Tony Award winner Tyne Daly is returning to Broadway as Mama Rose in
”Gypsy” for a 12-week engagement starting April 23 at the Marquis Theater.
The producers, Barry and Fran Weissler, had announced that a company headed by Daly, who played the role for nine months on Broadway last season, would open in London in late spring. But those plans were made before the war in the Persian Gulf began.
Barry Weissler says: ”Some people in the company have expressed concern about flying certain airlines. And if a ground war starts now, will anyone come to the theater? I want to be where I can take care of the show, especially if you can expect surprises. To do it all by phone makes me uncomfortable.” He says he hopes to open ”Gypsy” in London next fall.
– The war and the recession have hit the theater hard and with it the restaurants in the theater district, whose business depends on how many hits are up and running.
Of 36 Broadway theaters, 17 are dark. And according to the grosses reported in Variety, many of the 19 shows now running are doing weak business. Perhaps the most sobering proof is a recent matinee of ”The Phantom of the Opera.”
The show actually ”went dead” with about 140 tickets, meaning that for the first time since the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical opened, seats went unsold.
The restaurants near 45th Street seem to be hardest hit. The block between Broadway and 8th Avenue has always been considered the prime booking location on Broadway. But now, four of its six theaters are empty.
Vincent Sardi Jr., who owns his family`s restaurant on 44th Street, says: ”There was an instant reaction the day the war started. We are missing the foreign businessmen and travelers. They`ve practically disappeared.”
Joe Allen, who owns the restaurant named for him, as well as Orso, both on 46th Street, confirms that foreign business is way down.
Hunter Cain, a manager at Sam`s on 52nd Street, says his pre- and post-theater business is off, but not as drastically as that of his competitors in the mid-40s.
He attributes his better fortune to his restaurant`s being on the same street as the strong ”City of Angels” and ”Jackie Mason: Brand New.”
Other restaurateurs in the mid-40s are eagerly awaiting Neil Simon`s
”Lost in Yonkers,” scheduled to open Feb. 21 at the Richard Rodgers Theater on 46th Street.
Allen says, ”Neil Simon doesn`t realize the awesome responsibility he has to save a whole neighborhood.”
– Arthur Kopit`s new play at the Circle Repertory Theater, ”Road to Nirvana,” starring Peter Riegert and Saundra Santiago, is already causing debate even though it doesn`t open until March 7.
The work is about two film producers who will do anything to make the ultimate deal, and the theater`s artistic director, Tanya Berezin, calls it
”shocking.”
The script calls for the characters to eat feces, she says, and ”there`s lots of sex.” She adds, ”It`s harsh, but also hilarious.”
Apparently, Julia Hansen, president of the Drama League, fails to see the humor. Her non-profit organization, which administers a variety of programs and special events for its members, sponsors a subscription series that, she says, ”encourages them to be imaginative and see work that`s entertaining and interesting, to keep educated about the theater and be as supportive as they can be.”
Circle Rep has kept those members entertained in the past, but after the Drama League`s marketing director requested a script of ”Road to Nirvana,”
Berezin was told that the play was ”not for their audience.”
Berezin says she wrote Hansen a note saying she was surprised at the reaction. Berezin says the note went unanswered. Hansen would not say whether the ”Nirvana” script had been read and rejected.
She would say only that the Drama League chose plays at the WPA and Second Stage theaters instead.
– Hollywood`s latest obsession is Douglas Post.
The 30-year-old playwright`s ”Earth and Sky” opened at the Second Stage last week. Although reviews were mixed, the consensus among film and television executives is that this thriller about a woman`s investigation into her lover`s mysterious death, with its tour de force leading role, played by Jennifer Van Dyke, is hot with a capital H.
Second Stage subscribers have sat next to representatives of Columbia Pictures, Paramount, MGM, Universal, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Orion, TriBeCa and the director-producers James Brooks, Norman Jewison and Alan J. Pakula.
Robyn Goodman, co-artistic director of Second Stage, says a sale was delayed until the play opened so there wouldn`t be extra pressure on Post during his first New York production.
”All you have to do with Hollywood people is say no,” she says, ”and here they all are.”
