The Week in Grosses
1. Wicked ($1,314,391)
2. Jersey Boys ($1,164,277)
3. Mary Poppins ($933, 745)
4. The Lion King ($815,332)
5. Spamalot ($754,713)
All data compiled from Broadway.com.
Doubt comes to Boston
The national tour of Doubt arrived at Boston's Colonial Theatre Tuesday for a two-week sit-down that will end next Sunday, Feb. 18. The drama, which captured the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for best drama and the 2005 Tony Award for best play, is written by John Patrick Shanley, who won an Oscar at the 60th annual Academy Awards for his original screenplay Moonstruck. The production is head-lined by two-time Tony Award winner Cherry Jones, who revisits her award-winning performance as Sister Aloysius. Doug Hughes, who is repeating his directing duties for the production, won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play.
The production's official Website offers this description of the play, "Doubt takes place at St. Nicholas, a Catholic church and school in the Bronx in 1964. Sister Aloysius, the school principal, suspects the young, charismatic Father Flynn of improper relations with one of the male students. Convinced that the priest will be blindly protected by the church hierarchy, Sister Aloysius sets out to take him down herself. The play examines the line between gossip and truth, discipline and compassion, certainty and doubt." Look for a review in next week's column.
As one door closes, another one opens
The Las Vegas production of the Mel Brooks musical The Producers, that revolutionized Broadway when it won a historic 12 Tony Awards following its 2001 opening, opened at the Paris Las Vegas resort on Friday. The show, which stars Tony nominee Brad Oscar in the role of Maz and David Hasselhoff in the role of Rodger DeBris, has been trimmed to 90 minutes to appeal to Vegas audiences. Meanwhile, across the country, producers of the Broadway production of David Hare's The Vertical Hour announced that the show will now close on March 11, three weeks earlier than planned. Set to recoup its initial investments that week, the play will close "in order to maintain that advantageous financial position for the play's investors …" according to a statement issued to Playbill.com. The current tenant of the Music Box Theatre features direction by Sam Mendes and performances from four-time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy, both in their Great White Way debuts.
Casting Announcements
Richard Schiff, best known for his work on the small screen as Toby Ziegler in Alan Sorkin's The West Wing, will make his West End debut Monday. Under the direction of Maria Mileaf, he will appear on-stage at the Duchess Theatre in London in the one-man show Underneath the Lintel … 18-year-old Alexa Vega, who appeared on the silver screen as Carmen Cortez in writer/director Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids trilogy, is set to assume the role of Penny Pingleton in the Great White Way's production of Hairspray. She will make her Broadway debut at the Neil Simon Theatre on Tuesday. Vega will succeed former American Idol finalist Diana DeGarmo, who is currently in her second run in the role of up-tight Pingleton after headlining the national tour of BKLYN The Musical. … On April 3, Anneliese van der Pol is set to start her tenure as Belle in Disney Theatrical's Beauty and the Beast. The That's So Raven star is contracted to stay with the show until its final bow at the Great White Way's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on July 29. Van der Pol is the 17th actress to star as Belle in the tuner, which will dim its lights as Broadway's sixth-longest running show of all time, after playing a record 5,464 shows. … On May 1, former American Idol finalist Anthony Federov will join the cast of The Fantasticks at off-Broadway's Snapple Theatre Center. … Tonya Pinkins, famous for portraying Livia Frye Cudahy on the ABC soap All My Children, has been tapped to star in the Broadway premiere of August Wilson's final play - Radio Golf. Pinkins won a 1992 Tony Award for her featured performance in the musical Jelly's Last Jam. After a Tony-nominated turn as the title character in Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's Caroline, or Change at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in 2004, Pinkins is currently reprising her role in the West End to the tune of a 2007 Olivier Award nomination. Her performance of the show's 11 o'clock number "Lot's Wife" drew comparisons to "Rose's Turn" from Gypsy. Pinkins is set to star alongside Harry Lennix, known for his recurring role on television's 24, in the Kenny Leon directed musical, which will open on May 8, just in time to compete in the 2007 Tony Award season.
All data compiled from Playbill.com and Internet Broadway Database.
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