WHILE big-budget musicals may be on the wane in this tricky economy, straight plays (with stars) are rolling off the assembly line.
Thirteen comedies and dramas are scheduled to open on Broadway by April 30, the cutoff date for this year’s Tony Awards.
And now comes word that yet another is trying to slip in under the wire: a revival of Dario Fo‘s political thriller “Accidental Death of an Anarchist.”
The box-office draw here will be Eddie Izzard, the British comedian (“The Riches”) and transvestite who was nominated for a Tony several years ago in the Roundabout’s revival of “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.”
British producer John Gore has been poking around the Cort, hoping to snap up the theater when Will Ferrell packs up next month.
Gore is still shopping for a director as well as a writer to adapt the play, which is in Italian. One person who comes to mind is David Hare, who knows his way around political theater.
He’s fast and efficient, and is probably Gore’s best bet to pull this production together in time.
Written in 1970, “Anarchist” was inspired by the real-life death – murder, probably – of an anarchist who was arrested following the bombing of a bank in Milan. The play’s satiric attacks on quasi-fascist governments and police brutality have made it a perennial favorite with lefties.
It opened at the Belasco in 1984. But despite a cast that included Jonathan Pryce, Patti LuPone and Bill Irwin, it ran just 15 performances.
Critics blamed Richard Nelson‘s adaptation, complaining it was full of distracting topical references to American politics.
So keep it Italian, Eddie.
I bet you look great in Dolce and Gabbana.
‘ENTER Laughing,” a sweet, old-fashioned and very funny musical by bookwriter Joe Stein, has reopened at the York Theatre, where it’s running until March 8.
The show is based on Carl Reiner‘s delightful memoir of his journey from The Bronx to showbiz.
Musical comedy buffs know it’s a reworking of the 1976 Broadway flop “So Long, 174th Street,” starring Robert Morse.
“Bobby’s a very good actor, but he was 45 at the time and he was playing an 18-year-old boy,” recalls Stein, who also wrote “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“It didn’t work. We all knew it didn’t work, but the producers insisted on a star, so we were stuck with Bobby.”
Composer-lyricist Stan Daniels, who died a few years ago, was so upset at its failure that he fled to Hollywood, where he wound up writing “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Taxi.”
“Stan ran away, but I stayed in New York writing plays and musicals,” says Stein. “I was sufficiently successful to make a decent living. That little item called ‘Fiddler’ helped. That keeps the wolf away from many doors.”
‘NEXT to Normal,” a musical about a woman battling a bipolar disorder, will open at the Longacre in April.
The show was done last year at Second Stage, where it received mixed reviews. But instead of abandoning it, producer David Stone took it to Washington, DC, where, after some significant retooling, it got a glowing review from Peter Marks in the Washington Post.
This is an unorthodox route to Broadway, but Stone’s got the money to experiment. He produced a little item called “Wicked,” which also “keeps the wolf away from many doors.”