The Music Man is up on the Marquee!!

The Music Man has started making The Winter Garden it’s home.

Hope we get to see this open sooner than later...

Oh boy! Only 8 (or more) months to go!!!!!

THIS makes me very happy today! We were originally going in December - but moved our tickets to November 2021 - and I really hope this nightmare which is our existence right now is but a memory...

I walked by this afternoon and saw it! Interesting though that the 7th ave side still has the Beetlejuice sign.

Interesting to re-read the Hollywood Reporter June 2020 report on the postponement of The Music Man and Rudin's ( and his producers)rationale and strategy for the opening of the new show and the reopening of his other currently "resting" shows.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hugh-jackman-broadways-music-man-back-track-spring-2021-1300086

Excerpts --
"We're obviously profoundly disappointed to be unable to start rehearsals for The Music Man as scheduled," added Rudin. "But safety is safety, and it has to take precedence over every other consideration — for both our audience and for our company. Despite the postponement, we are sticking together as a company, and we are grateful to be able to do so. And so we look forward to arriving at the Winter Garden — with a beautiful, heartening Music Man in tow — at the beginning of April, and to being just one part of what we expect will once again be a vibrant and exciting Broadway."

New York has now entered Phase 2 of the state's reopening plan, including restaurants with outdoor dining and some retail stores. Indoor dining establishments and other nonessential businesses are due to follow in Phase 3, the timeline for which has not yet been set for the metropolitan area. Broadway theaters are included in Phase 4, along with other arts, entertainment and recreation enterprises, placing them in the final stage of the city's reopening.

"The plan of course is to follow the New York State health and safety protocols being developed right now, which will be the baseline of how shows will return," Rudin told The Hollywood Reporter.

Projections for reopening are being based on increased testing and lower infection rates — not on the expectation of a vaccine. Rudin has high praise for the leadership of Cuomo and his task force — which includes top scientists, health care and infectious disease experts and industrial hygienists — calling them "astonishingly forward-thinking and cooperative" in working with Broadway industry leaders to map a path forward.


The Broadway economic model is not conducive to theaters making allowances for social distancing. While Rudin speaks only for his own productions, he said those shows will be sold at full capacity, albeit with the expectation of a slow start before business gets back even close to where it was before.

"It's going to take a lot of grit and fortitude to hang in until it's back, because I don't think it's going to come back that quickly," said Rudin. "I think we'll play to low grosses for a while and we have to be prepared to withstand it. And then as people understand that it's safe, more people will come back. It was also true after 9/11. Now 9/11 came back fairly quickly, but it didn't come back at capacity or anything like it right away."

Updated On: 9/18/20 at 06:27 AM

I feel like the show's setting itself up for a really great year, year and a a half, and then an instant decline the second the leads leave. The marquee itself doesn't even have the name of the show on it - that's just on the hanging poster above the marquee. This will very quickly become the "Hugh and Sutton" show, and the second either of them leave, the show's going to have a rude awakening.

And you know why people are still upset about Beetlejuice? Because Scott Rudin's greed and absolute control has been displayed time and time again, from the insane West Side Story casting to the advertising lawsuit. He's also made it very clear he doesn't care about BIPOC in his shows and has relegated them to ensemble and understudy roles, if they're present at all - or, with shows like WSS, he's overdone it with performative activism and ruined the purpose of the plot. (Diep Tran has a fascinating article about this.) Beetlejuice wasn't perfect with this, but at least they were trying - including cast members like Kelvin Moon Loh as Otho and Leslie Kritzer as Delia/Miss Argentina. And yeah, the way they were closed was less than ideal for fans. You know who else complained about it? Brittain Ashford. John Mulaney. Broadway actors and writers who saw right through the BS. I don't think it hurt that there was a NYT profile about why the show was closing in the way it was. (It also casts one of Mulaney's lines from Oh, Hello in a new light - when Kroll's character said that he thought the duo had gotten the Winter Garden Theatre, Mulaney's character says, "Have you tried f*cking dealing with the Shubert Organization?" ) Whether BTJ comes back or not, there was already a lot of anger building against Scott Rudin, from both the Broadway community and its fans, and it was only a matter of time before a show people liked was hurt because of his greed. And people are furious that he forced a show that was making millions a week to close for a show without any actors/creatives of color that, because of his marketing, will be closed in a few years anyway because he didn't learn the lesson from Hello Dolly that you have to get people to recognize the brand of the show before relying on the brand of the famous people that happen to be in the show.

And this is coming from someone who, for the record, DOESN'T LIKE BEETLEJUICE.

Thanks for the great photos, BWW!

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Up-on-the-Marquee-THE-MUSIC-MAN-Prepares-for-Broadways-Return-at-the-Winter-Garden-Theatere-20200918

You've added a true sense of excitement! Seeing those early signs that Broadway may awaken in the not too distant future is already a gift for many us !

Updated On: 9/18/20 at 11:48 AM

Hi Jonah!

Call my office --

I'll send you free tickets to .... .Hello, Dolly!

I realise that that art work, type, colours etc all scream period country USA but by day it certainly looks very drab--probably looks better when lit at night.

No way TMM will open in April. Renewed international travel is years away so full theatres[back to normal] is a loooong way off[all my observations, based on just that].

Hugh will have aged out and Sutton will be still searching for her lyrical soprano.

Just film it and sell it and watch safely at home.

There is no way that I would be subjected to all that will be required to get a seat in any theatre like the 'old normal'.

I praise all those working so hard so everyone can revert back to December 2019 but this Covid is just the start of a New Series 1/2/3/4 etc

Accept/adjust/adapt---I love kissing with my lips up against a plastic mask.

Stay safe and healthy.

blaxx said: "The artwork sure makes me want to stay six feet away from the theater."

Or rather, seventy-six feet away???