Bruce Springsteen fans eagerly await ticket information for his gig this fall at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre. I know, because not a day goes by when I don’t hear from them.
Sources say that Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns the Kerr, is getting a little nervous: The company passed on some plays to make room for the Boss and would like to get things rolling. But Springsteen, 67, seems to be in no rush to make his Broadway debut. He’s putting together his act and will make an official announcement when he’s good and ready.
“It’s not like he needs to crank up the publicity,” one source says. “I think tickets will sell out in about 30 seconds.”
As The Post reported in June, Springsteen plans to perform five shows a week for eight weeks. He wants to appear in a cozy setting — the Kerr has just 975 seats — as opposed to the huge arenas he sells out all over the world.
His show, sources say, will reflect the intimacy of the Kerr. He’ll be reading from “Born To Run,” his best-selling memoir, and picking up his guitar from time to time to illustrate a point or a moment from his life with one of his songs. (Sounds like an evening at the 92nd Street Y to me.)
There may not even be a backup band, but if there is, a source says, “it will be very small.”
“Born To Run” won raves from book critics. It’s an unvarnished, often painful, account of his troubled childhood. His father was a heavy drinker who suffered from depression. One night, when he threatened Springsteen’s mother, the Boss hit him with a baseball bat. His dad just laughed.
Anecdotes like that could make for a compelling evening, though the Boss should practice his delivery. And he might consult a few theater pros to help him shape the show.
I’d nominate Doug McGrath, who wrote “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” and Lonny Price, who’s staged a number of acclaimed Broadway concerts. Both are fast and work well with big stars.
We don’t want the Boss wandering around up there, riffing. A Broadway show needs to be tight and bright, not four hours long. The stagehands would be happy — overtime, baby! — but there’d go the profits.
Good reviews are coming down from the Berkshire Theatre Group’s revival of Mark Medoff’s “Children of a Lesser God.” Broadway’s theater owners have seen it, and producer Hal Luftig is waiting to hear what house he’s going to get for the show in the spring.
The leads — Joshua Jackson of “The Affair” and Lauren Ridloff, a former Miss Deaf America — have palpable chemistry, and have signed up for the Broadway production.
Jackson, as Page Six reported, is causing a stir in Pittsfield, Mass. When he goes food shopping, women chase him down the aisles.
I’d trust New Yorkers shopping at Fairway to be a little more discreet.
While we’re up at the Berkshires, congratulations to Tina Packer, whose production of “Cymbeline” at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., is selling out. Packer has now directed all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays. That’s something legendary British directors Peter Hall and Trevor Nunn have yet to pull off, though Nunn is closing in. He’s got five or six more to go and said in a recent interview he wants to direct them all “before I hang up my boots.”
Correction: “Hood: The Robin Hood Musical Adventure,” now running in Dallas, in fact had its world premiere at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York two years ago. As Maid Marian might say, students there performed it to a fare-thee-well.