Friday, September 3, 2010

Nutty Business

We are, as you may recall, intrigued by reports that Jerry Lewis will be directing a Broadway musical based on his 1963 movie, The Nutty Professor. Mr. Lewis has been announcing this as imminent for several years now.

We first noticed this back in June of 2006 when Jerry was talking about a 2007 tryout at the Old Globe in San Diego, which is a good place to try out a musical you hope to take to New York. The trouble with the report at that time was that he didn't seem to have an author or a composer. And also, the Old Globe had never heard of the project.

Then a few months later during the 2006 telethon, he brought on a fellow named Michael Andrew who, he said, would be starring in the show when it opened on Broadway in March of '08. Unmentioned there (but revealed elsewhere) is that Mr. Andrew is also apparently providing some or all of the funding for the project. Still, no writer or composer was mentioned.

In June of '09, it was announced that Marvin Hamlisch was composing the music and that Rupert Holmes was handling the book and lyrics. Okay, those are good, experienced folks...so it sounded like the show was starting to get somewhere.

A few months later, a reading was actually held with Michael Andrew in the lead. A very good sign.

And then in February of this year, Jerry was saying he was already casting with an eye towards opening the show in New York this October or November. No mention of out-of-town tryouts.

So what's the latest? As Jerry does interviews to promote the telethon this weekend, he's talking about the show. In this piece today, he says that right after the telethon, he'll be in New York to begin casting 70 parts for the musical, that it will open there in November of 2011 and that there will be six weeks of rehearsals before the show debuts at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre.

The timetable sounds credible...but the Old Globe still says the show is nowhere in their future.

• Posted at 8:49 PM · LINK

Plan Ahead

One and four-day passes for next year's Comic-Con International will be available for online purchase at 9 AM Pacific Time on Monday, November 1. If you're thinking of attending, that would be a good time to order yours. I'm not predicting they'll sell out that day but they'll sell out before you expect.

• Posted at 8:04 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Labor Day is almost upon us and you know what that means: Jerry.

As usual, I am baffled as to how long the telethon is. The press releases say it runs 21 and a half hours but I don't think that means they're doing a show of that length. Many of the hours are reruns of other hours and there are probably very few stations across the country that broadcast all 21.5 hours. WGN in Chicago is running it from 8 PM Sunday until 11 AM Monday morning then they play hooky from the Love Network to air a baseball game (Astros vs. Cubs) for approximately three and a half hours, then they come back and go 'til five...so that's 17 and a half hours. Some air a lot less...but some run more than there are. In Los Angeles, KCAL Channel 9 is airing the show from 6 PM Sunday evening through 5 PM Monday evening...so they're running 23 hours of a 21 and a half hour telethon.

Does anyone have any idea how many hours they're actually doing from the South Point hotel-casino in Las Vegas? You have all those musical numbers that are pre-taped elsewhere. You have all the segments on the work MDA is doing. You have your local cutaways. It probably isn't a lot.

(By the way: If you want to set your TiVo, try searching under "45th Annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.")

In case you missed last year, here's nine minutes of mostly non-Jerry content. I never heard of some of these acts either but a lot of them are very good...

• Posted at 12:26 AM · LINK