A few theatre items that caught my eye of late:
- Fela Replaces Funny Girl. The Ahmanson Theatre was thrust into an odd situation recently when the announced revival of “Funny Girl” with Lauren Ambrose, scheduled to start 1/15/12, was put on indefinate hold. Center Theatre Group’s solution: They are moving Fela from its scheduled late April position to start in mid-December, after the tour completes in San Francisco. This means that Fela will run Dec. 14-Jan. 22 (plus a Dec. 13 preview), and hottix
shouldgo on sale Nov. 22 (confirmed: on sale 11/22 for 12/13-1/1), and CTG gets some breathing room to schedule something to start in April. - Bring It On. Currently running at the Ahmanson is “Bring It On – The Musical” (we’re ticketed to see it on 11/25). A drawback to a new musicals is that one often doesn’t get the cast album to remind one of the show. Thus, shows such as Pasadena Playhouse’s “Mask” are unrecorded, and there are only the demo tracks for “Having It All” or “Dangerous Beauty“. Luckily, that won’t be the case for “Bring It On”, for Playbill reports that “Bring It On” plans to record a cast album.
- Musical Revivials of Interest. An interesting story in Playbill: Bernadette Peters and Martin Short are exploring doing a revival of “I Do! I Do!”. The two last worked together in the musical version of “Goodbye Girl”, and they made an interesting duet and dynamic. I could see this “I Do! I Do!” working quite well.
- Play Revivals. Another interesting revivial coming up: Jim Parsons (Sheldon, in Big Bang Theory) is in negotiations to play the Elwood P Dowd role in a revival of “Harvey” on Broadway. I could see this working quite well. He would be very different than Jimmy Stewart, but could do wonders with the role.
ETA: For my reference: LACC is presenting “Lost and Unsung”, with songs cut from classic and flop musicals. We 11/30, Th 12/1, Fr 12/2, and Sa 12/3. I might try to squeeze this in before ACSAC, possibly on 12/2.
