Issue #210: March 15, 2008

Read the Toronto Star article on Camp Broadway!!

• The Public Theater will stage a revival of Hair, starring Jonathan Groff, this summer from July 22 to August 17 in New York’s Central Park.

• It looks as if the novel Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin will be making its way to the stage in the 2009-10 season. The music will be penned by pop band Scissor Sisters with the producing team consisting of Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller of Rent fame.

• Paul Newman doesn’t know the word retire. On October 1 he will make his stage-directing debut with Of Mice and Men at Westport Country Playhouse in Conneticut.

• On May 11 the curtain will fall on the rock musical We Will Rock You in Toronto. After a respectable 488 consecutive performances the show will hit the road for a Canadian tour….dates and cities yet to be announced. The musical based on the music of Queen will have played to more than 700,000 people when it takes its final bow.

• The team that brought you Les Miz and Miss Saigon is back with their latest musical Marguerite. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schoenberg have written the book but have left the lyrics to Herbert Kretzmer and composing to Oscar winner Michel Legrand. Previews begin May 7 at Haymarket Theatre with opening night scheduled for May 20.

• The London run of Lord of the Rings will be wrapping up a 14-month engagement when they lower the curtain on July 19 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Although it fared much better than the Toronto run the musical never really did reach the potential the producers were hoping for.