Dylan goes north
Public Theater is moving its hit to Broadway, although not into the theater it hoped to get
‘GIRL From the North Country,” the brooding musical fashioned around Bob Dylan songs, is moving to Broadway this season, but not to the theater it wanted.
The producers of the show, which virtually sold out at the Public Theater, believed they had a deal for the intimate (975-seat) Walter Kerr, where Bruce Springsteen wraps up his sensational show on Dec. 15.
But at the last minute, Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns the Kerr, grabbed another new musical instead: “Hadestown,” which opened to strong reviews in London.
The producers of “North Country” were “blindsided,” says a source. They scrambled to find a new theater — so many shows, so little real estate. And then “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical” said that its last dance will be Dec. 30 at the Lunt-Fontanne.
Sources say “North Country” is likely to play a six-month run at the Lunt before “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” moves there in the fall.
Commercial prospects for “North Country” are iffy: The show’s about depressed people during the Depression and is about as uplifting as a razor blade to the wrist.
But it’s a critics’ darling and will be a Tony contender.
Selling out the Lunt’s 1,500 or so seats would be tough, so the plan might be to close off the mezzanine, reducing capacity by one-third.
A national tour goes out next fall based on the belief that those Dylan songs will be a draw.
Commercial prospects for “Hadestown,” a modern retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, are by no means assured — the cost is nearly $12 million. But, like “North Country,” it will be showered with Tony nominations.
Both of these arty, ambitious shows should watch out for “Tootsie”: If the buzz from the tryout on the road is any indication, this musical has more to it than its famous movie title.
T HEproducer of “King Kong” has come out swinging against the New York Times.
Carmen Pavlovic, in a letter to theater editor Scott Heller, blasts the paper for reviewing her $35 million show in the form of a bitchy dialogue between critics Jesse Green and Ben Brantley.
She calls the dialogue “unintelligent” and “bilious,” a piece of “begrudging vomit.”
Her letter is ricocheting all over Shubert Alley — it ricocheted right to my inbox — and her fellow producers are cheering her on.
It’s bad enough to get a lousy notice. But to many people, seeing two critics merrily scratching out a show’s eyes comes off as piling on.
Pavlovic writes that she never expected a positive notice from the paper, and that she admired both critics’ individual reviews. But she says their dialogue on “Kong” came off as “schoolboyish” and “conceitedly entitled.”
She strongly objects that they spent more time discussing the intermission sales of the Kongopolitan (a king-size sippy cup of vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice and lime) than leading lady Christiani Pitts.
Word around Broadway is that the Times, worried that straightforward reviews don’t traffic well on the Web, is trying to get clicks by offering catty critical cruelty.
A Times spokesperson says: “Broadway show reviews do well with our audience, but we are also interested in experimenting with different formats, and this was one of those occasions. We stand by our review.”
You can hear Michael Riedel weekdays on “Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning” on WOR radio 710.