Five openings crowd Broadway

Five openings crowd Broadway

	Published : Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:25 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW YORK (AP) - Five Broadway openings in eight days. And it's not even Tony nomination time, that period in early May when a parade of shows usually premiere in hopes of beating out productions that arrived earlier in the season.

Starting Sunday, Broadway tries to shake off the 19-day stagehands strike with a frenzy of openings.

Four of the five, however, are that riskiest of theatrical ventures: new plays rather than musicals.

New plays, unless they have a huge star, don't have the pre-opening buzz of a big musical. They need word of mouth and reviews -- good reviews.

'I think it is a necessity for some of the plays to open (quickly) and to be seen,' said Jeffrey Richards, a producer of 'August: Osage County.' The $2.5 million production from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company opens Tuesday.

'Let me put it this way: with `August: Osage County,' we are introducing a new playwright (Tracy Letts) to Broadway, we are introducing a new director (Anna D. Shapiro) to Broadway and we are introducing new artists to Broadway,' Richards continued. 'We do not have any names associated with the production. And due to the strike, nearly two-thirds of our advance has eroded ... We had been building momentum, which we lost.'

Des McAnuff, director of Aaron Sorkin's 'The Farnsworth Invention,' found the strike to be have ry disruptive' since the walkout hit just a few days before its official opening.

The $4 million production about the birth of television, starring Hank Azaria and Jimmi Simpson, now opens Monday.

'The most frustrating thing for us and for the other plays was that we sort of hit the groove (and the strike happened),' said 'Farnsworth' producer Michael David. 'We deal in perishables and plays are more perishable than anything, especially now when people are thinking about the holidays. You only have so much money and you want to get your play out there as fast as you possibly can.'

For producer Bob Boyett, the strike has been a triple whammy. One of his productions, Tom Stoppard's 'Rock 'n' Roll,' opened a week before the walkout started. His two others, Conor McPherson's Irish tale 'The Seafarer,' and Mark Twain's 'Is He Dead?' adapted by David Ives, were shut in previews -- 'Dead' after only two performances.

'The Seafarer' opens Thursday and 'Is He Dead?' on Dec. 9.

'Fortunately, we were ready early,' Boyett said of the Twain comedy. 'I think in this particular situation, we had a very fine-tuned show right from the rehearsal hall because it's a farce and Michael Blakemore is so precise in his direction.

'The big deal once we got into the theater was getting the rhythm of running the show with all of our backstage people,' Boyett said of the $2.7 million production about a painter who fakes his own death to drive up the price of his paintings.

For Boyett's production of 'The Seafarer,' many of the actors had already done the play in London and were ready to open almost from the first preview.

The fifth play opening in this eight-day rush was the only one not affected by the strike because it's a production of the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater: a revival of Shakespeare's 'Cymbeline,' featuring Martha Plimpton, Jonathan Cake, Michael Cerveris, John Cullum and Phylicia Rashad. Opening Sunday, it was able to do a full month of preview performances.

As 'Farnsworth' producer David said: 'Broadway's fertile and exciting fall has become Broadway's fertile and exciting week.'