in the casting and even attend the last auditions for certain roles, DON'T MISS 42e rue on France Musique THIS SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15 AT 1 P.M.!!!
With the entire artistic team and the new director of the Châtelet, Olivier Py!

Ticket office opening Monday 🥳😱

Les Miserables premiered in its original form in Paris in 1980, before it was substantially revised for the English language production which premiered in London in 1985. This production was translated back into French and was mounted in 1992. Despite the fact that Les Miz has had multiple productions in dozens of cities it has never been fully staged in France since that 1992 production. (A French language concert tour did take place in 2017.)

Assuming the translation is correct, this will be a new production directed by Ladsilas Cholllat (ie not the current Connor/Powell-directed nor the original Nunn/Caird-directed Cameron Mackintosh productions).

Perhaps most exciting (again assuming the translation is correct), this production will feature new words and songs by Boublil and Schoenberg!

While Les Miz has been continually tweaked since its English language premiere more than 38 years ago, these have been relatively minor and mostly consisted of cuts in order to reduce the running time to under three hours. There have been relatively major changes over the years, including (but not limited to):

• the reinstatement of the meeting at the well scene between Valjean and Young Cosette
• the "God I'm weary sick enough to drop" verse in "Lovely Ladies"
• changes to Enjolras' "Lamarque is dead" speech
• various lyrics to replace the "There goes a Jew / This one's a queer" lines in "Beggar at the Feast"

The 2012 movie introduced a number of new lyrics, but only one of these made it back into the staged production: Gavroche's "This is the land that fought for liberty" stanza in "Look Down".

The 2012 movie also introduced a new song, "Suddenly", although this has not been incorporated into the stage musical. (This is in contrast to Evita and Dreamgirls, where the new song written for the movie versions both made it into the stage versions. And older shows like Grease and Cabaret also now borrow liberally from their movie song list.)

Boublil and Schoenberg (and Cameron Mackintosh), despite their vast success, are certainly not shy about trying to improve their shows when required. Miss Saigon has been reworked several times over the years, including changing the ending multiple times, and having three different songs for Ellen. The 2014 London revival included major revisions with Michael Mahler reworking Richard Maltby Jr's original English language lyrics. Martin Guerre was drastically revised between the its 1996 premiere and the 1999 tour.

However - if the translation is correct - this would be the first time since 1985 that Boublil and Schoenberg would be writing new songs for the stage version of Les Miz.

This news, along with other (non-reproduction) productions of Les Miz in in 2024 in Prague, Czech Republic and St Gallen, Switzerland (followed by Munich, Germany), means it's a great time to be a Les Miz fan in Europe.

The director of the Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along on her singular relationship with its legendary writer.

Killian Donnelly will return to the West End production of Les Misérables. Donnelly, who previously appeared in the show’s older iteration in the West End, will play Jean Valjean at the Sondheim Theatre from Tuesday 31 October 2023 for 15 weeks only. Donnelly also played the role on tour, with other credits including The Phantom of the Opera and Fun Home.

Due to sudden family reasons, Josh Piterman, who is currently playing Valjean, will return home to Australia. His final performances will take place on Saturday 21 October 2023.

“Funny Girl,” the smash hit that cemented Barbra Streisand’s place in Hollywood at the ripe age of 26, ended with her protagonist, Fanny Brice, separating from her husband after he was released from prison.

Fifty-five years later, Streisand, 81, is working on a new ending for the film “because it didn’t make sense,” re-editing it and redoing the color, according to her husband, the legendary-in-his-own-right James Brolin.

“She’s colorizing it and adding the scenes back in that — because it didn’t make sense, that movie,” Brolin said in an appearance on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast. “In the end, it didn’t make sense why they split, and she’s putting it all back together for the 50th anniversary.”

The article recounts Brolin's interview with Maher in some detail in which he also discuses the movie of Hello Dolly.

Shucked will embark on a North American tour in the fall of 2024.

The tour will begin performances at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Rhode Island before playing in over 30 cities in its first season. Currently, the show is scheduled to also hit Atlanta, Austin, Buffalo, Charlotte, Dallas, Durham, East Lansing, Fort Lauderdale, Greenville, Houston, Los Angeles, Madison, Orlando, San Antonio, Schenectady, St. Louis, Washington D.C. and Tampa. More venues will be announced at a later date.

