Judging from his salary demands, Harry Connick Jr. must think he’s Nathan Lane.
The crooner from New Orleans, who got his start in New York playing the piano at Chez Josephine, could pull in more than $100,000 a week in the upcoming revival of “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” production sources say.
His deal is based on a weekly salary guarantee, plus a hefty percentage of the box-office receipts.
A hundred grand or more a week is the going rate for musical-comedy superstars. It’s what Lane and Matthew Broderick got in “The Producers,” what Lane got in “The Addams Family” (and he earned every penny) and what Hugh Jackman got in “The Boy From Oz.” I hear Daniel Radcliffe, who works his tail off in “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” is in that club as well.
Curiously, it’s an all-male club. Catherine Zeta-Jones (“A Little Night Music”) and Kristin Chenoweth (“Promises, Promises”) are thought to be the biggest female stars in musical theater right now, but neither broke the $100,000 threshold last season.
“I don’t think it’s a male-female thing,” says a veteran producer. “It’s just that there are more male stars working in musicals right now. We know Amy Adams can sing. If she does a big musical on Broadway, she’s going to get that kind of money.”
Connick has actually upped the ante. For $100,000 a week, most stars agree to at least a yearlong run. But Connick is giving the backers of “On a Clear Day,” which opens in December at the St. James, just 7½ months.
There’s some grumbling that the recoupment schedule is cutting it close.
“He’s a big star, and they’re lucky to have him,” says a theater source. “If the show is a hit, they should be able to recoup. But there’s not a lot of wiggle room.”
Connick was a draw in “The Pajama Game” in 2006. But that revival opened to rave reviews and won a Tony. The mark of the true Broadway star is that he sells tickets despite the critics — Lane in “The Addams Family,” Jackman in “The Boy From Oz,” Radcliffe in “How To Succeed.”
“On a Clear Day,” which bowed on Broadway in 1965, is by no means a critical favorite. It has a gorgeous score, by Burton Lane, but the script, by Alan Jay Lerner, who was pretty doped up at the time, is a mess. It tells the story of a nutty young woman with ESP who hears voices.
The show’s been extensively reworked by playwright Peter Parnell, with some smart input from director Michael Mayer. Their version, which had a gender-bending twist, was performed last summer at Vassar College.
Was it perfect? Not from what I heard. But it was much more coherent than the original, and the script no longer got in the way of those glorious tunes — “Melinda,” “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here,” “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have” and the famous title song.
The producers have yet to cast a leading lady to play opposite Connick. At Vassar, the role was played by Anika Noni Rose, who’s moved on to other things.
My choice would be the wonderful Montego Glover, who makes “Memphis” bearable.
She’s not a household name yet, so she won’t get $100,000 a week. But she’s such a winning performer, she’ll go a long way toward helping Connick get his.