This week’s sad Broadway news announced the passing of Marni Nixon at the age of 86 – a relatively unknown performer with one of the most famous voices in musical movie history.
Author: Mitchell Marcus
Hollywood ‘Ghost Singers’
Tony Tuesday: Thoughts From Mitchell
The Tony Awards are just a little over two weeks away!
I love Tony night. It’s my Super Bowl or Stanley Cup or whatever other kinds of sporting events make straight men slap each other on the back and yell expletives at the top of their lungs.
What I Learned From Reframed
Last week, a crazy idea that began 18 months ago came to fruition as we performed three new musicals, inspired by paintings in the permanent collection at the AGO, in the gallery where the works are hung.
We’re In The Money
There is a famous saying in our industry:
You can’t make a living in the theatre, but you can make a killing.
According to a recent article in The Hollywood Reporter, anyone lucky enough to be involved in Hamilton is now making a killing.
The Return of the “Serious Musical”?
With less than 10 days to go until the big holidays, Christmas came early for two of my favourite musicals this week.
As avid blog readers will know, Fun Home by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori (who was the composer on Caroline, or Change) is one of my favourite new musicals to come along in a very long time. On Sunday, the producers announced that it has recouped its $5.25 million investment in just eight months. For those of you who don’t speak Broadway, the show raised $5.25 million dollars from investors in order to pay for all of its pre-production costs and to help subsidize the early parts of the run until weekly sales were covering weekly operating expenses. When a show recoups, the investors have all been paid back their investment and they will start to profit from further net revenues. Given that only 21% of musicals recoup, this is always celebratory. But it’s perhaps even more exciting when the recouped musical is one about a lesbian cartoonist whose gay father (who ran a funeral parlour) killed himself. This is not the sort of material that typical tourist audiences are attracted to (i.e. there are no Abba songs nor tap dancing). In fact, when it was announced that Fun Home would transfer to Broadway, the producers were constantly called “insane” and “crazy”. But the musical walked away with the Tony Award for “Best Musical” and has consistently sold well week after week. More