Next to Normal - Theatre League

[Jack Lopez-Turner]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 4:17pm

The Kansas City page for Theatre League show that they will be running Next to Normal in their current season. However, the website for the show itself does not show Kansas City as a stop. Is this some special one city Non-Equity show?

[littlegreen2]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 4:22pm

Kansas City is not a leg of the tour, and rights to the show were just released. According to the website it's in 2012, it will be one of the first theaters to produce a non-equity version of the show.

[binau]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 4:25pm

I never quite understand the MTI list of upcoming shows - I mean e.g. there is a listing for the Kennedy Center FOLLIES (i.e. it appears to list professional productions), but why is there no listing for the upcoming Australian production of N2N?

[Jack Lopez-Turner]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 4:25pm

It doesn't seem like a very long Equity tour. Any reason why? From what I've read on here it's not that expensive a show to run. Why would they limit the official tour to such a select number of cities?

[littlegreen2]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 4:33pm

I agree about the Equity tour. I think they have too many stops in California and they don't even touch the south... I think there is still one date that is TBA but the tour is short, I agree.

If you haven't seen the show, even if you have to go out of your way to see the Equity tour, it's so worth it. Ripley has seen better days vocally but her portrayal of Diana Goodman is probably one of the most electric and emotional things I've ever experienced in a Broadway theater.

[Jack Lopez-Turner]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 4:36pm

I saw it in March while she was out on vacation. I actually preferred the understudy as I've never been a Ripley fan. My only concern in it not hitting more cities is that I want my family to see it. I guess a Non-Equity that rolls through phoenix will be better than nothing, although we are used to getting tours on their first run.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 6:34pm

"Why would they limit the official tour to such a select number of cities?"

That would be because those are the cities/presenters that booked the show. The producers of a tour do not have much say in the creation of the itinerary. Usually the only city that they handpick is the city that the tour techs and opens in (as they will want to make sure that they have what they feel is an ideal city to tech the show in). Other than that the route is basically created by the booking agents as they sell the show to the various road presenters. So if a tour does not come to your city it is either because your local presenter either didn't want it, couldn't afford it, or it was already booked by somebody else for the time that they had open in their schedules.

If there is a show that you really want to see that is about to go out on tour the best bet would be to make sure you write to your local presenter, and get others to do so, so that they know there is an interest in the show amongst ticket buyers.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 2/1/11 at 10:06pm

The tour schedule probably isn't up to date yet with the 2011 2012. Theatre league shows are alwats national tours, never regional productions.

[ahhrealmonsters]

Posted: 2/2/11 at 10:41am

There seems to be an Equity production in Texas. Here's the Playbill casting call:

http://www.playbill.com/jobs/find/job_detail/34909.html