ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS FOR OCT. 29, 2024
The latest boffo numbers for Japan's 2.5D Musicals, the global plan for Back to the Future, Dirty Dancing take two, and more
Welcome to the latest edition of ABROAD/WAY BULLETPOINTS, my regular roundup of theater headlines from around the world. New to Jaques? Check out this handy explainer.
Following on my recent coverage of 2.5D Musicals—the Japanese musical theater subgenre based on anime, manga and videogames—new data shows the boom in 2.5D Musicals continued in 2023. According to a release from the Japan 2.5D Musical Association, total sales for 2.5D Musicals rose 7.9% to hit ¥28.3 billion (~$185 mililion) in 2023, with attendance hitting a new record 2.89 million. Last year there were 236 different productions of 2.5D Musicals, another record. Meanwhile, the 2.5D Musical Association reports that demand from inbound tourists continued to grow, with the organization selling tickets to international visitors for 24 different production in 2023. As related in the release (via Google Translate): “As inbound demand continues to grow, we plan to continue promoting and strengthening sales of English tickets so that 2.5D Musicals, original Japanese theatrical performances based on Japanese manga, anime, and games, will become one of the reasons people visit Japan.”
There’s much, much more to discover about 2.5D Musicals in this story from earlier this month:
Back to the Future is closing on Broadway but accelerating to global stagings in Germany, Japan, and on the high seas, in addition to the ongoing West End production and a North American tour. The New York iteration of the pricey, technologically ambitious musical (capitalization cost: $23.5 million) will shutter Jan. 5, 2025, after about 18 months on the boards. As Michael Paulson writes in The New York Times, the Broadway production “was costly to mount and expensive to sustain; its grosses took a dive in late summer and early fall, and although it had rebounded somewhat more recently, sales were still insufficient to justify continuing.” After closing on Broadway, that physical production will move to Germany for an open-ended run planned to start next season; a separate, Tokyo production is also in the works. In perhaps the most notable news, producers of the show made an eight-year deal with Royal Caribbean to present the musical, in its full physical form(!), on the cruise line’s supersized Star of the Seas.
Dirty Dancing is being adapted into a stage musical. Again. This is notable because the other Dirty Dancing musical—Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage—has become a global staple since it premiered in 2005, particularly in Europe. In the last few years alone, the show has played Germany, France, Spain, and Italy; it was in the West End as recently as 2023. The new version—Dirty Dancing: The Musical, targeting a late 2025 launch—will be penned by the same writer of the last stage incarnation, Eleanor Bergstein (also the screenwriter of the original film), with Broadway veteran Lonny Price on board to direct. “The new production will deliver iconic moments … while reimagining key elements of the story to resonate with today’s theatregoers,” according to the release announcing the project. “Fans can expect new choreography and staging concepts, and perhaps even some new songs.” The production companies behind the new adaptation are Lionsgate, the movie studio (The Hunger Games, Saw, the John Wick franchise) whose theatrical division is developing stage shows including Wonder, Nashville, and La La Land, and London-based Path Entertainment Group (Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty Sided Tavern, Monopoly Lifesized).
A South Korean production company has sued officials of the multinational conglomerate Lotte over unpaid fees owed for the creation of a musical about Lotte’s late chairman. The musical, called The Leader, chronicled the life of former chairman Kyuk-ho Shin. Youngdouk Bahng writes in Maeil Business Newspaper that the production company “reportedly participated in the production of a video related to a reading concert, but filed a complaint when it did not receive 67.5 million won [~$47,000] out of 135 million won (~$98,000) in production.”
The unconventional Disney musical The Magic Box will play Abu Dhabi next year following its premiere in Buenos Aires earlier this year and its current run in Capetown and Johannesburg. Writer Dinesh Ramanathan’s story in What’s On includes a couple of photos from the production, which mashes up more than 75 familiar tunes from the Disney songbook in a story that co-stars puppet incarnations of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and other well-known characters. After South Africa the show heads to Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena (Jan. 29-Feb. 9, 2025), with future global stops to be announced.
A Brazilian musical about Ray Charles Jr. bows in São Paulo next month in a production conceived by Felipe Heráclito Lima and written and directed by Rodrigo Portella. Based on Charles’ autobiography, Ray—You Don’t Know Me stars local actor César Mello as Ray. The show from Tema Eventos Culturais and Sevenx runs Nov. 1-Dec. 14, 2024 at São Paulo’s Teatro B32.
In addition to an upcoming return to Broadway, the musical Elf will play Abu Dhabi and Monaco in international stops scheduled as part of a U.K. touring production. The 2010 musical based on the Will Ferrell movie is part of the wide array of shows crafted to take advantage of holiday-season sales booms, in the venerable tradition of A Christmas Carol in the U.S. and panto in the U.K.
What’s panto, you ask? Find out in this newsletter from last year:
CBC has a feature on a The Flin Flon Cowboy, a new musical promising “country music and queer crip love” at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille. The show draws on the experiences of its co-creator Ken Harrower, a gay, disabled Manitoba native who’s used a wheelchair all his life due to a condition known as AMC (arthrogryposis multiplex congenita). “Old country music is great, but none of it talked about what I’ve been through,” Harrower is quoted as saying. “So I thought, why not put my story out there with country music?”
The first Indonesian musical “featuring mainly deaf artists and crew” recently premiered in Jakarta, according to a Reuters story about the show. The work of a theater troupe called Fantasi Tuli (Deaf Fantasy), the “musical Senandung Senyap (Songs of Silence) depicts the plight of students in a middle school for children with disabilities.” Inspired by the work of the L.A.-based company Deaf West Theater (Spring Awakening), the show’s directors “created it to raise awareness and promote the use of sign language.”
The Australian writer-performer-musician Eddie Perfect will play the title character in the Melbourne production of Beetlejuice, the musical he co-created. The production Down Under, from Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures and Michael Cassel Group, starts performances May 7, 2025 at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre.
AND ICYMI
Manila is a musical theater hotspot. Find out why in my most recent SPOTLIGHT STORY, delving into the Philippines’ growing prominence as a viable stop for international touring productions and all the ways the local industry there has become increasingly integrated into the Broadway community. Plus: average run lengths, ticket prices, consumer demographics, “block buying,” and more ins and outs of this unique—and growing—market.