Shucked features a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn, a score by Grammy Award winners, Tony Award nominees and Nashville music superstars Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, and direction by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien.

Casting for the tour will be announced at a later date.

Steven Lutvak, the musical mind behind the Tony-winning musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, died October 9 at the age of 64.

As a singer-songwriter, Mr. Lutvak performed across the country, including successful New York engagements at Carnegie Hall. From this solo material, Mr. Lutvak released two albums, The Time It Take and Ahead of My Heart, all the while continuing to pursue his collaborative musical theatre dreams.

Mr. Lutvak made his Broadway debut with A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder in 2014, for which he supplied the music, and co-wrote the lyrics with Robert L. Freedman. The musical won the Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best Musical.

Other musicals by Mr. Lutvak include Almost September, The Wayside Motor Inn (an adaptation of a play by A. R. Gurney), and Esmeralda. For the screen, Mr. Lutvak composed the title track for the film Mad Hot Ballroom, and the score to Anything But Love starring Eartha Kitt and Andrew McCarthy.

Mr. Lutvak was a highly awarded composer, receiving the Kleban Award for Lyric Writing for the Theater, the Fred Ebb Award for Songwriting for the Theater alongside Freedman, the American Theatre Wing's Jonathan Larson Grant, the Johnny Mercer Foundation's Emerging American Songwriter Award, two Bistro Awards, three MAC Awards, and multiple ASCAP Awards.

In his later years, Mr. Lutvak worked as an adjunct professor at his alma mater, the New York University Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.

Delfont Mackintosh is offering a series of workshops for children, based around the London productions of Les Miserables, Mamma Mia and The Phantom of the Opera.

This is the blurb for the Les Miz workshops on Monday 23 October:

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a new cast member of a West End show? During this 90 minute workshop you will take part in a series of drama exercises and warm – ups before re-creating the famous ‘Barricade’ scene. You’ll then learn to sing sections for two of the shows principle numbers ‘At the end of the day’ and ‘Do you Hear the People Sing’. The workshop will culminate in a short performance in front of parents and guardians.

Two workshops will be held, one for 9-12 year olds (at 10.30am), and one for 13-17 year olds (at 12.30pm). The cost is £20 per child.

Similar workshops are scheduled for Mamma Mia on 25 October, and different choral, drama, mask and movement Les Miz, Mamma Mia and Phantom workshops are available for school groups.

Maestra Music will host three workshops are designed to help professionals create more accessible rehearsal and performance spaces.

The series will launch with Access Broadway founder and Americans with Disabilities Act advisor Maria Porto leading a 90-minute workshop on Oct. 12. The session will include a summary of disability history in America and focus on barriers for musicians with disabilities on Broadway.

On Oct. 19, composer and music director Shane Dittmar will moderate a panel about disability representation among musicians on Broadway.

Finally, on Oct. 26, Co/Lab will lead a professional development workshop to help artistic leaders reexamine inclusivity in their own operations. Two Co/Lab teaching artists and two leaders (seasoned Co/Lab actors with developmental disabilities) will lead attendees through a conversation and activities around creating an inclusive environment tailored to neurodiversity.

The 2023 annual Open House for the New York University (NYU) Tisch School of Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program (GMTWP) will be held on Friday 20 October 2023 at 6pm Eastern Time.

Learn more about the program and chat with faculty, staff, and current students. The event will take place virtually on Zoom.

To RSVP or find out more email [email protected]

A second Open House will be held on Friday 1 December for those unable to attend 20 October.

Jordan Fisher, who most recently starred as Anthony in the current Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, will take over the role of Orpheus in Hadestown on Broadway. Reeve Carney will play his final performance as Orpheus on Sunday 19 November 2023 with Fisher taking over the role the following night, on Monday 20 November.

Says Fisher:

First, I must thank Reeve for the magic he made in Orpheus. An absolutely historic run and performance. His unrelenting heart and soul is deeply embedded in this role and in this story. I'm beyond honored and grateful for the opportunity to step in and steward such a beautifully crafted character. My wife, son and I have been jamming to the cast album for a long time. It's been a dream to be able to join the party! Specifically in this role. This tale is one that truly must be told again and again.

