Charles Grippo

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THE BROADWAY DOLDRUMS
The months of January and February are always tough on the Broadway theater. After the Thanksgiving to Christmas tourist rush, grosses tend to drop off dramatically, until around March, when business starts to pick up again. And that's during good economic times. Unfortunately, every year a lot of marginally grossing shows can't survive the downturn and wind up closing.

But this year is turnng out to be especially brutal. On Sunday January 4, 2009, nine - that's right, folks, nine - shows all played their last performance. And in the next few weeks, another four are scheduled to close --- 13 shows in all, or about roughly half the number of shows up and down Broadway.
Some of these shows were limited runs, which had intended to close at this time all along --- like Irving Berlin's White Christmas and Liza's at the Palace. Others were long runs that had simply run their course, like Spamalot and Hairspray. But the recession has made victims of several others. And that's a shame.

OUCH! THIS HURTS!
More bad economic news (sorry): The American Musical Theatre of San Jose, California, has declared bankruptcy.

The North Shore Musical Theater of Beverly, Massachusetts, has laid off 57 employees and is teetering on the brink of cancelling its upcoming season. The theater has been hit on all sides by misfortune: a fire destroyed its auditorium in 2005; donations are down; and a production of High School Musical 2 for which it had high hopes, has sold only about 25% of its available tickets. I hope their luck turns around in time to save their season and re-hire the unfortunate 57.

The Carousel Dinner Theater in Akron, Ohio has closed suddenly after 35 years. Its executive producer Joseph Palmer blamed rising operating costs and declining ticket sales, in an interview with the Beacon Journal. In this case, the state's attorney general may get involved, because, allegedly, the theater was still selling tickets for 2009 performances only days before the operation folded.

MONEY TROUBLES EVERYWHERE
It's also getting tougher to raise money to capitalize new shows. Even a lot of well heeled investors, with a history of putting money into the theater, are hiding their checkbooks. As a result, several previously announced projects have been being postponed, and some may be cancelled altogether. And the rumors are flying that a number of other shows may not get on either.

The Public Theatre, however, has arranged for Producers Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel (Spring AwakeningHair to Broadway. It's been no secret the Public, and Producer Elizabeth I. McCann, had been struggling to raise the $6.5 million needed to open the show, which had gotten critical accalim in its incarnation last summer in a (free) production in Central Park. Richards and Frankel should help it complete the financing package. Ms. McCann remains with the project, but the Public has not made the full extent of her participation - well, public.

AMERICAN THEATRE WING LAUNCHES TALKS
The American Theatre Wing, which co-presents the annual Tony Awards, has launched an exciting new addition to its web site. In partnership with the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, it will make available on its website for streaming and download audio and video talks with such names as Jose Quintero, George C. Wolfe, Trevor Nunn, and Kathleen Marshall. Oh, and let's not forget a discussion between Daniel Sullivan and the late Wendy Wasserstein. Terrific idea, priceless material.

UPCOMING SHOWS
Is the theater ready for a sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera? If the success of the original is any indication, I guess so: world wide grosses totalling over $5 billion dollars, twenty two years in the West End of London and still running; twenty years on Broadway (making it the longest running show in Broadway history) and still going strong.

Lloyd Webber certainly thinks so because he's planning to premiere his sequel Phantom: Love Never Dies in late 2009. (Wanna bet the big ballad is called "Love Never Dies"?) Although Gaston Leroux himself wrote a sequel to his original Phantom of the Opera novel, the storyline for Lloyd Webber's sequel will be a new one, developed by Lloyd Webber, lyricist Glenn Slater, and director Jack O'Brien. In it, the Phantom travels to Coney Island, about ten years after the events of the first musical have taken place, in order to reunite with Christine.

Lloyd Webber plans to open three companies of the show simultaneously in the West End, Broadway, and in Asia (possibly Shanghai).

I've always liked the original Leroux novel, as well as the Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, and (especially)the Hammer Films movie versions. I didn't like the Lloyd Webber musical nor any of the nine competing Phantom musicals I've seen. So I can't say I'm looking forward to a sequel.

Now here's a musical I am looking forward to: Minsky's, which is getting its world premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. from January 21 through March 1, 2009. This is (very)loosely based on the wonderful film The Night They Raided Minsky's. This project has been in the works since at least 1997 and has gone through so many torturous turns and twists, including the deaths of both its original book writer Evan Hunter and its director Mike Ockrent, that one can only shout "Hallelujah!"that it is finally getting on.
The music is by Charles Strouse (who composed the score for the movie forty years ago),lyrics are by Susan Birkenhead, and the new book is by Casey Nicholaw.
Of course, the creators hope the show will be successful enough it will transfer to Broadway.

There's a new revival of West Side Storyscheduled to open at Broadway's Palace Theatre on March 19. Director Arthur Laurents promises a fresh take on the classic he wrote with Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. For one thing, big chunks of the book will be performed in Spanish. The Puerto Rican characters will actually be played by Latinos. (Laurents found his new Maria in a video on YouTube: she's 21 year old Argentine actress Josefina Scaglione and this will be her U.S. debut.) Under the watchful eye of Sondheim himself, some of the lyrics have also been translated into Spanish: "I Feel Pretty" is now "Siento Hermosa," while "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" has become "Un Hombre Asi/Tengo un Amor." Although Laurents is keeping the original Jerome Robbins choreography, it will reportedly be more sexually suggestive --- especially in the dance at the gym. The 91 year old Laurents, who, last season, did an astonishing job reinventing Gypsy for Broadway, wants to make the show more accessible to Latino audiences as well as to give it more authenticity. The reviews for the tryout in Washington have been sensational, and the talk along Broadway is that it has all the makings of a gigantic hit. We shall see.

MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS
The Dramatists Guild has just issued its must-have 2009 Resource Directory. This paperback contains hundreds of opportunities and resources for playwrights to market their works and help their careers, not to mention loads of helpful advice about proper script formats, reading fees, etc. It's free to members. If you're not a member you can get it by --- wait a minute, if you're not a member, shame on you --- I'm not going to tell you how else to get it. Join the Guild, you'll get the directory and plenty of other benefits. Period.

AUTHORS GUILD V. GOOGLE
By now some of you may have heard of the proposed settlement of the class action lawsuit the Authors Guild had been waging against Google. Briefly, Google had struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections and to make snippets of those books available online through Google Book Search. The Guild, which represents thousands of published authors, alleged copyright infringement and sued Google in September, 2005. Several major publishers likewise had filed their own lawsuit against Google.

After several years in court and lots and lots of negotiations, the Guild, in October, 2008, reached a settlement with Google, which also seemed to please those publishers who had filed the separate lawsuit.
You ask: if I'm not the author of a published book, why should I care? Because, if the Guild's settlement is approved by the federal court (as I suspect it will be), it will affect students and their professors, patrons of public libraries, high school kids writing term papers, actors, writers, directors, designers, producers, artistic directors - in other words it will affect anyone who reads and uses books and has a computer.

In my next newsletter, I will show you how the Guild plan will revolutionize the way you get access to books and how it will benefit your reading and research habits.