New Best of Broadway Season Boasts ‘Tony Winner ‘Osage County,’ Return of ‘Wicked”
By Pat Craig, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.
Jun. 11–’August: Osage County,” the 2008 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and the world premiere of “Ever After,” a new musical retelling of the Cinderella story, join return engagements of “Wicked,”"Phantom of the Opera” and “Grease” to highlight the 2008-09 San Francisco Best of Broadway theater season.
The season begins Nov. 26 with “Phantom of the Opera” at the Orpheum Theatre. Following are “Wicked” at the Orpheum in February; “Grease” at the Golden Gate Theatre in March; “Ever After” at the Curran Theatre in April; and “August: Osage County” at the Curran Theatre in August.
“Osage County,” nominated for seven 2008 Tony Awards, including best play, won the Pulitzer Prize for author Tracy Letts (“Killer Joe,”"Bug”), who spins the tale of a large extended family gathering on their rural Oklahoma homestead. After the alcoholic family patriarch disappears, the rest of the family deals with a closet of family secrets and Violet, the family’s pill-popping matriarch.
“Ever After,” by Marcy Heisler, Theresa Rebeck and Zina Goldrich, is a musical adventure that spins the Cinderella story away from magic pumpkins and fairy godmothers to tell the story of a young woman who becomes a servant to her stepmother after the death of her father. The stage version is directed by Doug Hughes, who won a Tony for directing “Doubt.”
“Wicked,” by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz, based on the book by Gregory Maguire, became a
smash Broadway hit after making its debut in San Francisco in May 2003, where audiences fell in love with original cast members Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.
The musical returns a genuine Broadway blockbuster, still breaking house records and earning more than $1.4 million per week in New York. The show returned to San Francisco once before, in 2005, and sold out every performance. “Wicked” tells the story of life in Oz before Dorothy, and the relationship of two girls, one enormously popular, the other a bright, misunderstood young woman whose skin is green.
“Phantom of the Opera,” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, still running on Broadway after 20 years, is a familiar San Francisco favorite since it played in the Curran Theatre for five years before closing in January 1999.
“Grease,” by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, first hit Broadway in the early ’70s. But there’s life in the old hot rod yet — Time magazine picked it the No. 1 musical of the year in 2007, and audiences continue to enjoy the musical about a 1950s high school romance that introduced such songs as “Summer Nights,”"Greased Lightnin’” and “We Go Together.”
Best of Broadway producers say they will announce a fifth show for the season next month.
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Reach Pat Craig at 925-945-4736 or pcraig@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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