Billy Crystal’s ‘Mr. Saturday Night’ musical scores early buzz
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So few theaters, so many shows: The behind-the-scenes scrambling for Broadway theaters is more compelling than most of what’s happening in those theaters right now.
Here’s what I know, mixed in with what I suspect:
“The Lehman Trilogy,” the sensational play about the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers’ empire, is going to the Nederlander Theatre in the fall. Directed by Sam Mendes, the show ran just a handful of sold-out performances at the Park Avenue Armory last spring. Starring the great Simon Russell Beale, the production opens in the fall.
When it moves out, “Mr. Saturday Night” moves in. This is Billy Crystal’s musical. He co-wrote it and he’s going to star in it.
Broadway seduced Crystal when he did his “700 Sundays” here in 2004. He won a special Tony Award for it, and brought it back for a couple of months at the Imperial in 2013.
I have a bone, a cracked one, to pick with Crystal: I slipped and fell a few days before I saw the show the second time around. I had a cracked rib, and the pain was excruciating, especially when I laughed. Crystal kept making me laugh. Despite the pain, it was one of the best nights I’ve had in the theater.
Word on the street is that “Mr. Saturday Night,” with a score by Jason Robert Brown and Amanda Green, is terrific. The Nederlanders are producing. I’m not going skiing before I see it.
“Beetlejuice,” which everyone thought was squished after it opened last spring to mostly dreadful reviews, has shown surprising resiliency during the tourist-driven summer. Its producers, cheered by their summer grosses, think it could be the next “Cats.” Well, I hate to disappoint them, but “Beetlejuice” isn’t “Cats.” The Shuberts, who own the Winter Garden, have told “Beetlejuice” it has to vacate in the spring to make way for Hugh Jackman and his 76 trombones in “The Music Man,” which will open next fall. But the Beetlejuicers think their show has legs — six of them — and they’re trying to cut a deal with the Shuberts to move the show to another theater. For their sake, I hope Hugh doesn’t decide to do “La Cage aux Folles” one day at whatever theater they wind up in.
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Last season’s best musical, “Tootsie,” is, I’m sad to say, struggling at the Marriott Marquis. “Tootsie” should have won the Tony for Best Musical, but lost to “Hadestown” and hasn’t recovered. Its producers are fighting valiantly to keep it going, but the Marquis could be on the market. There’s a terrific revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in London right now, and I’m hearing that if “Tootsie” closes at the end of the year, “Joseph” could open at the Marquis in the spring.
Meanwhile, Lloyd Webber’s new “Cinderella,” a modern adaptation of the famous fairy tale, is coming to Broadway next fall. It’s going to the Shubert, where Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” has grossed $90 million. That play is such a hit that its producer Scott Rudin is cutting a deal with the Shuberts to move it to another theater.
Rudin, by the way, is the producer of “Cinderella.” Which means the two most powerful men in the theater are teaming up for the first time. This is going to be fun. I hear they’re getting along, but some of us on the sidelines are waiting for Andrew to pull his score and Scott to throw his cellphone.
Stephen Sondheim has two shows coming this season: a revival of “West Side Story” and a revival of “Company.” Patti (“No pictures!”) LuPone is playing the brittle old drunk who sings “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the role made famous by Elaine Stritch.
The producers wanted Anne Hathaway to play Bobby — make that Bobbie, in this gender-switching production — but the “Les Misérables” star is expecting her second child. Tony winner Katrina Lenk from “The Band’s Visit” will play Bobbie instead.
That’s all I know right now. Let’s see how much of it turns out to be true.
Hear Michael Riedel weekdays on “Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning” on WOR Radio 710.
