Next summer, “Pretty Woman” will be walkin’ down the street — 41st Street to be specific. The new musical, based on the 1990 romantic comedy film, will open at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre on Aug. 16, with preview performances beginning on July 20. An out-of-town tryout run will be held in Chicago in the spring. The cast includes Samantha Barks (“Les Miserables” film), Steve Kazee (“Once”) and Orfeh (“Legally Blonde”).
‘Spamilton’ to finish Off-Broadway run
“Spamilton,” the acclaimed Off-Broadway parody of “Hamilton” written and directed by “Forbidden Broadway” creator Gerard Alessandrini, will close Jan. 7. The show premiered during the summer of 2016, received multiple extensions and eventually transferred from The Triad on the Upper West Side to the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater/47th Street Theatre, just a block away from the Richard Rodgers Theatre, home of “Hamilton.” In a statement, Alessandrini said the closing is due to the theater’s other programming commitments, but that “it has been worth it, to be back in the heart of Broadway, and back in our long time ‘Forbidden Broadway’ home.” A national tour and a London production are reportedly in the works.
Game over for ‘Game of Thrones’ parody
Not all shameless parodies of pop culture hits can be as successful as “Spamilton.” “Shame of Thrones: The Rock Musical — An Unauthorized Parody” will shutter on Nov. 26 following a 44-performance run at The Theater Center. The show includes (among other things) tap-dancing direwolves. The team behind it, Steven Christopher Parker and Steven Brandon, previously did “Lost: The Musical.”
‘Mean Girls’ opens in D.C., reviewed by local critics
Tina Fey’s musical adaptation of “Mean Girls,” which is currently receiving an out-of-town tryout run in Washington, D.C., and is set to open on Broadway in the spring, has been reviewed by D.C. critics, who mostly had good things to say about it. Paul Harris of Variety called it “a delightful and energetic tuner packed with strong performances, engaging numbers and eye-popping visuals.” In The Washington Post, Peter Marks suggested that the show could benefit from more development if it wishes to be a game-changer like “Dear Evan Hansen” instead of a middlebrow, feel-good hit along the lines of “School of Rock.”
Todrick Hall goes from Lola to Billy Flynn
Todrick Hall, who gained fame as a YouTube personality and “American Idol” finalist and went on to play the cross-dressing Lola in “Kinky Boots,” will join the Broadway cast of “Chicago” for a seven-week run as the razzle-dazzle criminal defense attorney Billy Flynn, beginning Nov. 30. It’s easy to forget that this production (which just celebrated its 21-year anniversary) began in 1996 as a scaled-down, concert-style revival of a musical that was overshadowed in 1975 by “A Chorus Line.”
Spotted…
Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman at “Hot Mess” (which stars their daughter, Lucy DeVito) at the Jerry Orbach Theater . . . Olivia Newton-John at “Beautiful” . . . Andrew Garfield at “Dear Evan Hansen.”
