Broadway 2025! New shows, adaptations, and some “Old Friends” (today's MARQUEE)
Will a Sondheim extravaganza be the next smash? Or will it be TV’s “Smash”?
Shalom, Broadway lovers!
In today’s FREE edition of MARQUEE: The Broadway Maven’s Weekly Blast: an essay about the Broadway shows slated for 2025 and a Last Blast about Guys and Dolls.
Premium subscribers this week also get a Piano Talk about Fiddler on the Roof; reviews of the two musicals that just won the top Tony in their categories; a Broadway Maven YouTube Gem making an observation about the music in Evita; a Broadway Blast about Little Shop of Horrors; and a survey about last weekend’s Tonys.
ESSAY: Now that the 2024 Tonys are old news, Broadway fans have turned their attention to next season, especially anticipating this year’s revivals of Gypsy, Once Upon a Mattress, and Sunset Blvd. But the crystal ball for 2025 reveals many exciting projects further down the road, from the first Sondheim revue since the composer’s death to fresh productions of Floyd Collins and The Last Five Years, both widely admired musicals from decades ago that never made it to Broadway.
Probably the most eagerly awaited production is the fresh-from-London Sondheim revue Old Friends (see my review here). Directed by choreographer Matthew Bourne (Swan Lake) and presented by mega-producer Cameron Mackintosh (um, Les Miz and Phantom), Old Friends (the title of a song from Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along) presents dozens of numbers from shows like Company and Into the Woods.
In the wake of Sondheim’s passing, such a revue would already deserve serious attention. But the casting of Broadway superstars Bernadette Peters (Sunday in the Park with George) and Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon) makes the show an event.
Old Friends has taken an unusual path to Broadway, with its origins in a star-studded one-night-only concert at London’s Sondheim Theater in May 2022, less than six months after the pioneering composer-lyricist’s passing. A year and a half later, the production was transformed into a limited-run presentation in the West End, and will have a pre-Broadway run in Los Angeles starting in February, officially opening two months later.
In a statement, Mackintosh quoted the song “Broadway Baby” from Follies as he gushed about the show’s prospects in the United States: “Audiences are in for a joyous and unforgettable evening featuring some of the greatest songs ever written for the musical theatre in ‘a great big Broadway show’ – just as Steve wanted.”
Another musical anticipated for 2025 (but not yet scheduled) is a Broadway adaptation of TV’s Smash, a two-season musical drama series that appeared on NBC a little over a decade ago about the development of a fictional Marilyn Monroe biomusical.
Produced by Steven Spielberg among others; with music by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman (Hairspray); and direction by Susan Stroman (The Producers), the Broadway version of Smash will include some of the best songs from the TV version, including the standout “Let Me Be Your Star,” but will be neither a version of Bombshell (that’s the title of the fictional musical from the show) nor a direct adaptation of the series. Instead, it will have a new, comedic script with characters fans will remember but with what Stroman has called “a dramatic twist at the end.”
Some backstage musicals have done very well (like, say, Kiss Me, Kate and A Chorus Line…) and Smash aims to join that tradition. In a comment to Deadline, producer Neil Meron called the show “a valentine to the Broadway musical and the exhilarating rollercoaster ride of bringing one to life.”
Also generating significant buzz:
• Floyd Collins, Adam Guettel’s “folk musical” about a trapped cave explorer in 1925. Though a favorite among musical fans since its 1994 debut (especially for its song “How Glory Goes”), Collins has never had a Broadway production.
• Similarly, The Last Five Years has never had a Broadway production, and one is scheduled for next year starring Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren. The unusually structured musical was well-liked in its 2002 off-Broadway run, and the prospects are good for this Jason Robert Brown musical to reach similar audiences.
• A revival of The Pirates of Penzance starring Ramin Karimloo as the Pirate King and David Hyde Pierce as the Major General. This reimagining of the 1879 Gilbert & Sullivan classic is set in New Orleans and incorporates jazz, blues, and Caribbean rhythms.
• The all-new musical Redwood, co-conceived by and starring Wicked Tony winner Idina Menzel, about a grieving mother’s road trip to find solace in the woods of Northern California.
• The unusual property of Boop! The Musical is based on the animated 1930s character Betty Boop. The show was well-received in its Chicago debut last year and answers the question, “what if a black-and-white cartoon character spent a day in today’s colorful New York City?”
Between these shows and a variety of other musicals soon-to-be announced and a hefty helping of new and revived plays, next year promises delight for Broadwaygoers of all stripes.
NEW PUBLICATION: The Broadway Maven has just unveiled StageStreams, a FREE monthly substack that highlights the best Broadway YouTube content. You can see the first issue here; the theme is the performance of Tonys prognosticators among YouTubers. If you have favorite YouTube videos that you created or follow, feel free to send suggestions to editor Haley Roady at StageStreams@substack.com.
All MARQUEE subscribers have received a complimentary subscription to StageStreams; unsubscribe at any time. The YouTube newsletter is and will always be FREE.
CONGRATULATIONS to Daniel Shaffer, the winner of last week’s MARQUEE drawing for two tickets to the off-Broadway play Breaking the Story, which is set in the world of international journalism. Look for more drawings for tickets to future shows in upcoming issues of this substack newsletter.
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LAST BLAST: Part of the Borscht Belt humor in The Producers involves the contrast between the (presumably) Jewish Bialystock and Bloom and the other quirky characters assigned other identities: Franz Liebkind (German); Roger De Bris (gay); and Ulla Inka Hanson Benson Yanson Tallen Hallen Swadon Swanson (Swedish). Without the show’s diverse identities, the manic hilarity might have been diminished, since the Jewish characters play off the others in making their jokes. Lots of Yiddish-inflected humor focuses on fish-out-of-water situations in which Jews interact with others, and Brooks uses that tradition to create a whole narrative in which Bialystock and Bloom are spotlighted in sharp relief beside the other characters. Perhaps more importantly, by making “the producers” the only prominent Jewish characters, the show foreshadows the unfolding deep connection between the two friends.
Broadway Maven David Benkof helps students further their appreciation of musical theater through his classes, his YouTube channel, and MARQUEE: the Broadway Maven’s Weekly Blast. Contact him at DavidBenkof@gmail.com.