Issue #133: July 1, 2004

• The new musical The Light in the Piazza by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas arrives spring of 2005 at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater.

• Cast members are signing up for the spring 2005 premiere of the London hit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Marc Kudisch is on board to play Baron Bomburst with Erin Dilly in the role of Truly Scrumptious.

• Kristin Chenoweth leaves her role as Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked when former Urinetown cast member Jennifer Laura Thompson takes the wand on July 20.

• The producers were hoping to run it through to September; however, Assassins will be getting out of town as of July 18.  Soft advance ticket sales cited as the culprit so the Roundabout Theater Company's artistic director Todd Haimes had to call it curtains for the Sondheim-Weidman musical.

• Local Toronto producer CanStage will be presenting Richard Greenberg's 2003 Tony Award-winning play Take Me Out in January 2005.

• Broadway vet Judy Kuhn plans to appear in the Signature Theater's new musical The Highest Yellow at Washington's Ford Theater next season.  Another Broadway fav Andrea Martin will slip into the roll of Dolly Levi in Thornton Wilder's classic The Matchmaker in September at the Ford Theater.  If you're a Martin fan you can catch her currently playing Serafina in The Rose Tattoo at the Huntington Theater in Boston.

• A 20-week national tour is set to hit the road September 2005 for William Gibson's Golda's Balcony.

• That little movie that could, Billy Elliot, is now Billy Elliot the Musical and is set to open in London next March.  The team staging the latest film to theatre project is practically the entire film contingent.  The producers, Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan, have had a hand in more than 70 films including Billy Elliot, Notting Hill and Fargo.  Sir Elton John is on board to write the music; with his previous stage successes (Lion King, Aida) we can expect a memorable score.

• The first New York Musical Theater Festival opens on September 13 and the organizers are hoping this festival will "do for musical theater what Sundance did for independent film."  Among the 18 entries receiving a showcase is the hugely popular Toronto production of Top Gun! The Musical.  This musical premiered at the 2002 Toronto Fringe Festival then made a commercial remount in Toronto in 2003.  The committee who chose the 18 entries included Cameron Mackintosh, Nathan Lane and John Lithgow.  Let's hope this new venture takes off and allows many well-deserved projects an opportunity to showcase their works for the producing community.  Then maybe we can finally get some new material on Broadway stages everywhere.