Something "Wicked" Southward Comes
May 20th 2007 05:08
Christmas came early for the Australian Musical Theatre industry this year. Not able even to hold off till July so ecstatic was it by the news!
The announcement was made on US theatrical website Playbill.com that the mega-blockbuster musical Wicked is to premiere in Melbourne in July 2008.
If you listen carefully you can hear the theatre people sing!
The musical Wicked, all about the "true story" of the two witches of OZ - Glinda the good and the Wicked Witch of the West (based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire) hit Broadway in 2003 - and HIT is the word!
Despite the fact that it was the most expensive musical in history at the time (it has since been outdone by The Lord of the Rings: the musical... but thats another story!) and despite the fact that it was soundly rubbished by every critic on the Great White Way AND despite the fact that it only managed to snare three out of ten possible Tony Award wins it almost instantly became a sensation.
Within a year it was a legend.
To this day, nearly four years and 1,500 performances later and in spite of the fact that it's competing with twenty-five other more than usually superb musicals presently playing on Broadway, it still remains the hottest ticket in town. The massive Gershwin Theatre is filled to capacity every night (thats over 1,800 seats mind you!) and the show's weekly gross is yet to slip below US$1.3 million!
That makes it officially the most commercially (if not critically) successful show in Broadway's long and very commercial history!
Since then the show has opened in theatres accross the US to similar commercial acclaim while a London show is already the toast of the West End. Wicked - Melbourne, is just one of three international productions planned for 2007/2008 and the mammoth show's runaway success story looks set to continue down under.
Or does it?
Musical theatre is not Australia's favourite passtime - not by a long shot. BUT it does have its moments. Miss Saigon is doing very well in Melbourne at present and a revival of The Phantom of the Opera (Australia's longest running show to date) looks set to follow in its path. Likewise new shows are FINALLY on the way in 2007 with Billy Elliot: the musical set to open in Sydney in December at the same time that the hilarious Monty Python's Spamalot will open in Melbourne.
Wicked is seemingly the icing on the cake. But have producers bitten off more than they can chew? Wicked, after all is a collossus of a show requiring vast and complex sets and a multitude of costumes in every shade of green imagineable. Not to mention the fact that it is a technical and lighting nightmare set to send the electricity bills at the mighty Regent Theatre in Melbourne skyrocketing.
Worse news, this is not Broadway, where musical theatre technicians are waiting on every corner. Production costs in Australia are infamously high. Just ask Andrew Lloyd Webber, who lost his shirt in 1997 after a pricey production of Sunset Boulevard flopped... in Melbourne, at the Regent Theatre!
Wicked's Broadway budget was US$15 million. A conservative estimate of its Australian budget places its cost Down Under at around AU$20 million, making it the most expensive production of the show yet and the most expensive production in Australian history!
Defiant producers and Musical Theatre buffs everywhere will instantly retort that Wicked is worth its weight in gold... lots of gold! Just look at the US/UK box offices for confirmation. But they forget that this is Australia - where audiences don't take kindly to shelling out over 100 bucks a ticket for anything that does not involve the term "Australian Fast Bowler" - otherwise Phantom of the Opera would still be running!
Moreover, every major musical success of the past two decades has hit the road, touring Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth - see Phantom, Cats, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, The Producers, The Boy From Oz and Cabaret. Wicked needs a theatre the size of Ayers Rock, and aside from the Lyric in Sydney and the Regent in Melbourne, there's really nowhere else that could fit the whole thing in all its splendour - and will audiences stampede to see a show that relies on special effects and spectacle without the special effects and spectacle?
Naturally one could argue that audiences can travel to Melbourne. Victorian Premiere Steve Bracks certainly seems to think so. In a recent statement he seems to presume that audiences from accross the southern hemisphere (let alone Australia) will be knocking on Melbourne's door to see the musical juggernaut de jour.
It's all hauntingly familiar to the build up surrounding the infamous demise of Sunset Boulevard in 1997 - a monstrous show which was also touted to drag in the international tourist dollar and save the Australian Musical Theatre scene.
That raises another question. Is Wicked up to the task?
Based on the legend of The Wizard of Oz - though delightfully and entertainingly mangled - Wicked naturally appealled to an Oz-obsessed American audience. But will folks from the real Oz take to the denizens of the fake one? For despite its many glories Wicked is without question a flawed show.
It's lyrics falter hopelessly in some places. Its characters are either over-exposed or shallow as a thimble. The show shamelessly relies on melodrama and spectacle rather than plot or musical score and the excessive (and remarkably effective) glamourisation of particular moments - anyone who has seen or heard clips of the Act One Finale "Defying Gravity" will understand!
Can Wicked survive the Australian experience?
Our critics are less than generous - and both Broadway and West End critics tore into Wicked like a pack of starved hyenas!
Australian audiences, however, are just downright cruel! We seldome tolerate the best of musicals, let alone the flawed ones.
Last year the musical version of Titanic folded like a bed sheet, as did The Witches of Eastwick the year before. The Producers, the most awarded musical in history, was forced to close early! The Australian productions of Evita, Sunset Boulevard, Aspects of Love and Starlight Express all closed like clams, while major fare that runs on Broadway for years at a time usually barely manages to survive a few months under southern skies.
Australia is not a musical friendly country - hence the fact that almost every major new Broadway and West End musical of the past decade has failed to arrive here!