After 14 years of marriage and nearly two decades as a couple, Rob McClure and Maggie Lakis have built a bond that can withstand many a challenge — including, it turns out, getting divorced eight times a week.

That’s what the actors do as the stars of the “Mrs. Doubtfire” musical. McClure portrays Daniel, the struggling actor who, amid a painful separation, poses as a geriatric Scottish nanny in a ploy to spend more time with his kids. Lakis plays Miranda, Daniel’s estranged wife, who has grown weary of his man-child antics. As the couple’s relationship crumbles onstage, the actors’ real-life connection provides the foundation for that fissure.

“Someone asked me, ‘Oh, is it fun to yell at your husband?’” Lakis says. “It’s actually just not an issue. He’s so lovely and wonderful and giving and such a dynamic and present performer that I just love working with him. So even those scenes, I just feel like we can go there together.”

McClure adds, “It will feel like two people who’ve been together a very long time and who have built a family together. Hopefully, we can convince [the audience] that we are these people going through this tumultuous moment.”

While McClure originated the dual roles of Daniel and Mrs. Doubtfire — earning his second Tony nomination — Lakis is new to the musical comedy, which was adapted for the stage by “Something Rotten!” creators Karey Kirkpatrick, Wayne Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell.

“I just love the fact that they’re actually a couple,” says director Jerry Zaks. “They’re willing to take chances with each other, and in the rehearsal room, there’s nothing more fun than navigating and orchestrating that.”

Although McClure appeared earlier this year in the Broadway-bound production of “Spamalot” at the Kennedy Center, he turned down the opportunity to continue with that show — ceding his part to Ethan Slater — in favor of reprising his “Mrs. Doubtfire” role on the road.

“It was something that I fell madly in love with,” McClure says. “So when they approached about the tour, it did feel like there was some unfinished business. And once Maggie auditioned for Jerry Zaks and he wanted to cast her as Miranda, I thought, ‘Well, now that certainly makes this a whole lot easier to contemplate.’”

Sharing the stage is nothing new to McClure and Lakis, who met in 2005 while performing in a regional theater production of “Grease” in Marlton, N.J. They have since toured together with “Avenue Q” in 2007 and “Something Rotten!” in 2017, and co-starred in productions of “Our Show of Shows” in 2012 in Flat Rock, N.C., and “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” in 2018 in St. Louis. But this is the first time the couple have toured as parents, with Sadie joining them on the 10-month, coast-to-coast trip before starting kindergarten next fall.

Sarah Brightman will star in a new production of Sunset Boulevard, which will premiere in Melbourne in May 2024 at the Princess Theatre followed by an engagement at the Sydney Opera House in August.

In her first theatrical role in more than three decades, Brightman will head the cast as Norma Desmond. Additional casting will be announced.

Brightman originated the role of Christine in Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera both in the West End and on Broadway and subsequently appeared in Aspects of Love. Since then, she has become the world’s best-selling soprano, with global sales of 30 million, more than 180 gold and platinum awards in over 40 countries, and over 1 billion streams worldwide.

"I am so delighted to be returning to Australia after many years, and to be marking my return to the stage in a musical after so long, it is only fitting for it to be with such an exquisite production as Sunset Boulevard. I have always admired Andrew’s work on this musical and I very much look forward to exploring the incredible score and also the iconic character of Norma Desmond. 'Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up!'," Brightman said in a statement.

The Australian production will be directed by Paul Warwick Griffin with set and costume design by Morgan Large, choreography by Ashley Wallen, and musical supervision by Kristen Blodgette.

Sunset will be presented in Australia by GWB Entertainment and Opera Australia by arrangement with The Really Useful Group.

Grammy winner Gloria Estefan has announced via Instagram that she and her daughter Emily Estefan are writing music and lyrics for a new musical titled Five Notes. The piece tells the story of Favio Chávez and Paraguay's Orquesta De Reciclados De Cateura (Recycled Orchestra of Cateura).

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura is an orchestra made up of children from Asunción, Paraguay, using instruments made from landfill materials. The orchestra was formed in 2012, and since then they have performed internationally with artists including Stevie Wonder and Metallica.

Five Notes is based on the award-winning documentary Landfill Harmonic. The work will also feature a book by Karen Zacarías, and direction by Michael Greif. Ken Cerniglia serves as dramaturg, with music supervision by Alex Lacamoire.

