Jackman, Hugh

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      Hugh Jackman Is Having Fun Playing as ‘Arrogant as You Possibly Can’

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      “There’s something about this show that buoys me up with an energy that I didn’t think I had,” the Tony nominee said of “The Music Man.”“It was kind of a miracle that I got into musical theater,” the actor Hugh Jackman said the other day, recalling the start of his career in 1995. “I’d just graduated, and my agent said they couldn’t find anyone to play Gaston in [the Australian production of] ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ so I went in and gave it a go. I got the part, but it was in my contract to get singing lessons once a week. I’ve very much felt like an outsider from the beginning.”Now in the running for his third Tony Award, for his portrayal of the all-American con man Harold Hill in a revival of “The Music Man,” the Australian native recounted what it’s been like to return to the stage for his first Broadway musical since 2003. (Though he hasn’t been a total stranger; he starred in “A Steady Rain” in 2009 and “The River” in 2014.) Throughout an afternoon hour at a Midtown hotel, Jackman came across as a curious performer who leads with the affirmative; his is a disarming charm sculpted out of consideration and confidence.Despite his long list of credits and accolades, Jackman, 53, seems as eager to please as he is to jump into the next adventure. He has an inquisitive mind, which I experienced firsthand when he audited a graduate film history course at Columbia University that I also attended in the spring 2020 semester. His friend Annette Insdorf taught the course, and when the pandemic shut down in-person classes, Jackman continued attending the four-hour seminars through Zoom.“I have a layman’s understanding of film. I would ask directors for five films I should see before I die, and almost all of them I’d never seen,” he said. “I asked Annette for help, and she told me to just join her course.”At the time, he was promoting the HBO film “Bad Education,” in which he played a real-life former school superintendent who pleaded guilty to stealing $2 million from his district, and beginning early “Music Man” rehearsals with his future co-star Sutton Foster.Sutton Foster as the librarian Marian Paroo and Jackman as the con man Harold Hill in “The Music Man.” Jackman said of working with Foster: “I certainly have to bring my triple-A game.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThese are edited excerpts from our conversation.You play larger-than-life scammers in both “The Music Man” and “Bad Education.” Did one role inform the other?The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, which will be given out on June 12, are the first to recognize shows that opened following the long pandemic shutdown of Broadway’s theaters. Season in Review: Thirty-four productions braved the pandemic to open under the most onerous conditions. Game of Survival: During a time unlike any other, productions showed their resourcefulness while learning how to live with Covid. A Tony Nominee: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process. The Missing Category: This Covid-stalked Broadway season has made clear that a prize for best ensemble should be added, our critic writes.I’m very fascinated by the collective fascination with con men and scam artists, and there’s some crossover there with P.T. Barnum [whom he portrayed in the film “The Greatest Showman”]. I’m still not 100 percent sure where it comes from, but I think it’s deeply rooted in a very American individualist philosophy of not doing what the man tells you to do.You’ve lived in the United States for about 20 years. Do you consider yourself an American?I’m Australian. I think America’s an extraordinary place, though — there are very few places as generous of spirit.Do you think that generosity is what draws Americans to scammers?It goes back to this sense of individualism, and the ultimate expression of that is the con man, who goes against everything and flips the rules of hierarchy. Australia has got a little bit of that, but we saw during the pandemic that Australians follow the rules. There’s a collective, “We should really be doing this,” and people fall in line. And as we saw here, there’s no falling in line.So is your draw to these characters pure escapism?What I love about acting is exploring the sides of people who choose to live in a way opposite to how we were brought up, and can’t believe everyone around them is still following the rules. So it’s not escapism; it’s just fun to play something I wouldn’t allow or want myself to do in life. I’m glad everyone is not Harold Hill, but it’s great fun to play as arrogant as you possibly can for two and a half hours. Self-deprecating kind of gets boring after a while.How does the role feel six months into the show’s run?For me, this big show with a cast of 47 keeps growing. I’m in a lead role, but it doesn’t feel as exhausting as I’ve experienced [in other shows] in the past. I think it’s the way they built these old shows. I’m onstage a lot, and driving a lot of it, but it’s different: I go on at the beginning, sing the first number, and go off to have a costume change. I’m not a smoker, but it feels like a cigarette break, which I’m pretty sure is what a lot of them were doing back then.There are some days when I go in tired, but by the third scene: “Wow. I’m back.” There’s something about this show that buoys me up with an energy that I didn’t think I had. And when you’re working with Sutton —Has she taught you about stamina? She’s a star who puts in the work of a swing.She’s a marvel. I certainly have to bring my triple-A game. Asking me to tap dance alongside Sutton Foster is like asking me to play Novak Djokovic on the court. Rehearsals with her were fun, but it was kind of dispiriting to spend a year and a half working on that and then watch these kids come in and learn it in three hours.“I want them to still be kids and not lose that joy. I’m protective of them,” Jackman said of his young co-stars in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesYou’d never worked with this many children onstage, let alone in a show with 21 Broadway debuts. Do you find yourself parenting them?It has become a little bit like that, particularly with the youngsters. I guess some of them see me as Wolverine [the superhero character he plays in the “X-Men” film series], so it feels a little paternal. I think, particularly for the kids in their first show, I want them to still be kids and not lose that joy. I’m protective of them.Did you feel a danger of losing your own joy during your rise?There were times when I was doing the first “X-Men,” my first big American movie, when I found it quite lonely. I was mainly from the theater, and you could feel that sense of, “Mmm, it’s a bad smell.” I don’t know exactly when things turned, but when the studio said they liked what I was doing, I could feel everyone coming to me. It made me sad. I realized film was more individual, less of an ensemble. The theater thrives on, and has to have, a feeling of ensemble, or it dies. There’s just no way to get through rehearsals, or eight shows a week, unless you have each other’s backs.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      ‘A Strange Loop’ Nominated for 11 Tonys as Broadway Lauds Comeback

