Our Weekly Update of News Concerning the Smash Hit Musical, Hamilton
- Top ticket price rises from $479 to $845
- Orchestra tickets—the amount charged to orchestra members to play in the show—increased in price from $99 to $149 (strings and brass), $89 to $129 (woodwinds, percussion)
- Las Vegas production confirmed – A resident production of Hamilton has been confirmed by the Le Swanque Hotel and Casino and Resort and Spa and Restaurant and Fancy Lobby. A new theater will be constructed for the show, to be designed by noted architects Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright, who has been exhumed and re-animated for the project. Opening scheduled for January, 2019.
- Top ticket price rises during writing of above bullet points, from $845 to $1,095
- “Stunt cast” production slated for London’s West End, September, 2018
“Stunt casting”—the assignment of a role or roles in a play or movie to an unlikely actor, for purposes of amusement, social commentary, or commercial exploitation—has been with us since the beginning of drama itself.
Who, if he or she were still alive, could forget the casting of goofball song-and-dance man Euiaon in the uber-serious title role for the revival of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (c. 399 BC)? “Wait—what?” a thousand Athenian theatre-goers must have said, in Greek, when they read the cast list. But the producer (the playwright’s grandson, also called Sophocles—thanks for nothing!) was crazy like a αλεπού.
He knew, as canny producers and directors have known for millennia, that sometimes the way to breathe new life into a chestnut, assuming a chestnut can breathe, is to cast against type, against expectation, against the very demands of sanity itself.
Thus have we seen, on Broadway, an all-black cast of Guys and Dolls, and do we hear, in preparation, of an all-Asian cast of Carousel. Musical fans have enjoyed the all-white version of The Wiz (its title changed to The Whiz and its songs rewritten, e.g., “Ease on Down the Road” changed to “Transport Yourself Via the Infrastructure”) and the all-gay-man production of Wicked.
In 1998 we saw an all-dog cast of Cats; in 1999, the all-lesbian My Fair Lady. In Los Angeles, the Mark Taper Forum produced, in 2001, a daring staging of A Chorus Line, a musical about dancers, starring nothing but playwrights. The New Globe Theatre in San Diego was the first to bring us a version of Oklahoma! starring actors from Nebraska and set in Massachusetts. (“M-A-S-S-A-C-H-U-S-E-T-T-S! OK!”)
Weird? Sure—yet, somehow, against all odds, it worked.
Perhaps the king of stunt casters was Broadway’s David Merrick, an impresario whose commercial instincts were as canny as his artistic ideas were unconventional. It was he who produced the all-black version of Hello, Dolly! (starring Pearl Bailey) in 1967. In short order, he followed that with Luciano Pavarotti in the title role of Mame (1983), the Harlem Globetrotters as Fagin’s street urchins in Oliver! (1988), and the all-astronaut cast of Show Boat, set on the Moon—which led to Buzz Aldrin’s surprising hit single, “Ol’ Man Crater.” (1990).
Granted, provocation-for-provocation’s sake can sometimes go too far, and what seems clever at dress rehearsal can strike an opening-night crowd as strained, awkward, and contrived. The all-black-cast-wearing-white-face version of Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1985) managed to survive its skeptical notices; but the all-gay-Christian version of Fiddler on the Roof (1991) closed after a week. The all-female production of The Full Monty (2010) sold out for six months by Monday night, but was shuttered and indicted for public lewdness on Tuesday morning.
Coming next season? West Side Story, starring Lainie Kazan and Neil Diamond, and depicting the clash between rival synagogues; England’s D’Oyly Carte Opera Company setting aside their traditional Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire to tackle The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton headlining a country-western re-think of The King and I. Are you ready for RuPaul as Bobby in Company? Eddie Murphy as The Music Man?
And, now, an all-white Hamilton?
Mraz Center for the Performing Arts
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