The best drama is in the court
W HO knew “Rebecca,” the musical at the center of a civil trial now playing at the New York State Supreme Court Theater, was the next “Phantom of the Opera”? Lawyers for “Rebecca” producers Ben Sprecher and
Louise Forlenza suggested as much, as they spoke of their show’s success “throughout Europe and Asia.”
Sprecher and Forlenza are suing the show’s press agent, Marc Thibodeau, for scuttling the $12 million “Rebecca.” After Thibodeau sent anonymous e-mails to a potential investor, warning about fraud and “phantom” investors, the investor fled — and “Rebecca” collapsed.
Thibodeau was onto something — the man who invented their phantom investor is now in jail — but Sprecher and Forlenza say they could have saved the show if Thibodeau hadn’t “demolished” their efforts with e-mails. They’re suing him for more than $10 million in damages, and to make their case, they’re trying to show that “Rebecca” was a potential blockbuster.
But as I recall, during the 2012-13 season, “Rebecca” wasn’t being compared to “Phantom” and “Mamma Mia!” but with the fiasco that was “Dance of the Vampires.” “Rebecca” was in that camp: Eurotrash that may have gone over in a theater full of beer-swilling Germans from Stuttgart, but was likely to be savaged on Broadway. There, theater people were paying much more attention to two other shows: “Matilda” and “Kinky Boots,” which went on to win the 2013 Tony.
“Rebecca” made headlines only when it was enveloped in scandal.
Michael Kunze, who wrote the book and lyrics, also wrote “Dance of the Vampires.” Composer Sylvester
Levay’s claim to fame was the song “Fly, Robin, Fly,” which topped the US charts in . . . 1975. Rodgers & Hammerstein, they’re not.
Much was made Monday of the Shubert Organization’s $500,000 investment in “Rebecca,” as if that were the Shubert Seal of Approval. But the Shuberts scatter money all over the place, as do Broadway’s other landlords, the Nederlanders and Jujamcyn.
In court the other day, Karen Mason, who was to play Mrs. Danvers in “Rebecca,” was asked if she could name another show that was a hit somewhere else before it came to Broadway. She said, “Mamma Mia!,” and that’s true.
But “Mamma Mia!” was a hit in London. Not Vienna, or Budapest or Bucharest. Those cities, where “Rebecca” ran, aren’t pipelines to Broadway.
“Rebecca” never played London. A production was canceled there, the New York Times reported in 2012, due to financial and technical difficulties.
A bit of news that emerged in court this week is that Sprecher and Forlenza no longer have the rights to “Rebecca,” making a Broadway production unlikely.
But Europe beckons! “Dance of the Vampires” ran two years in Oberhausen, Germany.
That’s probably where “Rebecca” belongs.