The Drowsy Chaperone co-creator Bob Martin has a new show opening on Broadway in November. As predicted on this blog last year, Martin's musical adaptation of the Will Ferrell movie Elf will open on the Great White Way this holiday season for a limited run at the Al Hirschfeld Theater.
The original Man in Chair has co-written the show's book with Thomas Meehan (Annie, The Producers), while Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin (The Wedding Singer musical, which wasn't half bad) have penned the music and lyrics.
As for Martin's other post-Chaperone project, Minsky's, which premiered in Los Angeles in 2009, the latest news is that it may open on Broadway in 2011. Composer Charles Strouse recently spoke to Playbill about tweaking the score from his hospital room while recovering from an illness last month.
Strouse (Bye Bye Birdie, Annie) says Minsky's has changed a fair bit since it was seen in L.A. "It's hard to weigh," he told Playbill. "The entire thrust of the play has been changed, I think very dramatically and very persuasively, to take it more seriously in terms of [what was happening in Jazz-Age American]society. [Producer]Bob Boyett has been a great influence in changing the tone."
Another Canadian headed to Broadway in the fall - and the West End in a little over a week - is Stephen Ouimette. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival regular, who is dearly missed this season, is in a starry revival of David Hirson's La Bête alongside Olivier and Tony winner Mark Rylance, Tony and Emmy winner David Hyde Pierce of Frasier fame and Joanna Lumley of Absolutely Fabulous. (What a cast!)
British director Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage, Boeing Boeing and, er, The Lord of the Rings) is at the helm of this production, which opens on the the Comedy Theatre in London on June 26 and then moves to New York's Music Box Theatre in September. Apparently, Warchus, a regular director of the work of Yamina Reza, was familiar with Ouimette from his performance as Yvan in the Toronto premiere of Art.
Since La Bete is scheduled to run until February 13, I suppose that means Ouimette likely won't be reprising his Canon Chasuble in Brian Bedford's production of The Importance of Being Earnest when it plays the Roundabout in New York in winter 2011. (We're still waiting to find out which of the Stratford company who were in it in 2009 will be going along with the show.)
Skipping out of one Broadway show for another Broadway show... Ouimette must be feeling awfully sought-after at the moment. The Slings and Arrows star also just received excellent reviews as Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. He was supposed to be back at CST to play Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet in the fall, but has pulled out for La Bete.