Broadway’s award show — the Tony telecast — is a pretty dorky affair enjoyed by about 12 theater geeks and ignored by everybody else.
Musicals that appear on the Tonys get a lift at the box office. But the pop, as any producer will tell you, is nothing like it was back when the Tonys was considered the Rolls-Royce of awards shows.
(The Toyota of awards shows seems more accurate now.)
So smart producers are always pushing to get their musicals on highly rated TV shows — “The Late Show,” “Oprah,” “Today,” “The View,” “Theater Talk” (wink, wink).
But “American Idiot,” the new musical from Green Day, hit the jackpot Sunday night with a strong appearance on the Grammys (viewership: 26.6 million).
Jennifer Lopez plugged the musical, which begins performances in March at the St. James, and the cast joined Billie Joe Armstrong to sing “21 Guns.”
And the cash register rang.
By the end of the night, “American Idiot” had sold nearly $1 million worth of tickets. Sales have been strong through the week, sources say, and the musical is beginning to show real hit potential.
It certainly helps that Green Day is behind the show. Armstrong, I’m told, insisted the cast appear with him on the Grammys.
Contrast Green Day’s smart and aggressive promotion of “American Idiot” with the rather tepid support Jay-Z and Will Smith are giving “Fela!”
The hip-hop mogul and the movie star are co-producers of the show and, let’s not kid ourselves, they weren’t brought on board because they know how to fix a second act. Their job is to talk up “Fela!” at public appearances. But so far, they’ve been pretty quiet on the subject.
Jay-Z was on the Grammys, but the words, “Come see ‘Fela!’ — my exciting new Broadway show at the Eugene O’Neill,” didn’t pass his lips.
And I’m sure that if he insisted the “Fela!” cast do a number on the show, ticket sales would have gone through the roof.
“Fela!” — a good show that deserves a long run — is showing signs of life at the box office, but it could use a Green Day-like push, especially in the spring when it will square off against “American Idiot” for audiences and awards.
So, Jay-Z, as they say in the hip-hop world, straighten up and fly right. Green Day’s got the edge.
DAVID Brown, the dapper and delight ful movie and theater producer, died this week at age 93.
His Hollywood credits are legendary: “Jaws,” “The Sting,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Verdict.” On Broadway, he produced the entertaining “Tru,” a one-man play about Truman Capote, and the mediocre “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”
He also produced a flop that should have been a hit: “Sweet Smell of Success,” about the power-mad gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker.
I had a lot of J.J.-like fun with that show, chronicling its woes out of town and tearing it apart when it opened on Broadway in 2002.
After one especially nasty column, Brown sent me a letter.
“I’ve never heard of you, Mr. Riedel, and I doubt that you could write a play, much less critique one,” he wrote. “You have not yet mastered the art of writing a column.
“I’ve seen you and your kind through the years. You have the life span of a gnat. As Walter Winchell used to say, ‘Be nice to people you meet on the way up — they’re the ones you meet on the way down.’
“However, this doesn’t apply to you, as you are definitely not on the way up.”
(Truer words were never spoken.)
I printed the letter in my column, and the next day Brown called to say, “My phone is ringing off the hook. I haven’t had this much attention since my last Oscar nomination!”
We had lunch, lots of laughs and a good bottle of wine.
He was a class act all the way.