the craptacular

By, NineDaves & Lovely Linda

Oh hey, this week’s Broadway grosses are out! Are you asleep yet?

This weekly financial picture of Broadway is amazing in its breadth and detail, but we start to nod off before the whole chart even loads on our screens. (Liberal Arts majors, unite.) But here’s the deal: The Broadway grosses are effing important. They tell a dramatic, passionate story about this thing we all love: Broadway. If you know where to look.

That’s where we come in. In this column each week, we’re going to find the most important tidbit hidden in those numbers, and we’re going to tell it to you. So you won’t have to sift through that crazy chart.

Watch the numbers, and you can learn:

• Which shows you can see for cheap this week
• Which shows you’ll never see again in your lifetime because you can’t get a ticket (Right at you, Book of Mormon…)
• Which shows just got – or could use – a new star
• Which shows are closing and when
• Which new shows will be around forever

This week, we’re going to take a look at a show that’s been open for a while: Sister Act. Its financial struggles and lukewarm box office numbers were even recently chronicled in an article in The New York Times.

When you look back at the numbers, Sister Act was doing pretty well after it opened in April, 2011. It was filling 80% of its seats until the Tony Awards, when it was nominated for Best Musical. But when it lost to The Book of Mormon, those numbers started slipping. It’s never fully recovered, despite some positive reviews and word of mouth.

But Sister Act has a new thing going for it now: That’s So Raven star Raven-Symoné, who began performances as Deloris van Cartier on March 27. So is this fine bit of stunt casting having any financial impact? Or, to put it bluntly: Is Raven savin’ Sister Act?

At first glance, yes. The show’s capacity percentage is up 14.1% from last week — and the gross increased by $152,671. But if you look at the grosses since January, there have been other, similar shifts in capacity percentage and gross, without a major shift in the cast. Take the week ending February 19, for example. The gross increased 16.7%. That’s even more of an increase than Raven brought.

Still, grosses have been steadily increasing since the show announced that Raven would be joining the cast.  That announcement came on March 7, after a tough financial week for Sister Act. That week, they were only filling 48% of their seats. Ouch.

After the announcement, things were looking better: 54.2% capacity and $553,290 gross sales. What could account for this improvement? One theory: Audiences now had a reason to hurry up and see Tony nominee Patina Miller in the role she originated.

For Raven’s first week on the job — the week ending April 1 — there was an even greater increase. The show sold 77.3% of its seats and grossed $760,041. That’s not exactly so Raven, but it’s a solid start. Raven may not be a major A-list star, but we think the show will stay open through her run.

But let’s be honest, we really want to see her in it. The good news on that front? We’re pretty sure getting tickets won’t be a problem.

**

NineDaves knew he had a problem with theater at age 7 when after seeing his first Broadway show, Les Miserables, he told his parents, “I liked it, but I wish there was more choreography.” He’s been writing about theater steadily since then, for a few years as theater editor for Rhode Island’s Providence Monthly, and more recently on his own site, www.ninedaves.com – where his SMASH Reality Index recaps with Linda have become more entertaining than the show each week. He has a total crush on Raúl Esparza, Norbert Leo Butz, and Brian d’Arcy James. He also may have seen Xanadu more times than he’d like to admit. If you follow him on Twitter, expect way too many tweets about Newsies.

Lovely Linda is very excited to be writing for The Craptacular because she enjoys talking about cute boys in shows. Her current top three theater crushes are Justin Kirk, Michael Esper, and Jeremy Shamos, but this is subject to change by the week. She writes about Broadway on her site, Pataphysical Science, where you can read the SMASH Reality Index she writes with NineDaves, and on her Twitter @PataphysicalSci. She also writes features for TDF Stages and Broadway Direct. Her current favorite topic of conversation is Nick Jonas.

Note: Weekly grosses and other Broadway data are compiled by and are a product of The Broadway League.

Welcome to Crappy/Spectacular Volume 04. This week’s very special edition features our first ever cohost—dear friend David Levy (@itsdlevy) of FuckYeahStephenSondheim fame—and a few glasses of truly craptacular, cheap bodega wine. (Hey, cut us some slack, we spend our money on theater tickets, okay?!)

Topics discussed this week include the announcement that Corbin Bleu will replace Jesus err, Hunter Parrish in Godspell, Once’s slew of Lucille Lortel Award nominations (but mostly Steve Kazee’s beautiful bum), and Pipe Dream’s Will Chase/Will Chase dream ballet.

