GIVEN all the intrigue, back-stabbing and busted friendships surrounding “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” a better title for the new Harry Connick Jr. musical might be “Nice Dish If You Can Get It.”
Well, I did, so let’s fling it around.
The $10 million musical, which is scheduled to open on Broadway next winter, may be fatally derailed now that its director and choreographer, Tony-winner Kathleen Marshall, has quit the production.
And she’s not alone.
Also bailing are set designer Derek McLane, producers Tom Hulce and Emanuel Azenberg,and Azenberg’s producer-trainee Ira Pittelman.
The mass exodus was triggered by a bitter feud between Connick’s longtime manager, Ann Marie Wilkins, and his agent, Scott Landis.
The villain in all of this is unclear.
Some point the finger at Wilkins, a tough-minded “control freak” who’s looked after Connick’s career since he was a teenager and who, sources say, was reluctant to share power with her co-producers.
But others say Landis alienated Wilkins and Connick by carrying on like a big-shot producer while trying to carve out a large chunk of the show for himself.
“Scott thought he was more powerful than he was,” says a source.
That may be because Marshall is Landis’ live-in girlfriend.
Despite that relationship, Wilkins and Connick booted Landis from the show last week, sources say.
Marshall immediately resigned, taking most of her creative team with her.
Azenberg and his band of producers quit out of loyalty to Landis and Marshall.
Landis declined to comment, saying only that he wishes Connick and Wilkins “all the best with the show. It’s a great project.”
Wilkins said: “I personally don’t talk to the press.”
A spokesman for the show says “Nice Work If You Can Get It” – which has a score by George and Ira Gershwin – is still on track for Broadway in February. The hunt is on, the spokesman adds, for a new director and choreographer.
But many theater people think Marshall’s resignation may have dealt the show a lethal blow, largely because she and Connick have such great chemistry as collaborators.
Marshall staged the Tony-winning revival of “The Pajama Game,” which made Connick a bona fide Broadway star, second only to Hugh Jackman as the musical theater’s most sought-after leading man.
“Harry is a terrific performer, but it was Kathleen who made him a Broadway star,” says a source close to the director.
“Nice Work If You Can Get It” certainly needs a director of Marshall’s caliber (her work in the wretched “Grease” notwithstanding).
Sources who saw a workshop of the show a few weeks ago say that right now it’s a pale imitation of “Crazy For You,” the 1992 Tony-winning hit that also was fashioned from the Gershwin catalog.
“There’s tons of work to be done on the book,” a source says. “And it’s really just fluff anyway. They’d better find someone who can make all that fluff charming and fun.”
Money is no object, since the new backer of “Nice Work If You Can Get It” is John Gore, a British impresario who recently shelled out nearly $100 million for a bunch of theaters around America.
Sources say he’s willing to plunk a lot of money into “Nice Work If You Can Get It” because he believes that, with Connick above the title, the show can’t miss.
One cynic still attached to the production says: “Put him at the piano and you can sell the thing out for a year. You don’t need Kathleen Marshall for that.”