‘I’M hanging my head in shame,” says Eric Fellner, producer of this season’s most anticipated musical, “Billy Elliot.”
“I’ve been horrified from the minute it happened.”
Fellner, the head of Working Title Films, which made the movie that inspired the show, is talking about the technical glitches – well, to be honest, disasters – that have rattled the $20 million musical this past week.
“Billy Elliot” began previews Oct. 1 and is scheduled to open Nov. 13.
At a performance last weekend, the set broke down five times. The fifth time, the audience started booing. Director Stephen Daldry leapt up onstage and told the crowd that he would personally see to it that everyone in the theater that night would have a chance to see the show again.
Cheers all around.
But the gremlins struck again Tuesday, when a hydraulic valve broke, forcing the cancellation of the performance.
“We’ve done thousands of shows [in London and Australia], and we’ve never lost one,” says Fellner. “It’s one thing to lose a show to inexperience or stupid human error. But the f – – – ing valve? The one piece of equipment that was meant to never break down? Horrendous.”
Fellner’s negotiating with the unions to put an extra show in the weekly schedule at some point, to be set aside for anybody with a ticket to the canceled performance.
“We will spend whatever we have to to make our customers happy,” he says. “I hate the idea of having people leave the show in a negative frame of mind.”
THERE’S a little war brewing between Dolly Parton and The Roundabout Theatre Company.
Dolly’s musical “9 to 5” delayed its opening night to April 30, the same day the Roundabout has reserved for “Waiting for Godot,” starring Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane.
What’s the big deal?
Well, Broadway tradition holds that no two shows bow the same night; that way, they won’t compete for media attention.
The Roundabout reserved the date several months ago, but for a different show: “Dancin’ ,” which has been scrapped for “Godot.”
But “9 to 5” has run into difficulties. The set was a technical nightmare (a theme runs through this column today) in Los Angeles, and the show needs as much time as possible to deal with glitches in New York.
“9 to 5” also had to delay moving into the Marquis Theater due to Nederlander family politics.
James Nederlander, owner of the Marquis, is slipping a Chinese circus into the theater for a limited run in the spring, thus upsetting the “9 to 5” schedule. He’s doing this because his brother Robert is running around China (he must be tired, it’s so big), trying to set up Broadway shows there.
“Robert’s got to keep the Chinese happy,” one source says. “So Jimmy’s stuck with a bunch of acrobats for a few weeks.”
The Roundabout isn’t pleased that Dolly’s muscling in on its territory. “We’re rather taken aback,” says a spokesman. “But we plan to use the date.”
But if the Roundabout wants a fight with Dolly, she’ll have allies. Commercial producers, already annoyed about competing with nonprofits for Tony Awards, are also irked that the institutions can snap up as many opening dates as they want – even if they’ve yet to announce their lineup.
“We only get a date when we have a show,” a producer fumes. “They can block out whatever dates they want and then come up with the show.”
Says another producer: “If they press this, there will be a fight. And their place at the Tony Awards will be part of it.”
This all sounds like good fun to me. Can I referee?