Broadway to serve up a Margarita-thrill
JIMMY Buffett says he was going to be on Broadway one way or another because of his mother. “She was the Southern version of Auntie Mame,” Buffett says, “and she made me audition for ‘South Pacific’ in Mobile, [Ala.,] because she was playing Bloody Mary, and I was supposed to be Emile de Becque’s son. But I ran out to play baseball, so it didn’t happen.”
But it’s happening now.
“Escape to Margaritaville,” a musical inspired by Buffett’s songs, starts previews at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre in February.
It’s been playing out of town in New Orleans, Houston and San Diego, and Buffett fans, in Hawaiian shirts, are going nuts.
As Page Six reported, the opening-night party in New Orleans got so wild that sheriffs had to close it down at 2 a.m.
The 70-year-old Buffett is having so much fun with the show that he often appears at the curtain call to sing “Margaritaville.” When he plays concerts, his fans have tailgating parties in the parking lot.
The Nederlanders, who own the Marquis, are trying to figure out a way to allow tailgating on West 46th Street.
If they do, I suspect Buffett will pop up from time to time with his guitar to entertain the crowds.
“Fortunately, I’ve got this good- will from people who’ve loved my songs for 40 years,” he says, “and it’s important to me that we’ve given them a good foundation in this show.” Directed by Christopher Ash
ley, who won the Tony for “Come From Away,” “Margaritaville” tells the story of Tully, a singer and bartender who works at a hotel on a Caribbean island. Cruise ships come in and hordes of tourists keep the island afloat. Tully has a lot of fun with all the girls until one bewitches him, and his life will never be the same again.
There are shades of “Mamma Mia!” here, and as one production source says, “the audiences are jumping up and singing along, and they’ve had a few margaritas under their belts, so that helps!”
A few snooty critics have fallen under its spell. Charles McNulty, of the Los Angeles Times, wrote: “I have a sworn obligation . . . to give it to you straight: I had a good time . . . The show’s secret, I suspect, lies in the songwriting brilliance of Buffett, whose music offers a holiday from the rules and restraints of everyday life.”
Buffet knows that’s what his songs are about — people who run away from the pressures of life, only to learn that they can’t escape from themselves.
“You’re running from something,” he says about the main character in his show, “until a girl comes out of nowhere and you can’t run anymore.”
Buffett, as his mother might say, ran from Broadway when he went out to play baseball.
But now he’s here, and has folded himself nicely into the Broadway scene.
The alleyway by the Marquis Theatre was named Jimmy Nederlander Way on Wednesday, in a nod to the great late producer and theater owner. Bette Midler was there, and so was Buffett.
“My mother, who loved Broadway so much,” he says, “would have loved this.”