Gabriel Byrne to bring autobiographical one man show WALKING WITH GHOSTS to Broadway this fall

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 10:03am

Will have a 75-performance run from October through December 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 10:16am

Love me some Gabriel Byrne, but I cannot see this being even remotely successful (financially speaking) in a Broadway house.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 11:46am

Yeah, unfortunately I don't see this selling at all. I had to look him up 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 12:22pm

I'm still not sure who this is. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 1:25pm

What this probably has going for it:

- super cheap to run & capitalize. Byrne may be working for scale + points.

- a loss-leader ahead of a possible tour to smallish venues (and a tour he could do off and on for the rest of his working life) and/or the hope of a deal with someplace like Audible.

[ElephantLoveMedley]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 1:26pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Byrne may be working for scale + points."

Could you explain what this means? Genuinely curious and would love to learn!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 1:34pm

Working for Equity minimum, but also gets some money if the show turns a profit.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 1:41pm

RippedMan said: "Working for Equity minimum, but also gets some money if the show turns a profit."

Yes and also probably not taking an upfront fee as the playwright (with a similar backend deal).

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 8/30/22 at 10:38pm

For those that know who Gabriel Byrne is or have maybe read his book, is this the kind of story that would appeal to a broader audience?  Does it feel like a story that would make sense on the stage?

[WldKingdomHM]

Posted: 8/31/22 at 12:21pm

Gabriel and Cool World. That is all

Updated On: 8/31/22 at 12:21 PM

[Lisalemann]

Posted: 8/31/22 at 2:20pm

chrishuyen said: "For those that know who Gabriel Byrne is or have maybe read his book, is this the kind of story that would appeal to a broader audience? Does it feel like a story that would make sense on the stage?"

I have read his books and they are really good - he's a fantastic Irish storyteller.  I have no idea how this would work on stage - but if I were in New York this fall - I would try to go.  It doesn't hurt that he is extremely handsome.  For those of you who aren't sure who he is - his biggest movies were probably Miller's Crossing and the Usual Suspects (and Cool World).  He's a very good actor but he tends to do quirky independent stuff.

[AllThatJazz2]

Posted: 8/31/22 at 5:50pm

He also starred in In Treatment on HBO (which I highly recommend). 
 

I read and enjoyed his book - I too am interested to see how this translates on stage. If the tickets were more reasonably priced for me, I would attend. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/31/22 at 6:24pm

This really really really excites me but yeah, I don’t see how this is going to survive on Broadway. 

[JasonC3]

Posted: 8/31/22 at 8:08pm

Feels like something that would be in a small theater and underwritten by Audible for future release.

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 8/31/22 at 9:36pm

I would have put this on sale for 4 weeks and stuffed those performances before extending, 75 shows in the music box for this?...comp city 100%

[theaterdarling]

Posted: 9/1/22 at 5:08pm

Kinda shocked that some people don’t know who Byrne is and that no mention is made of his formidable NY stage appearances.

He is not a stranger to Broadway – but maybe no O’Neill nerds on this thread. He was Tony nominated for “Moon For the Misbegotten” in 1999 and also Tony nominated as recently as 2016 for a fairly well reviewed (though not universally revered) production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Sandwiched between those two Broadway appearances was another Broadway appearance in “Touch of The Poet” for which he won the Outer Critics Circle prize for Best Actor. Interestingly (and sorry I missed it) he also did a three-night stint in the New York Philharmonic’s 2008 semi-staging of “Camelot” (with Marin Mazzie and Nathan Gunn).

I guess if you were born in this century that might explain not knowing who he is, at least, theater-wise, otherwise, I’m perplexed!

In addition to the classic films “Miller’s Crossing” (early Coen Brothers) and “Usual Suspects” (early Bryan Singer) already mentioned by other posters, if you have also never seen In Treatment (also mentioned by another poster) I say get thee to a HBO max subscription and prepare to binge – a great series and a great, great performance by Byrne over a three-season arc. The show never leaves you and is up there with HBO's finest. (Note: The recent reboot of In Treatment did not include Byrne).

