| Strike unlikely to affect Broadway Series
Chances of the lights going out at Cincinnati's Aronoff Center, home to touring Broadway shows, are slim even though an ongoing stagehands strike has darkened all but eight New York City Broadway theaters since last Saturday. Broadway shows idled because of the strike include the musicals "Wicked" and "Jersey Boys." In addition, Broadway openings of such new shows as Conor McPherson's new play "The Seafarer" have been delayed. The work stoppage is expensive for the theater community. For instance, last week the Broadway box office gross on "Wicked" alone was near $853,000 for just eight performances. The Aronoff Center for the Arts, downtown, is currently hosting the touring musical "Camelot" through Nov. 25, but expects no extension of the strike to road shows. "I have no information at this time that this strike is likely to have any effect on the local market," said Stephen Loftin, president and executive director of the Cincinnati Association for the Arts that manages the Aronoff Center, Music Hall and Memorial Hall.
Sound is familiar, but the songs are new
"The Musical of Musicals," opening Thursday after previews at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, promises an entertaining tour of 1940s and '50s Broadway musicals. The show uses one plot, but will show how differently the musical might sound by using the varying styles of some of the most renowned Broadway composers and lyricists to write for the Great White Way. Using original songs, not the composers' works, "Musical of Musicals" parodies the styles of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jerry Herman. For its plot, "Musical of Musicals," which originally opened off-Broadway in 2003 and had another run there in 2004, borrows from a classic melodrama plot to frame this tour through Broadway musicals. "When we decided this is the show we were going to write," we thought it's got to be a very simple plot without too many details," said Joanne Bogart, who not only performs in the show, but who also wrote the lyrics for composer Eric Rockwell's original music.
Broadway producers sue strikers
SEVERAL Broadway producers sued striking stagehands for $US35 million ($39.2 million) and a New York judge today separately ordered a theatre to allow Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical to reopen. Producers of nine shows sued members of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and its president James Claffey Jr in Manhattan federal court seeking to recover damages for lost revenues. The League of American Theatres and Producers has said the strike that has darkened some 25 productions since November 10 is costing a total of about $US17 million ($19 million) for every day it lasts. The producers in the lawsuit, which was filed late yesterday, are part of the long-running shows Wicked, Hairspray, The Drowsy Chaperone, Rent, and The Lion King and newer shows Grease, Legally Blonde, Cyrano De Bergerac and The Little Mermaid.
Novmeber 20: Entertainment History
On November 20, 1966, the musical "Cabaret" opened on Broadway.
In 1970, Kinks singer Ray Davies re-recorded one word for the single "Apeman." The song contained the word "foggin'," which sounded too much like an expletive.
In 1973, Who drummer Keith Moon collapsed twice during a concert in San Francisco, apparently because of jet lag. Guitarist Pete Townshend asked for a volunteer from the audience to finish the set; and got one.
In 1983, an estimated 100 million people watched the controversial ABC movie "The Day After," which depicted the outbreak of nuclear war.
In 1990, the two performers known as Milli Vanilli held a press conference to discuss the lip-synching scandal that cost them their Grammy. Rob Pilatus told kids to get a good lawyer if they want to get into show business.
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