B
BrianHawkins1
Guest
"Tolkien musical is Mirvishes' quest"
Production to cost $27 million
Toronto show will be world premiere
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
THEATRE CRITIC
Mar. 15, 2005
www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs...alogin=yes
One ring to rule them all — and it's starting here in Toronto.
David and Ed Mirvish are expected to announce at a news conference tomorrow morning they will be joining forces with producers Kevin Wallace, Saul Zaentz and Michael Cohl to present the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings, the $27 million stage musical based on J.R.R. Tolkien's world-famous trilogy.
The plan is to open the show at the Princess of Wales Theatre with an all-Canadian cast on March 23, 2006. It is assumed the show's final destination will be London's West End, where it has been touted over the past two years as the production that would prove to be the most expensive and elaborate show ever seen in England.
Reports of this potential project have circulated through the Toronto theatre scene for months now, but it wasn't until last night that the parties involved sat down here and put together the final pieces for what will surely be the biggest theatrical event in this city's history.
This news comes as a welcome sign Toronto has shaken off the cloud it has been labouring under since the 2003 SARS crisis. The early closings of shows such as The Producers and Hairspray marked the city as a showbiz jinx.
But now events like the current sold-out run of Wicked and the confidence displayed by the financial and artistic people behind The Lord of the Rings in selecting Toronto for their world premiere indicate we have finally turned the corner.
Toronto is once again ready to claim the place in the front lines of musical theatre it held from the 1985 production of Cats, through subsequent long-run triumphs such as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and The Lion King.
SARS put a temporary end to that, but now the curtain has risen on a new era and there could be no better project to launch a tale of redemption, renewal and rebirth than The Lord of the Rings.
The last volume of Tolkien's epic saga of Middle-earth was published in 1955, making this musical a 50th anniversary celebration of the work.
Peter Jackson's film versions of the trilogy have also proved phenomenally successful, grossing more than $3 billion (U.S.) worldwide and sweeping the 2004 Academy Awards, where it won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture.
A wildly eclectic creative team has come together to create its vision of a world with singing Hobbits and elves.
The book and lyrics are by British playwright Shaun McKenna, who conceived the project. His musical partners include the popular Indian composer A.R. Rahman (best known here for his score for Bombay Dreams) and the contemporary Finnish group Värttinä, made up of six acoustic musicians and three female vocalists.
Director Matthew Warchus is a two-time Tony nominee, who directed both the London and Broadway productions of the smash hit Art and has a unique vision of the show.
"We have not attempted to pull the novel towards the standard conventions of musical theatre, but rather to expand those conventions so that they will accommodate Tolkien's material. As a result, we will be presenting a hybrid of text, physical theatre, music and spectacle never previously seen on this scale."
Designer Rob Howell has the task of bringing all of Tolkien's magical landscape onto the stage. His solution is a series of three interconnected "doughnut" turntables, one inside the other, which can help change locale in an instant.
The height and depth demanded for the mountains and caves in the story will be provided by 16 elevators set inside the stage. The show's producing partners are a powerhouse combination. Kevin Wallace spent many years as the in-house producer for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company, working on shows such as Sunset Boulevard and The Beautiful Game.
Saul Zaentz is the veteran producer behind One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus and The English Patient.
On the Canadian side, the Mirvishes are the country's leading presenters of professional theatre, currently represented by Mamma Mia!, Wicked and 'Da Kink In My Hair.
And rock impresario Michael Cohl made his Broadway debut last year producing Bombay Dreams and has since been a part of the teams behind La Cage Aux Folles and the upcoming Spamalot.
"What we have is a beautiful and spectacular adaptation of Tolkien's epic that in word, music, design and performance honours the original trilogy in its imagination, scale and insight," Wallace says.
Rehearsals are scheduled to begin Oct. 24, with the first preview scheduled for Feb. 2, 2006 ... and the end nowhere in sight.
"The road," as Tolkien wrote, "goes ever on and on."
