NT Opts for Broadway Hit Over Musical Revivals???
Date: 14 September 2005
Former National Theatre artistic director
Trevor Nunn had huge commercial hits with the likes of
My Fair Lady, Anything Goes and
Oklahoma!. Last year’s Travelex production of
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum aside, Nunn’s successor
Nicholas Hytner has always insisted that musical revivals would not be a mainstay under his regime. Speaking to Whatsonstage.com today following a press conference to release the theatre’s financial results (See Today’s
News), Hytner confirmed that he will not be reviving any classics – however, he does plan to take on a more recent product of Broadway. Could it be William Finn’s
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee or perhaps Adam Guettel’s
The Light in the Piazza, both currently enjoying acclaimed New York runs? No, said Hytner, the show for which he’s negotiating a UK premiere is from last year’s season, not this year’s. In which case, the likeliest candidate has to be
Caroline, or Change, which ran on Broadway last summer following an initial sell-out at the Public Theater. The National already has a strong relationship with
Caroline’s book writer and lyricist
Tony Kushner, whose two-part play
Angels in America ran at the National in 1992/93. Set in Louisiana in 1963,
Caroline, or Change tells the story of a black maid to a Southern Jewish family during the civil rights movement.
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