The linked - only somewhat morbid - article wonders which London theatres might be renamed after Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh once they have ascended on the great chandelier in the sky. and ventured beyond the barricade, respectively.

Lloyd Webber and Mackintosh's influence on theatre worldwide is undeniable, so I agree that it's inevitable that a theatre will be named after each of them eventually, certainly in London but perhaps also in New York. (Sondheim, after all, had theatres named after him in both cities, and while he was still alive even.)

Who do you think will have a theatre named after them (in any city), and who would you like to name a theatre after?

Initial dates and venues have been revealed for the world tour of Les Misérables the Arena Spectacular.

The tour will open at the SSE Arena Belfast on 19 September 2024, where it will play until 28 September 2024. Following Belfast, the production will play limited dates at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro Arena from 3 to 6 October, Sheffield’s Utilita Arena from 10 to 13 October and Aberdeen’s P & J Live Arena from 17 to 20 October.

It will then commence its European leg in Luxembourg from 25 to 27 October, followed by Geneva, Trieste, Milan, Copenhagen, Oslo and Zurich. Its final UK dates will be in Manchester at the AO Arena on 26 to 29 December and at the Utilita Arena, Newcastle from 2 to 5 January 2025 before moving on to Sweden, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

Tickets go on general sale Thursday 12 October 2023 for the UK dates and some European dates. Priority booking will be available from tomorrow. The concert will run throughout the upcoming 40th anniversary celebrations for the musical in 2025. After that, it will play both North and South America.

The production will have a new design specifically created for arenas (and large theatres) with audiences of between 3,000 to 5,000. A UK company of over 110 actors, musicians and crew will feature, with guest stars appearing at various stops. It is expanded from the concert staging of the show seen in the West End, where it played across 2019.

It's tricky and expensive securing the rights to musicals and some will never be available to the community. For those dreaming a dream of Les Mis at the local school, here's what it takes.

When Billy Elliot closed in the West End in 2016, 42 boys had played the title role.

During the 11 years that the show ran at the Victoria Palace Theatre the musical about the bairn that wanted to do ballet kickstarted the careers of some very familiar faces including Spider-Man himself, Tom Holland and stage star/current Strictly Come Dancing contestant Layton Williams.

Many of the young stars went on to be successful dancers for stage, television and film appearing in hit musicals like In The Heights and Cats. Several now dance with prestigious companies including Rambert, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Northern Ballet, as well as choreographing and completing further training.

The article links to a video on what some of the actors are up to today.

Pop star Kylie Minogue stunned performers with a surprise visit to the rehearsals of the I Should Be So Lucky musical this week.

The show, which will premiere at Manchester Opera House next month, is named after the single that launched Kylie's music career back in 1987.

Kylie spent two days on set watching the cast be put through their paces.

During her visit, the Australian pop veteran, 55, also recorded her role for the show as she will digitally appear as a "specially created character" throughout.

The show will open in Manchester on 2 November and run until 25 November, before embarking on a UK tour.

https://twitter.com/SoLuckyMusical/status/1710280861344551063

BroadwayHD has made a deal with NBCUniversal for U.S. streaming rights to their “Live” musical productions. Subscribers will have access to productions such as Hairspray Live!, The Sound of Music Live!, and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. In addition BroadwayHD will exclusively premiere The Prince of Egypt: The Musical in the U.S. beginning November 15 2023.

The world premiere production of The Connector, featuring music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Jonathan Marc Sherman, will begin performances off-Broadway on 12 January 2024, with an opening set for 6 February. The limited engagement will run through February 18.

Conceived and directed by Daisy Prince, The Connector centers on two journalists working at fictional magazine The Connector in the rapidly-changing media landscape of the late 1990s. Ambitious Ethan Dobson will do anything for the next big scoop, while Robin Martinez might have to go just as far to stop him.

The cast will include Scott Bakula, Joanna Carpenter, Max Crumm, Hannah Cruz, George Dvorsky, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Danielle Lee Greaves, Mylinda Hull, Daniel Jenkins, Cedric Lamar, Jessica Molaskey, Fergie Philippe, Eliseo Román, Ben Levi Ross, Ann Sanders, Kyle Sherman and Michael Winther.