The Final Curtain Comes Down

Good bye to these Broadway shows: 

Spamalot

Hairspray

Spring Awakening

13

Boeing-Boeing

Grease

Gypsy

Tale of Two Cities

Young Frankenstein

The Great White Way will be a little darker next month. 

You Can Stop the Beat *UPDATE*

It's official.

Playbill is reporting that smash Broadway musical "Hairspray" will play it's last performance on January 4, 2009--closing two weeks before "Monty Python's Spamalot."

Harvey Fierstein will rejoin the cast as Edna Turnblad next month and play through to the show's end. Fierstein won a Tony Award for Best Actor for the role.

"Hairspray" tells the story of Tracy Turnblad, a teenage girl who wants to dance on "The Corny Collins Show"--an American Bandstandesque show--in 1960s Baltimore, Md. Despite being "pleasantly plump," she becomes a break-out star, finds love and changes the world. Her mother helps guide her. It is based on the John Waters film of the same name.

The show opened in August of 2002 and took home several awards at the 2003 Tony Awards. Besides Fierstein's win, "Hairspray" also won for Best Actress among others. It took home the coveted "Best New Musical" Tony as well. A movie version of the musical opened in 2007, starring John Travolta as Edna Turnblad.

A sequel to the movie is in the works.

The show currently plays at the Neil Simon Theater.

You Can Stop The Beat

According to this Playbill.com article, not only is original Edna Harvey Fierstein returning to the smash musical, he's returning to send it off. It looks like Hairspray is "likely" to be the next victim in the musical-closing marathon. Though the writer of this article makes a good point that it is just a ploy to buoy a sinking box office. When Rent announced it was closing, there was a rush on the box office which kept the musical open until last month. If the same thing happens, Hairspray could stay open another year. Though they can't just keep pulling the "We're going to close" card. Eventually, people will get suspicious and the show will have to close.

But if it's Hairspray's final bow, who will be next? I love Disney, but will they be the only shows on the Great White Way if the economy continues to go down the drain? Or will Disney have to give up its hold on Broadway as well?

Hairspray 2?

Okay, I love "Hairspray"--both the 88 movie, 2003 musical and 07 movie. I thought they were all well-done, and the latter two had some great songs. However I shuddered when I saw this as the top story on Playbill Online. A sequel? Why? I think the story wrapped up nice and neat. What could they conquer next? Velma's revenge? Tracy joining the hippie movment? I honestly don't know where the story will go.

Well, at least they are planning the sequel as a movie and not a musical. Musical sequels don't work--Bring Back Birdie, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, Annie Warbucks. This is one reason why I don't think Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom sequel will do well either (the other reasons later). But then again, making a sequel to such a good, beloved, campy movie like Hairspay may not fly well either. Grease 2, anyone?

Though...Grease 2 is in the so bad, it's good category. My sister and I love to watch it for that reason. And "I'll Be Your Girl for All Seasons" and "Turn Back (The Hands of Time)" are pretty good. "Reproduction"? Not so much. And it might be hard to get Michelle Pfeffer back for a sequel--she was in Grease 2 after all.