Well this is a new one for The Craptacular. We’re updating live from the theater. It’s intermission at End of the Rainbow and this is what we’ll be gabbing about until the lights go down…

• Remember that fucked up dream you had where you were seeing The Book of Mormon, only you were in St. Louis and Gavin Creel was playing Elder Price? WELL GUESS WHAT…
• That really strange, high-pitched squealing sound you heard on Tuesday afternoon around 5pm? Yeah. That was The Mick losing her mind over the news that love-of-her-theater-life Steel Burkhardt has a new gig in New York City. It’s at LaMama, but to head you off at the pass, it’s not a Bruno Mars musical also starring Will Chase. It’s a “collage”of Warhol Superstar Jackie Curtis’s work, and it also stars Mx. Justin Vivian Bond. So many feelings, you guys!
• And right on schedule, Broadway actress and Smash star Megan Hilty has signed herself a record deal. Not to rain on her parade or anything but… just… don’t take too much advice from Matt Morrison, okay, Megan?
• Newsies opened and basically everyone loved it… except Ben Brantley over at the venerable New York Times. We adore our bro Ben for his command of language and his tendency to err on the side of snobbery, but on this one, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
• We saw this coming a year ago: Jeremy Jordan is FAMOUS, you guys. Broadway’s hottest commodity signed with ICM this week. Stay tuned for our contest where we take bets on how soon after the Tony Awards he’ll be leaving Newsies…
• John Doyle’s Merrily We Roll Along, which is currently playing at the Cincinnati Playhouse, may have a future on Broadway, despite feeling “emotionally cool.” LOL, you don’t say. Never would have pegged a Sondheim show as that…
• Jonathan Groff tap danced… TAP DANCED… in MCC Theater’s Miscast benefit this week. Make sure you make it to 3:45.

Alas, Newsies opens on Broadway tonight. Which clearly means that it’s time to answer the most important question of your youth: Which newsie is fated to be your one and only love?

We’re going old school, here. Like it’s 1992 and you just got your Tiger Beat Magazine from the corner store. So grab some scrap paper and sharpen your pencils, ladies and gents, cause you’ve got some tallying to do!

A Brief Excerpt From The List Of Men We Love:

• Adam Chanler-Berat
• Greg Hildreth
• Carson Elrod
• Christian Borle

What do these men have in common, you ask? Why, they’re all starring in Peter and the Starcatcher, which marks its first preview on Broadway tonight, of course! We’re pretty stoked about a show directed by Alex My-Hair-Breaks-Hearts Timbers, and starring so many actors we would like to smooch.

Know what else we’re excited about? The opportunity to give away a pair of tickets to you, our lovely readers.

Want to enter the contest? It’s simple, all you have to do is Tweet or ReTweet the following message (and make sure you’re following us, too):

I’d love to catch @thecraptacular’s pair of tickets to @StarcatcherBway. Wouldn’t you? RT and Follow to win!

We’ll be picking a winner Friday afternoon, so hurry up and enter!

UPDATE: And the winner of our Peter and the Starcatcher ticket giveaway is… drum roll please… @megaraamx. Thanks so much for all your entries, guys! Stay tuned for our next giveaway.

Photo: Joan Marcus

Oh haaaay, cute Jonathan Groff, it’s your birthday!

Jonathan Groffinator turns 27 today, and we’d like to personally thank him for several things.

Dear Jonathan:

1. Thanks for single-handedly transforming the character of Melchior Gabor from a rape-y brute into an angel-eyed hero.

2. Thanks for giving us hope that Lea Michele has some intrinsic humanity and genuine inner coolness because she’s friends with you.

3. Thanks for wearing your glasses sometimes. Little kids who wear glasses really appreciate that.

4. Thanks for all your raised-on-a-goat-farm/pseudo-Mennonite idiosyncrasy.

5. Thanks for singing Whitesnake in your solo show that one time. It made us feel like we were doing awesome, mind-altering drugs, only we didn’t feel like crap the next morning.

6. That’s for being in The Bacchae, which only ran for eight performances and we saw five of them. Because you SPARKLED!

7. Thanks for staying cute. You know, like this:

And this…

And this…

The week is done. The 2011-2012 theater season is growing short. And 5,000 shows are opening in the next twelve days. On your mark, get set…

