Michael Riedel

Michael Riedel

Entertainment

‘Shining’ parody will be sleeper hit if it ever makes it to the stage

Stephen King hasn’t had much luck with the stage versions of his thrillers.

“Carrie” is the gold standard of disasters, a 1988 debacle that inspired Ken Mandelbaum’s classic “Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Musical Flops.”

An off-Broadway revival two years ago did, however, show that Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford’s score contains some good songs and one knockout — “When There’s No One.” The production also inspired Lawrence Cohen, who wrote the script, to work on a memoir about it. I’ve heard many of Cohen’s stories, and his book, “What Were They Thinking?,” due out in April, promises to be great fun.

King teamed up a few years ago with John Mellencamp to write an original musical thriller called “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.” The show premiered last year in Atlanta to tepid reviews and has all but disappeared from the Theatrical Index, which keeps track of New York-bound productions.

So maybe it’s time for King to let an unauthorized version of one of his books wend its way to the stage.

As it happens, there was a reading of one last week at the Shetler Studios in New York. “Redrum” is billed as a parody of “The Shining,” perhaps King’s best book. It attracted some attention last year when the creators — writer Joe Lovero and composer Jon Hugo Ungar — made a short film they posted on YouTube. Marc Kudisch plays Jack Torrance with more ham than you’ll find in Faicco’s Pork Store, but he’s hilarious.

Some Broadway producers saw the video and encouraged the creators to write a full-length musical.

Nobody’s quite sure how King will react, though because it’s a parody, it’s probably protected by the First Amendment. But just to be safe, the reading was a closed-door affair. A spy filled me in:

“Just attended the ‘Redrum’ reading, and it is excellent. Kudisch, of course, hammed it up in the Jack Nicholson part, and Alice Ripley shined in the Shelley Duvall role. She had a song in the second act that literally stopped the reading. Music is amazing, and the book is hilarious.”

My spy also praised Andre Ward as Dick Hallorann — the wonderful Scatman Crothers in the movie — who gets an ax in his chest. The creators of the musical have turned the character into a song-and-dance man.

My spy concluded: “I think if this goes forward, it has sleeper hit written all over it.”

Time, I think, for someone from the team to make the pilgrimage to Bangor, Maine, to meet with King himself.

A few minor corrections to my column last week on Glenn Close returning to Broadway in Edward Albee’s “A Delicate Balance”:

  • I suggested Close should play the role of Claire, the alcoholic. In fact, she’ll be playing the lead — Claire’s sister, Agnes, a brittle, tough, cruel woman. I probably thought Claire was the bigger part because I vividly remember Elaine Stritch’s performance in the Tony-winning 1996 revival. Rosemary Harris played Agnes and was damn good — but Claire’s the flashier part.
  • I also reported that the director would be Simon McBurney. In fact, it will be Pam MacKinnon, who directed the excellent revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” last season.

Other than that, the article was 100 percent accurate!