So Wicked the musical is on its way - prepare for the hype and book your tickets in advance for the first issue is sure to sell out early.
But can it last? Surely no one show in history has come to a country with so much riding on its success. If Wicked is a blockbuster, the Australian Musical Theatre industry could be set for years to come.
But if it flops...
The announcement was made on US theatrical website Playbill.com that the mega-blockbuster musical Wicked is to premiere in Melbourne in July 2008.
If you listen carefully you can hear the theatre people sing!
The musical Wicked, all about the "true story" of the two witches of OZ - Glinda the good and the Wicked Witch of the West (based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire) hit Broadway in 2003 - and HIT is the word!
Within a year it was a legend.
To this day, nearly four years and 1,500 performances later and in spite of the fact that it's competing with twenty-five other more than usually superb musicals presently playing on Broadway, it still remains the hottest ticket in town. The massive Gershwin Theatre is filled to capacity every night (thats over 1,800 seats mind you!) and the show's weekly gross is yet to slip below US$1.3 million!
That makes it officially the most commercially (if not critically) successful show in Broadway's long and very commercial history!
Since then the show has opened in theatres accross the US to similar commercial acclaim while a London show is already the toast of the West End. Wicked - Melbourne, is just one of three international productions planned for 2007/2008 and the mammoth show's runaway success story looks set to continue down under.
Musical theatre is not Australia's favourite passtime - not by a long shot. BUT it does have its moments. Miss Saigon is doing very well in Melbourne at present and a revival of The Phantom of the Opera (Australia's longest running show to date) looks set to follow in its path. Likewise new shows are FINALLY on the way in 2007 with Billy Elliot: the musical set to open in Sydney in December at the same time that the hilarious Monty Python's Spamalot will open in Melbourne.
Wicked is seemingly the icing on the cake. But have producers bitten off more than they can chew? Wicked, after all is a collossus of a show requiring vast and complex sets and a multitude of costumes in every shade of green imagineable. Not to mention the fact that it is a technical and lighting nightmare set to send the electricity bills at the mighty Regent Theatre in Melbourne skyrocketing.
Worse news, this is not Broadway, where musical theatre technicians are waiting on every corner. Production costs in Australia are infamously high. Just ask Andrew Lloyd Webber, who lost his shirt in 1997 after a pricey production of Sunset Boulevard flopped... in Melbourne, at the Regent Theatre!
Wicked's Broadway budget was US$15 million. A conservative estimate of its Australian budget places its cost Down Under at around AU$20 million, making it the most expensive production of the show yet and the most expensive production in Australian history!
Defiant producers and Musical Theatre buffs everywhere will instantly retort that Wicked is worth its weight in gold... lots of gold! Just look at the US/UK box offices for confirmation. But they forget that this is Australia - where audiences don't take kindly to shelling out over 100 bucks a ticket for anything that does not involve the term "Australian Fast Bowler" - otherwise Phantom of the Opera would still be running!
Moreover, every major musical success of the past two decades has hit the road, touring Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth - see Phantom, Cats, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, The Producers, The Boy From Oz and Cabaret. Wicked needs a theatre the size of Ayers Rock, and aside from the Lyric in Sydney and the Regent in Melbourne, there's really nowhere else that could fit the whole thing in all its splendour - and will audiences stampede to see a show that relies on special effects and spectacle without the special effects and spectacle?
Naturally one could argue that audiences can travel to Melbourne. Victorian Premiere Steve Bracks certainly seems to think so. In a recent statement he seems to presume that audiences from accross the southern hemisphere (let alone Australia) will be knocking on Melbourne's door to see the musical juggernaut de jour.
It's all hauntingly familiar to the build up surrounding the infamous demise of Sunset Boulevard in 1997 - a monstrous show which was also touted to drag in the international tourist dollar and save the Australian Musical Theatre scene.
That raises another question. Is Wicked up to the task?
Based on the legend of The Wizard of Oz - though delightfully and entertainingly mangled - Wicked naturally appealled to an Oz-obsessed American audience. But will folks from the real Oz take to the denizens of the fake one? For despite its many glories Wicked is without question a flawed show.
It's lyrics falter hopelessly in some places. Its characters are either over-exposed or shallow as a thimble. The show shamelessly relies on melodrama and spectacle rather than plot or musical score and the excessive (and remarkably effective) glamourisation of particular moments - anyone who has seen or heard clips of the Act One Finale "Defying Gravity" will understand!
Can Wicked survive the Australian experience?
Our critics are less than generous - and both Broadway and West End critics tore into Wicked like a pack of starved hyenas!
Australian audiences, however, are just downright cruel! We seldome tolerate the best of musicals, let alone the flawed ones.
Last year the musical version of Titanic folded like a bed sheet, as did The Witches of Eastwick the year before. The Producers, the most awarded musical in history, was forced to close early! The Australian productions of Evita, Sunset Boulevard, Aspects of Love and Starlight Express all closed like clams, while major fare that runs on Broadway for years at a time usually barely manages to survive a few months under southern skies.
Australia is not a musical friendly country - hence the fact that almost every major new Broadway and West End musical of the past decade has failed to arrive here!
So Wicked the musical is on its way - prepare for the hype and book your tickets in advance for the first issue is sure to sell out early.
But can it last? Surely no one show in history has come to a country with so much riding on its success. If Wicked is a blockbuster, the Australian Musical Theatre industry could be set for years to come.
But if it flops...
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