Courtesy 5th Avenue TheatreCurrently rehearsing in Seattle for a July 23rd opening, Catch Me If You Can is indeed based on the 2002 Spielberg film of the same name. The creative team behind this is what excites me the most, music and lyrics are by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, choreography is from Jerry Mitchell and Jack O'Brien directs - this is the team that brought the sensational Hairspray to Broadway (also by way of Seattle) in 2002. There are clips on youtube of a press preview in Seattle from last week; the score sounds interesting, and the three leads Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz and Tom Wopat (I know those names probably mean nothing to most of you) sounded great. Once reviews come out of Seattle (early August), expect a spring arrival in a theater to be named.
Based on Charles Addams classic comics from The New Yorker, Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuworh will star as Gomez and Morticia, respectively, in this new musical. The plot revloves around Wednesday, now 18, and her "normal" boyfriend and his family. Hillarity will no doubt ensue. A Chicago try-out is planned November - January, with an April 8, 2010 opening at the (rumored) Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Get your tickets now (well, as soon as they go on sale), the starry casting leads me to believe that The Addams Family has the potential to be the next Producers, an audience and critic super-smash that you'll have to wait a year to get tickets. A show like this comes along about once every 5/6 years (think Rent, The Lion King, The Producers) and with Billy Elliot still needing to prove itself, The Addams Family seems like a sure bet.
courtesy Marvel ComicsBono. The Edge. Julie Taymor. An epic something is in the making, disaster or success. Manhattan has been abuzz with Spider-Man since it was announced in 2001. This was supposed to be Taymor's follow-up to her sensational production of The Lion King, and once Bono and the Edge were attached, it got that much more awesome. It's now a reality. The budget is soaring close to $50 million. Previews have already been pushed back a month from the originallay announced Janaury 16th 2010 at the Hilton Theatre to February 25th, 2010. I had tickets for February 20th (the Saturday after opening) but had to exchange them for April 3rd. Alan Cumming has been cast as The Green Goblin, Evan Rachel Wood will play Mary Jane, and the hope is that Jim Sturgess (from Taymor's Across the Universe) will play the titular hero. The title is a bit much for me, turn off the dark...really? I think that this will have success a la Wicked, where it recieves mixed-to-negative reviews but will have mass audience appeal. Either way, I'm excited for it. Tickets are currently on sale to AmEx card holders via ticketmaster, and the general public on sale date is September 1.
There are other exciting shows too - revivals of A Little Night Music, Bye Bye Birdie (with Uncle Jessie!), Finnian's Rainbow and Ragtime--that one I'm most excited about--as well as some other new musicals that are while not as high profile, they're exciting, Memphis, about the birth of rock and roll in, you guess it, Memphis, and Fela!...I'm not sure what the latter is about, but it got extremely positive buzz off-broadway last year.
There are quite a few exciting plays too, the most anticipated is the all-but announced A Steady Rain, a two-hander starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig (Telecharge better prep their servers now, they crashed in 2005 when Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain went on sale), Tracy Lett's follow-up to his award-winning August: Osage County, Superior Donuts, and the Donmar Warehouse's production of Hamlet, with Jude Law as the tourmented prince (I got tickets for $25, I'm going November 14th). And that's just the fall!
Want to take a field trip to see any and or all of these?
There are other exciting shows too - revivals of A Little Night Music, Bye Bye Birdie (with Uncle Jessie!), Finnian's Rainbow and Ragtime--that one I'm most excited about--as well as some other new musicals that are while not as high profile, they're exciting, Memphis, about the birth of rock and roll in, you guess it, Memphis, and Fela!...I'm not sure what the latter is about, but it got extremely positive buzz off-broadway last year.
There are quite a few exciting plays too, the most anticipated is the all-but announced A Steady Rain, a two-hander starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig (Telecharge better prep their servers now, they crashed in 2005 when Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain went on sale), Tracy Lett's follow-up to his award-winning August: Osage County, Superior Donuts, and the Donmar Warehouse's production of Hamlet, with Jude Law as the tourmented prince (I got tickets for $25, I'm going November 14th). And that's just the fall!
Want to take a field trip to see any and or all of these?
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