Kad said: "For a scenario to include Music Man being delayed a year, there would need to be doubts about whether theaters would even be open by the fall, and if that's the case, Beetlejuice is still closed."
The reason why it's more complicated than this (which I'm surprised nobody has mentioned) - and why such a scenario is possible - is that Sutton was supposed to start filming the seventh season of her TV series Younger in March, to begin airing this summer (along with Debi Mazar, currently recovering from COVID-19, as well as Hilary Duff, etc.). Obviously when the Music Man dates were announced no one could foresee this, and everyone obviously assumed production on that would have long since ended by the time rehearsals were scheduled to begin in August - but now they'll be lucky if they even start filming by then. (And that's assuming Hugh Jackman has finished his new sci-fi action film opposite Thandie Newton, and has no further obligations there.)
Anything is possible, obviously... but since A) the common consensus is that film and TV production will be able to resume filming before mass audiences are allowed to convene and live theater is up and running, and B) in situations like this where there's an "act of God" the previous and ongoing commitment to the TV film or project is usually in "first position" ahead of the stage project – it's hard to imagine those won't take precedence whenever business gets back to usual, no matter how long they take to complete. (Sutton, for example, certainly can't film her TV series, in which she's in nearly every scene, while she's doing 8 shows a week, let alone in rehearsal, and there's no way TV Land is going to happily keep that cast on ice till end of 2021 or early 2022 after Sutton's contract on Broadway is up - after which time Younger would have been off the air for nearly 3 years. And that's assuming Jackman wasn't also scheduled to squeeze in yet another film in the next 5 months before returning to Broadway.)
The ramifications of this crisis are obviously echoing far and wide across all sectors of the entertainment industry, and the juggling and rejiggering when business resumes is going to be enormous and unprecedented. But with regard to The Music Man, it's easy to see the 2 leads, if not several others, now contractually unable to begin the production on the scheduled start date... and, as others have suggested, if audiences are skittish anyway about coming back to live theatre, it's not hard to see Scott Rudin welcoming such a delay. So just as the opening of nearly every major movie from this spring and summer has now been pushed back to next spring and summer, with regard to this one show I wouldn't in the least be surprised to see The Music Man similarly postponed till spring at the earliest, and very possibly moved to next fall. In which case, with their sets and costumes right where they left them in early March, Beetlejuice might not only be able to stay right where they are after all, but actually have the Shuberts providing -incentive- to keep them open, so as not to have one of their prime musical houses empty for a full year. Strange times.
Updated On: 4/3/20 at 03:28 AM
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