If anyone would have a good reason not to attend the new Broadway revival of “Sunset Boulevard,” it would be Patti LuPone, who starred as Norma Desmond in the musical’s world premiere in London three decades ago and was then replaced by Glenn Close for the Broadway premiere, resulting in humiliation and a large financial settlement from Andrew Lloyd Webber to settle LuPone’s claim for breach of contract. Nevertheless, LuPone attended and, apparently, loved the acclaimed new production.
“Now I went in with trepidation because I have strong feelings about the show, not what happened to me in the show, but the show, period,” LuPone said in an audio recording that was originally sent via voicemail and later made available on social media. “I loved this production. I thought Nicole (Scherzinger) and Tom (Francis) were stunning…The use of the filming was something that I questioned because I don’t know where I am. Am I at a movie or at the theatre? This worked brilliantly. The whole thing. I was energized when I left the theatre. I loved it.” In response, Scherzinger, who plays Norma Desmond in the revival, responded to LuPone on social media: “You are the epitome of musical theatre royalty. This means everything coming from you.”
‘Jonathan Larson Project’ to receive Off-Broadway run
“The Jonathan Larson Project,” a new musical made up of unknown songs written by Jonathan Larson before the songwriter’s untimely death at the age of 35 in 1996, will receive an Off-Broadway run at the Orpheum Theatre in the East Village (not far from New York Theatre Workshop, where “Rent” received its world premiere) beginning Feb. 14. It will include songs that were cut from “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and “Rent” and from other projects such as an unauthorized musical adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984” and “Superbia” (a variation on “1984” that Larson is seen working on in “Tick, Tick… Boom!”). The show premiered in 2018 as a concert at 54 Below and later received a cast album. It will be directed by John Simpkins, who years ago directed an extraordinary student production of “Floyd Collins” at NYU with Jay Armstrong Johnson.
“Over a decade ago, I began immersing myself in the hundreds of boxes that Jonathan Larson left behind when he died,” Jennifer Ashley Tepper, who conceived the show, wrote in a statement. “Jonathan’s lost songs….tell a fascinating new story about a young man following his heart in New York City, trying to change the world. I felt strongly that there was a show to be made from Jonathan’s work that had never been heard.”
‘Swept Away’ receives two-week extension following closing notice
The new Broadway musical “Swept Away,” which was scheduled to close last weekend due to low attendance following 32 regular performances, has extended its run by two weeks through Dec. 29 thanks to a new surge of interest in the show following the closing announcement. Using folk-rock songs by the Avett Brothers, “Swept Away” explores the aftermath of a violent shipwreck off the coast of New England in 1888. The cast includes John Gallagher Jr. (“Spring Awakening”) and Stark Sands (“Kinky Boots”).
Supreme Court Justice makes Broadway debut
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her Broadway debut on Saturday night with a walk-on cameo in the Shakespeare-meets-teen pop musical “& Juliet” (not to be confused with the new Broadway production of “Romeo and Juliet”). In her newly released memoir “Lovely One,” Jackson noted that when she applied to Harvard, she wrote in her application essay that she believed the school would help fulfill her “fantasy of becoming the first Black, female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage.” The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was also a theater fan and made a cameo in a production of the opera “The Daughter of the Regiment” in Washington, DC in 2016.
Public Works series to return with ‘Pericles’ at St. John the Divine
The Public Theater will bring back its Public Works series (in which members of the general public join together with professional performers in large-scale pageants based on classic works) with a new musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s adventure romance “Pericles,” which will play the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in late August. The Delacorte Theatre in Central Park will reopen this summer following extensive physical renovations with a starry new production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” with Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Lupita Nyong’o and Sandra Oh. In June, the Public Theater will also present a free production of “Much Ado About Nothing” that will tour the five boroughs through its Mobile Unit.
