A New ‘Pal Joey’ Is Broadway Attached


“Pal Joey” is returning to Broadway.

Caddish is a 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical about a nightclub performer that will be rewritten, re-adjusted, and then revived for the next Broadway season. Jeffrey Richards It was announced Monday.

The production will take place in a black community on Chicago’s South Side in the 1940s and will be set with a new book. Richard LaGraveneseOscar-nominated screenwriter and director for “The Fisher King,” and both adapted and directed 2014 version of the movie “Last Five YearsThe show was originally set ten years ago, in the 1930s, and the main characters were played by white artists.

Tony Goldwyn and rescue glove will drive new production. Goldwyn is best known as an actor who has appeared in television series.Scandal” and the Broadway adaptation “Network”, while Glover is best known as a tap dancer and choreographer. Won a Tony Award”Bring the noise, bring the funk

“Pal Joey,” a book by John O’Hara based on stories he wrote for The New Yorker, is a rare Broadway musical that focuses on an anti-hero and is often described as sarcastic. Brooks Atkinson, a New York Times theater critic wrote of the original production, “If it’s possible to make a fun musical comedy out of a hideous story, this is ‘Pal Joey’,” ending his review by asking a rhetorical question. “Can you draw fresh water from a filthy well?”

The original movie starring Gene Kelly and Vivienne Segal was released in less than a year, but some of its songs, notably “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, have become standard; The 1952 revival was more successful and kickstarted the 1957 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak (but Hollywood turned Joey into a good guy and gave the story a happy ending).

By 1961, another Times critic, Howard Taubman, called the musical “great” and “living proof of what a great musical can be,” and “the disenchanted, acidic mood of the musical fits well with realism, if not cynicism, of today.”

There have been three Broadway revivals, all of which were short-lived; last, in 2008, NS panned New York Times critic Ben Brantley describes it as “a production that mourns its own lifelessness.”

Of course, that history leaves room for reinvention, and that’s what the new team hopes to do. Among other expected changes: In addition to an original composition best known for “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and “I Could Write a Book”, we’ve also featured other songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, including “Where or When”. They plan to add “Lady Is A Tramp”, “Never Had It On My Mind”, “My Heart Stopped”, “Falling In Love” and “There Is A Small Hotel”.

The music is overseen by Daryl Waters, who won a Tony Award for orchestrations in “Memphis.” Also, one of the women mistreated by Joey – Linda – will be portrayed as an aspiring singer rather than a stenographer who will facilitate the use of new songs; A parallel shift was made in the movie, and some songs were added to it.

In addition to Richards, the production team for the upcoming revival, Funny World Productions, Willette Klausner and Irene Gandy, a longtime theatrical broadcaster who received a Tony Award for excellence in theater this year. The producers said they hope to bring the revival to Broadway in the 2022-2023 season; They did not disclose any casting.



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