Production to cost $27 million
Toronto show will be world premiere
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
THEATRE CRITIC
Mar. 15, 2005
www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs...alogin=yes
One ring to rule them all — and it's starting here in Toronto.
David and Ed Mirvish are expected to announce at a news conference tomorrow morning they will be joining forces with producers Kevin Wallace, Saul Zaentz and Michael Cohl to present the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings, the $27 million stage musical based on J.R.R. Tolkien's world-famous trilogy.
The plan is to open the show at the Princess of Wales Theatre with an all-Canadian cast on March 23, 2006. It is assumed the show's final destination will be London's West End, where it has been touted over the past two years as the production that would prove to be the most expensive and elaborate show ever seen in England.
Reports of this potential project have circulated through the Toronto theatre scene for months now, but it wasn't until last night that the parties involved sat down here and put together the final pieces for what will surely be the biggest theatrical event in this city's history.
This news comes as a welcome sign Toronto has shaken off the cloud it has been labouring under since the 2003 SARS crisis. The early closings of shows such as The Producers and Hairspray marked the city as a showbiz jinx.
But now events like the current sold-out run of Wicked and the confidence displayed by the financial and artistic people behind The Lord of the Rings in selecting Toronto for their world premiere indicate we have finally turned the corner.
Toronto is once again ready to claim the place in the front lines of musical theatre it held from the 1985 production of Cats, through subsequent long-run triumphs such as The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and The Lion King.
SARS put a temporary end to that, but now the curtain has risen on a new era and there could be no better project to launch a tale of redemption, renewal and rebirth than The Lord of the Rings.
The last volume of Tolkien's epic saga of Middle-earth was published in 1955, making this musical a 50th anniversary celebration of the work.
Peter Jackson's film versions of the trilogy have also proved phenomenally successful, grossing more than $3 billion (U.S.) worldwide and sweeping the 2004 Academy Awards, where it won 11 Oscars, including Best Picture.
A wildly eclectic creative team has come together to create its vision of a world with singing Hobbits and elves.
The book and lyrics are by British playwright Shaun McKenna, who conceived the project. His musical partners include the popular Indian composer A.R. Rahman (best known here for his score for Bombay Dreams) and the contemporary Finnish group Värttinä, made up of six acoustic musicians and three female vocalists.
Director Matthew Warchus is a two-time Tony nominee, who directed both the London and Broadway productions of the smash hit Art and has a unique vision of the show.
"We have not attempted to pull the novel towards the standard conventions of musical theatre, but rather to expand those conventions so that they will accommodate Tolkien's material. As a result, we will be presenting a hybrid of text, physical theatre, music and spectacle never previously seen on this scale."
Designer Rob Howell has the task of bringing all of Tolkien's magical landscape onto the stage. His solution is a series of three interconnected "doughnut" turntables, one inside the other, which can help change locale in an instant.
The height and depth demanded for the mountains and caves in the story will be provided by 16 elevators set inside the stage. The show's producing partners are a powerhouse combination. Kevin Wallace spent many years as the in-house producer for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company, working on shows such as Sunset Boulevard and The Beautiful Game.
Saul Zaentz is the veteran producer behind One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus and The English Patient.
On the Canadian side, the Mirvishes are the country's leading presenters of professional theatre, currently represented by Mamma Mia!, Wicked and 'Da Kink In My Hair.
And rock impresario Michael Cohl made his Broadway debut last year producing Bombay Dreams and has since been a part of the teams behind La Cage Aux Folles and the upcoming Spamalot.
"What we have is a beautiful and spectacular adaptation of Tolkien's epic that in word, music, design and performance honours the original trilogy in its imagination, scale and insight," Wallace says.
Rehearsals are scheduled to begin Oct. 24, with the first preview scheduled for Feb. 2, 2006 ... and the end nowhere in sight.
"The road," as Tolkien wrote, "goes ever on and on."
