Could Stratford JCS Transfer to Broadway?

Could the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's Jesus Christ Superstar transfer to Broadway when it ends in October?

Looks terrific.

Not that often we get a Canadian transfer...

Updated On: 7/7/11 at 11:14 PM

Plain and simple: I'll believe it when I see it. ALW muddying the waters like this is not going to work in his favor. He's got two competing productions going on.

Don't forget, in addition to his buttering up Stratford, he's also developing the world arena tour for 2012 that was mentioned a couple of times. My sources tell me he already selected a different team. Reportedly, inspired by the film of Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT, ALW decided that was how JCS had to be done on a world concert stage, and he started playing footsies with Kenny Ortega and the rest of the This is It team. Ortega's reported price-tag as of last count is upwards of 2 mil, and ALW is allegedly willing to shell out the shekels.

Two major productions with totally different concepts in two major venues at the same time? That's muddying the waters, and asking for the troubling possibility of both productions cutting into each other's business, depending on which is the more popular. Unless Ortega delivers a snooze fest, odds are his major arena tour with the "top names in the music world" starring would be the winner of that horse-race.

The only way I could see this working out would be if the arena tour was a re-developed version of the Stratford production turned up to 11. Many reviewers, including Variety, have noted the concert-like atmosphere of the unit set, and I have to wonder if ALW is planning to buy Stratford lock, stock, and props and then blow it up to an arena sized staging, as it would certainly lend itself well. But then there's the trouble of Des McAnuff, who is a major "name" director, and might feel insulted at the possibility of Ortega stepping into his shoes on his baby, which the Stratford production definitely was.

It's a mess all-around. Unless one or the other falls out of the running, I don't see either being wholly successful.

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Josh Young is outstanding as Judas. He was equally good as Che in Stratford's Evita last year.

Josh Young is actually American.

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He's not even that rock.

(I saw him as Marius twice. He still sounds like a nice little musical theatre boy trying his best to wail.)

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JCS began as concerts.

I am well aware of this, as is almost anyone who is an aficionado of the show (see my avatar). In fact, ALW stated that as the impetus for his choosing to do an arena tour, a chance to return it to its rock roots.

I see no reason why there could not be a transfer of this to Broadway and a separate world tour to distant places.

Whenever ALW is behind a production of JCS, it's usually aimed at attempting to put a definitive stamp on it, like all of his shows with replica productions pioneered first by Hal Prince with Evita and later by Cameron Mackintosh with Cats and Phantom. In the past few years, from 1996 to 2010, ALW has championed various versions as the definitive JCS - the Lyceum production [1996-98], the UK tour that later became the direct-to-video remake [off and on from 1998-2001], Louis St. Louis' "gospel"-ization of the show [2010].

Not only is having two different productions running at the same time out of character for ALW, but unfair to both productions. Why see the show in New York, tourists? It's playing 200 dates in North America, opening at Madison Square Garden, European opening coming up at the O2 in London, and it's got bigger stars, bigger creative names, and bigger producers (AEG Live is one of two besides ALW who are apparently behind the arena tour). You think anyone outside the city or the Broadway community will give a rat's ass about the transfer if/when this arena tour hits?

And this is saying nothing of the conflicting "frozen rights" situation. If it's on Broadway, typically that cancels out any production within a certain radius, and rights are frozen throughout the country. ALW's very canny here -- if it's a concert, it's not a total infringement. He's hoping to collect money from both, or at least from the winning horse.

I just don't see Stratford winning.

I don't feel so negative about having two directors' versions going at the same time. This Stratford one seems already a hit. An arena show is much less up close and personal.

Such a distinction will matter little to a paying audience confronted with the relative merits of both. And at the end of the day, one director is going to feel his toes have been stepped on, for better or worse.

It's unfair to the Stratford production. He is blatantly cutting them off at the knee, so to speak, with this arena tour. Before it's even out of the gate, as he butters them up with promises of a transfer, he's preparing a production that could blow them out of the water.

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Updated On: 6/22/11 at 03:37 PM

If you ask me, the further away from JCS Andrew is kept, the better. The major productions he's championed in recent years have been some of the weakest in my opinion. While it's good of him to want to get Superstar back in touch with its "Rock Roots", Sir Webber has proven a few times over that he's not the man to help that happen. Nothing too rockin' about Glenn Carter's choir boy falsetto...

That said, I'd love to see an Arena Tour of JCS if it's in capable hands. The Arena version mounted down under in the early nineties remains a personal favorite. It had a wonderful energy to it. They had so much space to fill and play with, and they certainly made some magic happen.

I was thinking the arena tour should not play the U.S. at the same time the Stratford show was on Broadway.

Unless he's got dough in his back pocket, the transfer will not be immediate, especially considering the work involved. They would have to:

1. Finish the run, which doesn't end till October when the Festival is finished.
2. Find extra investors (see the Bialystock rule).
3. If they're using the same cast, as Variety begs them to in its review, then they have to arrange work visas, haggle with Equity, etc., which is an all-consuming process in and of itself.
4. Find an open theater.
5. Build sets, make costumes, etc., down in New York.
6. Rehearse and tech.

And that's just a thumbnail glimpse. Maybe, maybe, if all went right, the Stratford production could be here in 2012. But if it does, and the arena tour is still going at that point, we've got the conflict. Unless ALW is getting transfer rights to stop them from transferring, which I suspect may be the real story, now that I think about it.

What if they let the Stratford show do a Broadway house for a while and then take it on an arena tour? Do you think that would work?

With no names? No advertising hook? Who would buy it? I love JCS, but as a producer I can admit that it's dead in the water as a commercial concert property without some sort of hook. Rule #370,000: "Plots don't work in stadiums; just ask Dennis DeYoung." (See "Styx," sub-heading "Disastrous 'Kilroy Was Here' stadium opening.")

The Australian revival that AndyBarclay mentions was designed to sell solely on the names of ALW and the Australian stars cast in it. Australia is an increasingly secular society; they certainly weren't going out of interest in the story. In fact, as I recall, they even had to add a program note explaining who Jesus was for the audience's benefit.

The Stratford production as is could not become an arena tour unless it was modified for the arena format and included some massive stars as drawing power; it would work on Broadway without any changes, if I thought that was actually ALW's intention.

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Updated On: 6/22/11 at 05:44 PM

Tim Rice saw the show tonight in Stratford.

Including transfers, sabrelady?

At what point did scaffolding become the universal set design language for JCS?

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Duke University, right?

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Is there any audio of Josh Young singing "Heaven on Their Minds?" I would LOVE to hear that.