I’m probably in his predominant demographic (early sixties, hetero female). Maybe those not knowing who he is are not in this pool, but those doubting, for any reason, his ability to sustain a limited (75 performance) run in a Broadway house, the last time I checked, 50- to 60-year-old women buy a lot of Broadway tickets. Further, I believe his fandom from In Treatment alone who might not otherwise go to theater would cough up the bucks to see Byrne up close and personal and baring his soul. I really wouldn’t sell this audience or Byrne’s appeal short. We shall see.

I listened to the audio version of Walking with Ghosts and it is terrific - and, of course, is narrated by Byrne himself. Yikes, what a voice. You can read the mostly positive reviews of the book and see that it is not (thankfully) a typical celebrity memoir nor a conventional narrative and neither is the stage version it seems. Both are more a collection of memories of his childhood and early adulthood ably strung together. This structure might annoy some people, not me.  As someone else mentioned, Byrne also has some serious writing chops. Angela’s Ashes it is not, but Byrne has literary bona fides, with Colm Toibin (look him up if you don’t know him either) also vouching for same.  

For those of you who are curious about how the material manifests itself on stage, Byrne has already performed the show in Ireland, and you can Google reviews in the Irish Times, Guardian and the Financial Times to name a few. It starts a London run soon and reviews of those performances will also soon clue you in as to what you can expect.

A poster wondered if the show’s future lies in an Audible recording. Given there is an Audible version of the book and (from what I am reading) the content of the stage show closely hews to the book, I don’t know if that is its future (though I suppose the Audible book of “My Name Is Lucy Barton” and the Audible version of the stage production of same existing side by side undermines that theory). I see this more as a perfect PBS capture for Great Performances or even as a capture for HBO.  

chrishuyen asked: “is this the kind of story that would appeal to a broader audience? Does it feel like a story that would make sense on the stage?" Well, the book deals with love of family, loss of family, how your past haunts your present, sexual abuse by a priest, a sister’s heartbreaking mental health issues, and how you free yourself from the past-- and that is just for starters. I would say those themes have very broad appeal, especially if you subscribe to the dramatic/literary dictum that the more particular and specific you are in telling your family story is, the more universal it becomes. The book, as noted above, is not a unified narrative, but details many different stories from Byrne's past that greatly impacted him --and how Byrne reconciles the past with his present. If this non-linear narrative “makes sense” on stage, I believe, is (obviously) all in the execution—but the raw material is there, and based on the audiobook, so is Byrne's considerable charisma and skill in delivering it.

Sorry to go on, but the man has greatly earned his due!

 

[JasonC3]

Posted: 9/1/22 at 6:30pm

It will be interesting to see what kind of business this does.  Far more famous actors have fallen short in far more interesting works, but maybe Byrne will fulfill a niche that some theatregoers will find lacking this season.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/1/22 at 7:26pm

American Buffalo had 3 stars in a much smaller theater and didn't really do anything. 

Surprised they're ending DEH for this, honestly. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 9/1/22 at 7:29pm

RippedMan said: "Surprised they're ending DEH for this, honestly."

They're not ending DEH for this. DEH is ending because it played a long healthy run, its numbers went down, and it was time to end; it happens to be ending on a high note because of of Gaten. The Shuberts had many a show lined up and it's simply a game of Tetris determining which plays get which theatres.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/1/22 at 8:23pm

Just surprised this got such a prime theater. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 9/1/22 at 8:33pm

RippedMan said: "Just surprised this got such a prime theater."

If I had to make a guess: The Music Box has a tenant starting in the winter/spring, and this fit perfectly in the available window after DEH (it's only an 11-week run).

Also of note: this is 2:20 with an intermission, and only doing 7 shows a week.