PARADISE SQUARE Sets July 17 Closing Date on Broadway — Page 4

DrMonicaDeMoneco said: "David10086 said: "DrMonicaDeMoneco said: "Has Garth given any sort of statement?"

He officially said, "See ya, suckers!" and caught the next plane back to Toronto."

LOL! That he did!"



Is there any money left to remove the set and lighting equipment, etc, from the theatre this week?

Aren't those costs bonded, also?

There must be storage costs for the set and costumes too. I imagine these could all be leased to the touring company, which is not the original producers.

Updated On: 7/19/22 at 10:12 AM

is it wishful thinking to want a statement from Garth? Maybe an admission of guilt? Tell the truth for once?


HogansHero said: "some is bonded, some is in deposits, some not, but there is an entire week's box office sitting there and the Shuberts are not going to pay that out without covering any possible exposure first. I doubt anything will be stored, some may be sellable to offset costs. I also think the chances of a tour are slim or nil and slim is out of town."

Any tour would have to include the Tony winning star, the only marketable creative element for a wider audience. In profile, it’s ostensibly a one number show. Yet the musical couldn’t break even the entire month after the awards season and Tony telecast, the tri-state audience the most likely invested in Tony highlighted material. It’s still intriguing that “word of mouth” was supposed to rescue this show, even recognizing that the “word” was predominantly “meh.”

Chrzczon, the same man who produced those duds Home for the Holidays and Ruben & Clay's First Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show, was the general manager for this? He was also put on equity's 'Do not work list" due to unpaid wages from the latter show. Maybe Garth wanted this to fail...

That, and also most of these performers and crew had been out of a job since at least March 2020, if not longer, they would’ve been hard pressed to pass up on a job. Garth or not.

Updated On: 7/20/22 at 11:00 PM

Full disclosure: Saw this three times in Chicago and twice in New York including the closing.

This closing was tough to take because the show really didn't have a fighting chance. The internal issues made it less competitive in a very competitive time. The cast and crew were simply superb. What went wrong?

The general consensus in Chicago was reflected in mixed reviews. The parts of this show that were good were very good, those that were excellent were quite excellent and then there were those "WTF" moments. We gave our feedback and the New York show was tightened although perhaps to the detriment of upsetting the balance between Nellie and Annie.

The general consensus in Chicago is that we wanted this show to succeed. Even with the baggage it was good enough to deserve it.

This is not a "hip" new show like Hamilton. It is not a "feel good" show or a "jukebox musical." It was challenging and had several themes. Look at what it was up against.

The Music Man. Nowhere near as compelling but Huge Jackman was a more believable and less bombastic Harold Hill than iconic Robert Preston and Sutton Foster added a little street wiseness to the saccharine Shirley Jones. And the cute and talented kids! People forked out obscene amounts of money for tickets to a good but not artistically great show.

MJ. Mr. Saturday Night with Billy Crystal. Hadestown. The much touted Company (which I felt was also good, not great) with a name cast. And then the perennial audience favorites like Wicked, Chicago and Phantom. Others, too.

With more competent management and better promotion maybe this would have had a shot and maybe not given the competition at the moment. We'll never know. But Paradise Square had a unique story worth telling, an amazing cast, powerful music, enormous choreography and maybe it was just too overwhelming for some. It was not trendy enough nor a "feel good" show. Maybe it should have had a run at the Kennedy Center before Broadway and after Chicago. Or it could morph to a movie version.

And maybe timing was off. And maybe it needed a niche (think Come From Away). So let me go back to the beginning (so to speak). We knew in Chicago this had potential. The good parts were very good, the excellent parts quite excellent and the rest needed tweaking. There is no guarantee a show will succeed (remember the Carousel revival with a great cast but up against Bette Midler's Hello Dolly?) but the sour part here is that it seemed like it deserved a fighting chance.

Canada doesn’t even want to work with Garth! Hahahahahaha!