Thursday, April 17, 2008
'Houdini' to break out on Broadway
Variety: "Project originated with Rockwell, who, with his friend Andersen, a journo-novelist (“Turn of the Century”) and co-founder of Spy magazine, settled on the fin-de-siecle story of Houdini. Andersen will provide an original plotline based on the magician’s bio."
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5 comments:
sounds like a costly venture with big names on broadway. It will be interesting to see the show about an escape artist take pace on stage. I mean I feel like the real question now for theater makers are "what have we not tried yet?" With shows like Legally Blond the Musical and Shrek the Musical, they are always out to find something new to entertain audiences.
Though I do feel like that musicals these days are getting more and more random in what they want to put on stage I feel like this one could be different than the others. I don't think that its going to be another Legally Blonde or Shrek, although it has the potential to be. It all depends on how they want to present it. They can go with the goofy wild style of his life with really eccentric outfits. Or they can go more toward the period and his more serious life. I hope for their sake and ours it the latter.
I hope that this musical isn't too much of a fancy shmancy technology show, and instead focuses on the central core of Houdini's mystique. The social status that Houdini holds is so classical that a very modernized shmarmy musical could detract from the identifiable parts of the man himself. Also, the idea of doing Houdini's illusions on a stage has such potential.
I do feel that this show will attempt to be a show for a more serious theatre-goer. Although the title may attract a mainstream audience, it still does not have the mainstream appeal of The Lion King. I would not be surprised to see this show be very successful, in that it can be very technically impressive, but at the same time tell a good story.
I think it'd be something entertaining to see and Elfman would give it a great sound and Yazbek is an amazing addition as well. Although the idea does not strike me as the amazing just because I'm not that intrigued by his biography, but it's a great team setting this up.
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