• Jesus Christ Superstar‘s Josh Young almost didn’t make it to the church… I mean theater… on time this week thanks to a crappily-timed illness that sidelined him for the show’s final previews. He was well enough on Thursday night to open the show –- and shore up his chances of a Tony nomination. No word on how he was feeling after he realized that half of the critics reviewed his understudy.
• Smash will return for a second season — without creator Theresa Rebeck at the helm. She may stick around to write some episodes, and will continue to executive produce, but she won’t be overseeing the show day-to-day. Bottom line: We don’t care what they do as long Will Chase stays, and continues to remove his shirt at least once an episode.
• Sting’s musical The Last Ship, which he’s working on with Pulitzer Prize winner Brian Yorkey, and which actually sounds interesting — check the description behind the link — has been postponed. Not a lot of word on why, but we’re not-so-secretly hoping it comes back to life and brings Colin Donnell and Michael Esper with it.
• Speaking of new musicals… This sounds awful amazing ridiculous curious like it might be kind of good: Sheryl Crow is writing songs for a musical version of the 1982 movie Diner, which will debut at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco in the fall before making a go at Broadway. Worth a trip across the country? Probably not. Worth coercing someone to give us a bootleg? Probably.
• Aaaaand we’re back to talking about Les Miz: the Movie Musical. This time because the first images of Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean have just leaked. BRB. Gotta go file these under: Hugh Jackman Looks Unsurprisingly Perfect.
• Gavin Creel’s badass new album, Get Out, dropped this week, and immediately made the iTunes bestseller list. The launch party at Joe’s Pub involved a newly-shorn Steel Burkhardt, dancing, and Ben Cullum — all things we love.
• Looks like the grand and continuing experiment known as Carrie has come to another untimely end. MCC’s planned extension of the show was abruptly canceled this week. Apparently audiences in the 80s weren’t completely full of shit. Except for the whole Phantom thing.
• The hilarious, disgustingly talented, handsome Vince Gatton, as it turns out, is also a genius/trivia nerd. Mr. Gatton was on Jeopardy this week, which we think is the COOLEST THING EVER. We won’t spoil the episode for you, but you can read a bit about his experience — in his own words — right here.
• Since Johnny Gallagher decided to go and get all Hollywood famous and be on a big Aaron Sorkin TV show, we’ve missed having his pretty face in NYC all the time. So it was damn exciting to see pics from the American Idiot tour opening in LA this week. His smile — and nerdy glasses, and messy hair — were just the hit we needed to get us over our withdrawal.
• SHUT UP THIS IS ABOUT THEATER. We hate ourselves for loving it, but R. Kelly’s musical (?) of extreme fabulousity and ludicrousity, Trapped In the Closet, will continue. New episodes will air on IFC. As Sylvester would say, OH SHIT.
• A few months back, the esteemed posters on All That Chat attempted to compare Jeremy Jordan to John Raitt. It didn’t go well. This week, they tried to compare him to Gene Kelly. In the coming weeks, they’ll try George Clooney, Jon Hamm, Errol Flynn, and Paul Newman, to see if any of those work any better.

There’s no two ways around it. Jesus Christ Superstar is craptacular. I mean. Let’s be real here. Judas comes back from the dead dressed head to toe in blue, with a fully spangled sequin shirt under a taffeta suit, and sings to Jesus who is also dead or at least dying. Are you grasping that? Dead Judas. Sequined shirt. Belting his pretty face off. Chekov, this is not. And thank fucking god for that.

But then… wasn’t that the point all along? Isn’t that exactly what Judas has been saying this whole damn show? That Jesus is getting out of hand? That the madness has become bigger than the man and it’s distorting his message?

Is there any better way to say that than by dangling an enormous cross over your stage and lighting it up like a Christmas tree while a tortured man hangs upon it, painfully contorted, dying of dehydration?  I can’t think of one. Well, I mean, unless you spangled his loin cloth. Or made him wear a solid gold codpiece, but I digress.

Solid gold codpieces do feature in Des MacAnuff’s new production of Jesus Christ Superstar, though. In the temple scene the audience understands which characters are hookers by their sparkly codpieces, leather harnesses, and tiny, tiny, tiny dresses. And their big, poufy hair, too. I mean… this kind of literal interpretation feels like MacAnuff is assuming we’re all stupid. But then. Not everyone knows the story of the temple and what happens there, I guess. And at least he made things all flashy while Jesus was having his public temper tantrum, screaming at everyone and throwing shit around. (Hey, it could be worse; this could be “Alas for You”!)

So yes, there are moments where MacAnuff’s production misses the mark. King Herod’s scene is… simultaneously too much and not enough, falling just short of the level of crazy needed for truly powerful satire in that moment. And Jesus and Mary, in particular—played by Paul Nolan and Chilina Kennedy, respectively—are given a bit too much time to stare off into space looking thoughtful/all-knowing/distraught/vapid.

