web counter
 

All the World's a Stage

By Cindy Davis | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (11)

Hugh-Jackman_l.jpg

For those of you lucky enough to be within a reasonable distance to Broadway, it soon may be time to ditch the dismal television offerings and/or run from that Walmart of multiplexes where you usually catch a crappy movie. It seems more and more big name actors are treading the boards and what better way to see an actor than up close and personal (Nekkid Harry Potter!)?

Aaron Sorkin, who started off his career with musical theater, and Danny Elfman (who started his career with Oingo Boingo) are writing a Houdini musical for Hugh Jackman. Sounds interesting, right? (Coincidentally, while listening to NPR the other day I heard the curator of New York City’s Jewish Museum discussing the just opened Houdini exhibit, running through March 27, 2011.) So while Hugh Jackman has already played a magician on the big screen, he hasn’t yet starred as a singing Houdini - and really, you can’t get much better than that. Hell, I can’t even sing and I’d jump at that chance.

Meanwhile, stage virgin Kiefer Sutherland is headed to the revival of “That Championship Season” as the brother of his The Lost Boys co-star, Jason Patric. The Pulitzer Prize winning play follows four men celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their Catholic high school basketball team’s state win. The group reunites with their terminally ill coach to celebrate and reminisce, discovering that their lives haven’t turned out quite as grandly as they would have predicted. Joining Sutherland and Patric is Brian Cox, Chris Noth and Jim Gaffigan. Interestingly, “That Championship Season” is being produced by the same folks who put on A Steady Rain with Hugh Jackman last year.

“Houdini” is shooting for an early 2012 opening, while “That Championship Season” should hit a theater in March 2011.









Each Time You Like, Share, Tweet or Stumble a Pajiba Post, An Angel Does the Paul Rudd Dance

← Licking Your Wounds the Mo(u)rning After | A Morning Commiseration Diversion | Sci Fi Version of Henry V | Once More Unto the Breach, with Cyborgs →









Comments

I had just read about the Houdini story on Playbill not 10 minutes before seeing it here and am very excited! Hell of a cast for Championship, but the story doesn't exactly motivate me to run to the box office.

Also, speaking of Harry Potter on B'way, Daniel Radcliffe is about to star in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying as well. Interested to see if he can sing and dance - he proved the acting pretty thoroughly in Equus.

Posted by: KatSings at November 3, 2010 9:36 AM

The Houdini musical has been very hush-hush up till now, but there is some very good buzz building from the people who have been privileged enough to see or hear the material. I'm excited. There's an opposing camp working on a big screen musical based on Houdini's life that might also surface by then.

I'm more excited for The Book of Mormon from Trey Parker and Matt Stone which has received some of the highest praise I've ever heard of coming out of a workshop. Oh, and the Catch Me if You Can musical that may yet star John Lithgow if things line up right. And then there's the possibility of Paul Reubens being a Tony nominee for writing or acting in his Broadway debut as Pee Wee Herman that gets my heart racing.

This is all, of course, if Times Square and the Broadway community doesn't sink into the bottomless money and actor swallowing pit of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark by January.

Posted by: Robert at November 3, 2010 9:40 AM

That's it. I'm moving back to NYC.

Posted by: Captain Tuttle at November 3, 2010 10:09 AM

A Danny Elfman musical, you say? Sign me up.

Hugh Jackman? SUPERB. He belongs on Broadway anyway. Sorry, Wolverine Fans.

Posted by: Ian at November 3, 2010 11:31 AM

Wait, this is going to be great. Sorkin writes theater so well (The Farnsworth Invention, anyone?) and Houdini is so cool and Hugh Jackman is freaking gorgeous. That's the awesome trifecta, people: smart, cool, and abs. I would marry this project in a heartbeat.

Posted by: esme at November 3, 2010 11:35 AM

I hear "Catch Me If You Can" isn't very good, which is a disappointment since the source material is so good.

Jackman on Broadway is as close to a sure thing as the theatre industry has. "A Steady Rain" with he and Daniel Craig was as terrible a play as you're likely to see, but it sold out it's run and was actually entertaining because of the two actors involved.

Jackman, though, is goddamn quicksilver in a musical. He's the best musical theater performer in the world by a wide margin, and that's factoring in some genius performers in New York and the West End. I'm glad he's not turning his nose up at his strongest suit.

Sorkin has a boner for the great white way, as has been well documented- though his last play "The Farnsworth Invention" was derivitive of his television work and ended up being pretty disappointing. Still though, we've seen him deliver time and again when he's been counted out (See: "The Social Network".)

However, Sorkin is a replacement bookwriter on this project (replacing Kurt Anderson), which means that the structure is already in place. I'm anticipating a libretto peppered with Sorkinisms, but not necessarily taking the dramatic shape of a Sorkin project.

Elfman has never worked for the stage as far as I know. The lyricist (Glenn Slater) has two major credits to his name: "Love Never Dies" and "Sister Act". Two monumental disasters. Slater replaced David Yazbek (The Full Monty, Titanic, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) as the lyricist- neither choice seems particularly appealing to me. Also, any project that has shuffled it's creative team this much, this early on in the process, doesn't bode well.

However, Jack O'Brien, one of the best stage directors alive, is the boss on this. I'm curious to know who's Producing. I will watch this project develop with great, great anticipation.

Following Broadway closely is like watching the greatest soap opera you've ever seen. It's smaller and more transparent than the Film world, and the mechanisms and dealings are all super, super old school. Another reason it's great to live in NYC.

Posted by: Martin at November 3, 2010 11:35 AM

Hey Martin can I crash on yo couch? thanks, yo.

Posted by: Ian at November 3, 2010 11:40 AM

@Ian You got it. Bring beer.

Posted by: Martin at November 3, 2010 11:46 AM

And now I REALLY want to get on planning a trip to NYC. My mom saw Jude Law in Hamlet, which is pretty good, but not NEARLY as awesome as a Hugh Jackman/Sorkin/Elman/Houdini combo. Can you get better than that?

Posted by: Sara H at November 3, 2010 12:03 PM

Here is a random nugget of trivia... That Championship Season was written by Jason Miller who is better known for playing father Damien Karras in The Exorcist.

Posted by: thepants at November 3, 2010 7:40 PM

There is no way in Dante's hell I'll miss this!

Posted by: Lexie at November 3, 2010 11:09 PM