G20 closes two musicals for a week

Listen up! If you have tickets to Mamma Mia! or Rock Of Ages during the G20 Festival Of Annoyance Summit, read this:

"Mirvish Productions will not perform its shows ROCK OF AGES (at the Royal Alexandra Theatre) and MAMMA MIA! (at the Princess of Wales Theatre) during the week of the G20 summit in Toronto. 
 The Royal Alexandra and Princess of Wales theatres are located on King Street West, at the edge of what is designated the “traffic zone” for the G20 summit. Over the last few months Mirvish Productions has met with organizers of the G20 security team and the Toronto Police to determine how the G20 preparations and activities would affect its performances during the week of the Summit. 
 Mirvish had every intention of carrying on performances during the week in question, assured by the various levels of authority that the G20 would not impact the theatres. More recently, as more information has been released about the G20 preparations and as some of this information appears to be inconclusive or contradictory, especially with regard to traffic on King Street West, Mirvish has decided it would be best and safest to suspend performances.
 “It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” said producer David Mirvish. “The theatrical adage we have always lived by is ‘the show must go on.’ But in this instance – an unprecedented instance for us as we’ve always performed our shows – we have concluded that our audiences are best served by the shows not going on.
...
“All those holding tickets to the performances the week of June 21 to 27 will be contacted and offered an exchange to other performances.”

Fun with leg warmers

Here's something you may consider if you have nothing else to do on Friday. I'm too lazy I don't have time to rewrite the press release, so here it is: "Broadway’s rockin’ goodtime musical ROCK OF AGES is finally coming to Toronto, with performances beginning April 20, 2010 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. Tickets for this eagerly anticipated Canadian Premiere will go on sale in person in a fun-filled 1980s-themed event on Friday, November 27, 2009 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre Box Office at 12:30 PM and by phone and web on Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 9:00 AM. Want to see ROCK OF AGES on its very first performance in Canada for only $19.87? (The story takes place in 1987 on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.) Audience members are invited to raid their closets for their very best 1980s' togs.  Here is your chance to once again proudly sport your mullets, your jelly shoes, your acid-wash jeans, your leg-warmers and your knit shirts with little alligators on them! So basically what I wear every day? That's easy. Then rock on down to the Royal Alexandra Theatre (260 King St West). At 12:30 PM the Box Office will open and the first 200 tickets will be sold to the first performance of ROCK OF AGES, on April 20, 2010 for the unbelievably low price of $19.87... (Call Ticketking at 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333. Online sales at www.mirvish.com)"

Here's video from the rehearsal for the Broadway show:

Is Spice Girls: The Musical something you might be interested in?

From The Mirror:

"Wanted! Five unknown actresses to play the Spice Girls in a blockbuster stage musical. Producers will be seeking wannabes capable of a Posh pout, a baby face, a scary look and a sporty backflip... and one who's ginger. Speculation had been rife the band were set for another reunion after they were seen in secret talks over dinner at Nobu in London. But it has now emerged they were really hatching a plan to bring their story to the stage. It is being billed as a two-hour "pop extravaganza" charting the rise of the band. Geri Halliwell is the producer but the other four are said to be behind the project and will help select the actresses playing them. A source said: "The project is Geri's baby really but all the girls are backing it. "The idea is for five relatively unknown actresses to take the parts and hopefully the girls will each have a say in who is cast."

Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig hate your cell phone

Wolverine and Bond on Broadway. Together!

Get me to New York in the fall. This from The New York Post:

Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman  will team up in a new play this fall on Broadway, The Post has learned. The drama, "A Steady Rain" (excellent choice. As you can see, they both look great wet) by Keith Huff, is about two Chicago cops whose lifelong friendship is put to the test when they become involved in a domestic dispute in a poor neighborhood. Craig ... will be making his New York stage debut. He started off in the theater in London, playing bit parts, but he has not appeared in a play in several years. Jackman won a Tony Award in 2004 for his role as Peter Allen in "The Boy From Oz." "The Boy From Oz" regularly grossed more than $1 million a week. Jackman became the most sought-after leading man in the theater, though he's turned down every offer to star in another show until now. "Everybody wanted him to do a musical, but he wanted to do a serious play," a theater source says ... Theater sources say Craig and Jackman have the potential to match Broadway's biggest box- office champ, Julia Roberts, who sold over $10 million worth of tickets in just 12 weeks in the play "Three Days of Rain" in 2006. Although "A Steady Rain" is harsh and harrowing, one Broadway wag predicted that even those theatergoers whose tastes run to splashy musicals will want to see it. Said the wag: "Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in police uniforms? All the boys will be there!"

Tony nominations

Billy Elliot dominates the field with 15 noms. The show is June 7 and you can see all the nominations here. Here are some of the big categories:

BEST PLAY Dividing the Estate, God of Carnage, reasons to be pretty, 33 Variations.

BEST MUSICAL Billy Elliot, Next to Normal, Rock of Ages, Shrek the Musical.

BEST ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL Stockard Channing, Pal Joey, Sutton Foster, Shrek the Musical, Allison Janney, 9 to 5,  Alice Ripley, Next to Normal, Josefina Scaglione, West Side Story.

BEST ACTOR IN A PLAY Jeff Daniels, God of Carnage, Raul Esparza, Speed-the-Plow, James Gandolfini, God of Carnage, Geoffrey Rush, Exit the King, Thomas Sadoski, reasons to be pretty.

A boy and his horse

Daniel Radcliffe sang a sweet, little Equus-inspired song at a recent AIDS-fundraiser.

You need to go see The Sound of Music. You really do

ANDREW WALLACE/TORONTO STAR PHOTOO Andrew Lloyd Webber looks for someone to interview him last night at the premiere of Sound of Music.

I went to the premiere of the old almost-nun-meets-sexy-strong-military-man-with-a-boatload-of-children musical at the Princess of Wales last night, and afterwards I felt like I had been sitting in front of a warm fire, wrapped in a blanket, cuddling puppies for a couple of hours. Not that I have ever sat in front of a fire, wrapped in a blanket, cuddling puppies, but I imagine that's what it would be like. The show is so genuinely sweet I felt cleansed of everything Madonna/A-Rod-related. It's sort of an all is right with the world even if everything's going wrong kinda thing. Richard Ouzounian's four-star review explains it all much better. Suffice to say, it's all kinds of lovely. The weird Austrian pickled fish canapees at the party afterwards? Not so much.