B’WAY’S BIG BROTHER
George Orwell’s dystopia ‘1984’ comes to NYC in June
Ihave no idea why, but in this era of Make America Great Again, sales of George Orwell’s “1984” have skyrocketed. The book, first published in 1949, is topping best-seller lists at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Publisher’s Weekly and USA Today. More than 50,000 print copies have been sold since Election Day.
A couple of shrewd producers — Scott Ru
din and Sonia Friedman — have taken note of the book’s popularity and are bringing an acclaimed British stage adaptation of it to Broadway.
“1984” will open June 22 at the Hudson Theatre on West 44th Street, making it the first entry in the 2017-2018 theater season.
Created by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, “1984” toured to sold-out houses — and rave reviews — throughout England after opening in 2014. The production featured a giant video wall from which Big Brother looked down on his party members to make sure no one was committing “thought crimes.”
The lighting, sound and video design “both shock the senses and achieve swift transitions between past, present and future,” Michael Billington wrote in the Guardian. Other critics compared the production to movies by Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. The designers are Natasha Chivers (lighting), Tom Gibbons (sound) and Tim Reid (video). The show, which will have a limited run through the summer, will feature an all-American cast.
There have been several film adaptations of “1984,” including the acclaimed movie (released in the US in 1985) with the late John Hurt. And Orwell’s “Animal Farm” was adapted for the stage by Peter Hall and had a haunting score by Richard Peaslee and Adrian Mitchell.
But “Animal Farm” never made it to Broadway.
We know Vice President Mike Pence likes the theater. He gave a thumbs up to “Hamilton” right after the election. I bet he can snag a house seat or two to “1984” at the Hudson this summer.
War is peace, baby!
C ONGRATULATIONS to Daniel Zaitchik and Lisa Kron, this year’s winners of the Kleban Prize for musical theater. Zaitchik, whose shows include “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” won for most promising musicaltheater lyricist. Kron, who wrote “Fun Home,” won for most promising bookwriter.
The $100,000 prize is named for Ed Kleban, who wrote the lyrics to “A Chorus Line.” Kleban was nearly broke when “A Chorus Line” took off in 1975. Before the show opened, he scribbled, in a yearbook for his highschool reunion, “Occupation: Failure.” Kleban died of throat cancer in 1987.
The Kleban Prize will be handed out Monday at ASCAP in Midtown. Sheldon Harnick, Richard Maltby Jr. and Maury Yeston will be on hand to congratulate the winners. love an old-fashioned publicity stunt, and nobody’s better at it these days than Broadway p.r. czar Rick Miramontez. His latest gimmick is the “unwrapping” of the Broadway box office for “Present Laughter,” starring Kevin Kline.
The box office of the St. James Theatre was wrapped up Thursday and scheduled to be unwrapped Friday, when tickets go on sale for the Noël Coward revival. Leave it to Miramontez to take a ribboncutting ceremony to a whole new level. I think Noël would be “very amused.”