But Jesus Christ, can these guys sing. Nolan’s rock tenor is so powerful, and seems so effortless in its production, that at one point in the first act—after a big scream-y, beautiful note—I actually exclaimed “Jesus!” (Lucky’s response?  “Literally.”) Kennedy’s voice is clear and strong. The actors in smaller roles, like Simon Zealots, Caiaphas, and Annas sing wonderfully as well. It’s probably easiest just to say that the entire production is incredibly well-sung. In fact, the singing maybe the biggest strength of this taught, driving production.

Well, except for Judas and Pontius Pilate. As Judas, Josh Young is making his Broadway debut. In contrast to past Judases, Young’s unique take is steeped in subtlety—the anger, jealousy, fear and betrayal simmer just below the surface, threatening to break into a boil at any moment—and his flexible voice flies between an arresting baritone and the beautiful howling, angry tenor we’ve all come to expect from Judas. It is the ways in which Young’s voice differs from what we traditionally expect of his character—its lower range and operatic purity—that made his vocal performance so exciting. Hearing such a different voice sing songs we know so well was almost like hearing them for the first time all over again.  As Pontius Pilate, Tom Hewitt is giving one of the deepest, most layered performances on that stage. It’s amazing the audience is able to take anyone seriously when they’re dressed in head to toe purple velvet, but Hewitt pulls it off with class and grace.

The beautiful score, and performances by Young and Hewitt in particular, anchor the production just enough to let its craptacularity shine.  The set, designed by Robert Brill resembles scaffolding for a concert in Times Square, and makes liberal use of lighting and LED tickers to enhance the actor’s storytelling on the spare stage—sometimes with a beautiful sunset, others with hilarious red slashes of light meant to represent lashes on Jesus’ back. Costumes by Paul Tazewell mostly make the cast look like they just arrived from Tatooine via Eileen Fisher, landing in a post-apocalyptic East Village, but somehow, they work. And when a mostly nakee Paul Nolan contorts his body into that iconic crucifixion pose, that flashy cross descending behind him as the score wails on, you know you’ve just witnessed the height of 70s crazy, right here in 2012.  I’d like to think Des MacAnuff knew that, too.

Photo: Joan Marcus

Hunter Parrish is answering a serious question with his hands.

Hunter Parrish is less seriously answering this question.

Last night we attended Godspell’s Tuesday Talkback featuring the show’s star and prettiest cast member Hunter Parrish. After a rousing performance Hunter came on stage to chat with Julie James, and take some audience questions. We’re here to share some semi-crappy but none-the-less attractive pictures and a full report, too.

Things from the front row at the #JesusParrish talkback:

• The actual second Hunter appeared (even before being announced) girls gasped audibly all around us. The actual second.
• Fair enough. I mean, we get it—he’s unreasonably pretty. And his smile is like sunshine. And he has really nice arms. Plus, in that plaid shirt/slim-but-not-skinny blue jeans/scuffed up wing-tips combo, he does look like a boy you should bring home to momma—the best compromise between the dirty, shiftless hipsters you love and the clean, well-dressed bankers your parents want you to marry.
• Topics covered in the talkback include: Hunter’s theater-kid past, what it’s like to play Jesus 8 times a week, acting in the round, and some really effusive praise for Vita Coco coconut water (get this kid a sponsorship!).
• Favorite fun facts? It was Hunter’s hyperactivity that inspired a teacher to suggest he get into theater at the age of six. And more than a decade after that, Mr. Parrish booked both the roles of Link Larkin in Hairspray and Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening in the same week. He chose Melchior. And wouldn’t you?
• Also fun? Hunter used his iPhone to record the entire talkback for his mom—who, btw, has seen Godspell 20 times!—and even apologized to the audience for having his phone out. Stop it, Mr. Manners with the Best Family. Stop it right now.
• How ‘bout that time a tiny child asked Hunter a question? You know, when he actually visibly melted, stepped closer to her, leaned in as she spoke and then asked for her name so he could address his answer to her directly? Sorry if you had ovaries you liked/needed, I’m sure they’ve disintegrated by now.
• Parrish also oops-revealed something we’ve all long expected was coming—he’s leaving the show. It was clear he wanted to take the words back the very second he spoke them—he fell silent midsentence and then tried to backtrack. But it was too late. We heard from the horse’s mouth that he’s got a final performance scheduled. His mom has her tickets already.
• When Godspell director Danny Goldstein was introduced at the end Hunter actually blew him a big, fat kiss. Imagine that kiss headed your way as you drift off to sleep every night this week and we guarantee some sweet dreams. You are welcome, America.

Tickets provided by the production.

Photos: The Craptacular