“Pippin” — Stephen Schwartz‘s perennially popular and tuneful 1972 musical — is headed back to Broadway.
The production will be directed by Diane Paulus, who was nominated for a Tony for “Hair” last year, and will feature, as the wandering troupe of actors, Sept Doigts (“Seven Fingers”), a Montreal-based company of sexy young jugglers and acrobats.
“They’re a lot sexier than those rope climbers they’ve got over there at
‘Spider-Man,’ ” a source snickers.
A reading of the show, which will be produced by Fran and Barry Weissler, was held this week. It starred Gavin Creel as Pippin, Natalie Cortez as Catherine, Jayne Houdyshell as the Old Lady and, in a gender-bending twist, Tracie Thomas as the Leading Player, a role made famous by the great Ben Vereen in white gloves and black bowler.
My spies say the musical, which was originally directed by Bob Fosse, is still fun, especially the opening number, “Magic To Do.”
(I’m partial to “Love Song,” one of Schwartz’s prettiest tunes. John Rubinstein and a young Jill Clayburgh, who died two weeks ago, sang it in the original production.)
“It did kind of take me back to a time when people knew how to write melodies,” an agent says. “Stephen’s one of the last of the real Broadway songwriters.”
Schwartz is enjoying a renaissance on Broadway with the runaway success of “Wicked,” which last week grossed $1.5 million after seven years.
In addition to “Pippin,” a Broadway revival of “Godspell” is in the works. And a new production of “Rags,” for which Schwartz wrote the lyrics, is set for this summer in Dallas and has New York ambitions.
The book to “Pippin” may be a little dated, with its hippie, communal feel. But sources say Roger O. Hirson is going to tweak his script for the new production.
The plan is to do a workshop in New York next year and then a full-scale production at ART in Cambridge, Mass., where Paulus is artistic director. The show will open on Broadway in the 2012-2013 season.
“We are a ways off due to scheduling issues,” Barry Weissler said yesterday. “But we’re 100 percent behind it. And Sept Doigts is going to knock you out. They are amazing.”
IT’S the end of an era.
John Simon, the last of the celebrity drama critics, has been let go from Bloomberg Muse.
Simon, 85, had been there since 2005, when he was cut loose from New York magazine after 36 years.
Bloomberg says Simon is “retiring,” but the critic disputes that: “I am not retiring. I have been dismissed. I am available for work.”
In the meantime, he’s off to the Galapagos Islands today. It’s a trip Simon, a nature lover, has wanted to make all his life.
“I’m going to the Galapagos to check out the voice of the turtle and the night of the iguana,” he says.
Jeremy Gerard and Manuela Hoelterhoff will cover major productions for Bloomberg now that Simon’s gone.
Simon was the dean of the New York Drama Critics Circle, an organization that’s been shrinking as longstanding critics have either died or been laid off.
“Who’s left at the Drama Critics, for God’s sake?” wonders Jacques le Sourd, who lost his job at Gannett Newspapers after 35 years. “Old newspaper critics used to get a certain amount of respect. Now we’re tossed onto the slag heap in the alley like old computer monitors. We’re obsolete equipment.”
Le Sourd, who now reviews for CBS Radio, laughingly says ex-members of the Drama Critics Circle should open a stall next to the TKTS booth in Times Square.
“We’ll be like Lucy and her five-cents psychiatric booth,” he says of the Peanuts character. “For $5, we’ll give you a three-sentence review of whatever show you’re thinking of going to.
“I do think the public still wants guidance from real critics, nattily dressed, opinions pithily expressed. Cash on the barrelhead, please. No credit cards.”