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Curtains Meets Its End on Broadway June 29
By Kenneth Jones
29 Jun 2008
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David Hyde Pierce in Curtains.
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| photo by Joan Marcus | Curtains, the musical comedy whodunit from composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, and writers Peter Stone and Rupert Holmes, will have its final curtain on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre June 29 at 3 PM.
It will have played 511 performances and 26 previews. No investment recoupment announcement has been made. A tour produced by Theater of the Stars and (in collaboration with other presenters around the country) will go out in 2009. The show is expected to have a healthy licensing life due to its blending of two commercial forms: musical comedy and murder mystery.
Speaking on behalf of producers Roger Horchow, Daryl Roth, Jane Bergère, Ted Hartley and Center Theatre Group, producer Roger Berlind stated on March 19, "Curtains has been delighting audiences at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre over the past year, and we have had just as much fun behind the curtains. All good things must come to an end, but we're happy that Theatrical Rights Worldwide will handle stock and amateur rights for Curtains, so that this great show will reach new audiences with productions planned all over the world. Meanwhile, those who haven't seen Curtains on Broadway have over three months to catch our supremely talented cast, who will see to it that Curtains goes out with a bang."
Composer John Kander stated, "Fred just loved this show, and would be so thrilled with this remarkable cast, led by our great stars David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk and with Scott Ellis' beautiful production. In one of our songs for Curtains, Fred wrote 'the show must go on.' I am so grateful to everyone that made it happen."
The musical opened on Broadway on March 22, 2007, at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. The production had its world premiere on Aug. 9, 2006, at Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Curtains is an original musical comedy with a book by Rupert Holmes (multiple Tony Award winner for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Say Goodnight Gracie), music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb (the Tony Award-winning songwriters of Cabaret, Chicago, "New York New York" and more), based on the original book and concept by Tony Award winner Peter Stone (1776, Titanic, The Will Rogers Follies), and additional lyrics by John Kander & Rupert Holmes.
Ebb and Stone did not live to see their long-aborning work play Broadway. The score is preserved on a cast album.
Choreography is by Tony Award winner Rob Ashford (Thoroughly Modern Millie).
The musical stars 2007 Tony Award winner and four-time Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi and Tony and Emmy Award winner Debra Monk as producer Carmen Bernstein. The production also stars Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba as lyricist Georgia Hendricks, Jason Danieley as composer Aaron Fox, Erin Davie as ingénue Niki Harris and Edward Hibbert as director Christopher Belling, with John Bolton as theatre critic Daryl Grady, Michael X. Martin as stage manager Johnny Harmon, Michael McCormick as investor Oscar Shapiro, Noah Racey as choreographer Bobby Pepper, Megan Sikora as understudy Bambi Bernét and Gerry Vichi as producer Sidney Bernstein.
Hyde Pierce will star in a Broadway revival of the 1934 comedy Accent on Youth for Manhattan Theatre Club in April 2009.
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Curtains "unfolds backstage at Boston's Colonial Theatre in 1959, where a new musical could be a Broadway smash, were it not for the presence of its talent-free leading lady. When the hapless star dies on opening night during her curtain call, Lieutenant Frank Cioffi (David Hyde Pierce) arrives on the scene to conduct an investigation. But the lure of the theatre proves irresistible and after an unexpected romance blooms for the stage-struck detective, he finds himself just as drawn toward making the show a hit, as he is in solving the murder."
For more information, visit wwwcurtainsthemusical.com.
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