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      “The Lehman Trilogy,” as well as revivals of “Company” and “For Colored Girls,” led in their respective categories as the industry tries to recover from the long pandemic shutdown.A musical about making art and a play about making money dominated the Tony Awards nominations Monday, as Broadway sought to celebrate its best work and revive its fortunes after the lengthy and damaging coronavirus shutdown.The race for best musical — traditionally the most financially beneficial prize — turned into an unexpectedly broad six-way contest because the nominators were so closely divided they had to expand the number of nominees.Out of the gate, the front-runner is “A Strange Loop,” a meta-musical in which a composer who is Black and gay battles demons and doubts while trying to write a show. Even before arriving on Broadway, the show, written by Michael R. Jackson, had won the Pulitzer Prize in drama after an Off Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons; it opened on Broadway late last month to some of the strongest reviews for any new musical this season, and on Monday it picked up 11 Tony nominations, the most for any show.“I feel really grateful, and I feel validated for putting in all the years and all the hours,” Jackson said after learning the news. “It feels amazing to know better things are possible.”“MJ,” a jukebox musical about Michael Jackson, was nominated for 10 Tonys. Myles Frost, center, was nominated for best actor in a musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesScoring the most nominations is not always predictive of winning the prize, and “A Strange Loop,” which is adventurous in form and content, will face tough competition from “MJ,” a biographical jukebox musical about Michael Jackson; “Six,” a fan favorite about the wives of Henry VIII; “Girl From the North Country,” which combines the songs of Bob Dylan with a fictional story about a boardinghouse in the Minnesota city where Dylan was born; “Mr. Saturday Night,” about a washed-up comedian hungering for a comeback; and “Paradise Square,” about a turning point in race relations in 19th-century New York.Both “Paradise Square,” which picked up 10 nominations, and “Girl From the North Country,” with seven, have struggled at the box office, and will now hope that their multiple Tony nominations will help reverse their financial fortunes. For “MJ,” its 10 nods are a form of vindication after several influential reviewers criticized the show for sidestepping sexual abuse allegations against the pop star.“The Lehman Trilogy,” which arrived on Broadway with an enormous — albeit pandemic-delayed — head of steam following rapturously reviewed productions in London and Off Broadway, picked up eight nominations to dominate the best play category. The play, which follows the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers, was written by Stefano Massini and Ben Power, and featured a dazzling production centered on a rotating glass box designed by Es Devlin. All three of its leads — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor.“The Lehman Trilogy” was nominated for 8 Tonys, including best play. All three of its leads — from left, Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Adrian Lester — were nominated for best actor in a play.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Lehman Trilogy” vies with four other dramas for best play. Among them are two dark comedies — “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer winner who was also nominated for writing the book for “MJ,” and “Hangmen,” by Martin McDonagh, an acclaimed British-Irish playwright who has now been nominated five times but has yet to win. The other contenders are “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about factory workers at an automotive plant facing shutdown, and “The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’s look at the unsettling secrets of a small-town governing body.The Tony Awards, which honor plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are an annual celebration for American theater, but they are particularly important now as a potential marketing tool for an industry that is still grossing less, and selling fewer tickets, than it was before the pandemic forced theaters to close for a year and a half. The awards are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing.“This Tony Awards will mean so much more than honoring the performances and the artistic work that’s been done this season — it’s also celebrating the resilience of the community, and that this much work is being done and being seen,” said Rob McClure, an actor who scored a Tony nomination (his second) for his comedic and chameleonic performance in the title role of “Mrs. Doubtfire.”Billy Crystal was nominated for best actor in a musical for his performance in “Mr. Saturday Night,” based on his 1992 film. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWell known performers scoring nominations included Uzo Aduba, Billy Crystal, Rachel Dratch, Hugh Jackman, Ruth Negga, Mary-Louise Parker, Patti LuPone, Phylicia Rashad and Sam Rockwell. But several other big stars now working on Broadway were overlooked by nominators, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Laurence Fishburne and Daniel Craig, as well as Beanie Feldstein, starring in “Funny Girl” but unable to escape the long shadow of Barbra Streisand.This season saw an unusually large number of works by Black writers, and that created more opportunity for Black performers, directors, and designers, some of whom were nominated for Tonys. Among them are two performers new to Broadway, Jaquel Spivey, the star of “A Strange Loop,” and Myles Frost, the star of “MJ,” now facing off against Crystal, Jackman and McClure in the leading actor in a musical category.“Black playwrights have had an amazing presence this season, and I hope that continues,” said Camille A. Brown, who scored two nominations Monday, for directing and choreographing the revival of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf.” Reflecting on her own show, she said, “Having seven Black women on a Broadway stage has a lot of meaning, and speaks to the importance of sisterhood and love and Black women holding space for one another.”“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf” was nominated for seven Tonys, including for best revival of a play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe seven Tony nominations for “For Colored Girls” are a bittersweet triumph for a production that has been languishing at the box office and had already announced an early closing date. The revival picked up more nominations than any other show in the race for best play revival, a strong category in which many eligible shows won positive reviews.It will now face off against four others: “American Buffalo,” David Mamet’s drama about a trio of scheming junk-shop denizens and “Take Me Out,” Richard Greenberg’s look at homophobia in baseball, as well as two plays that had never previously made it to Broadway despite being considered important parts of the playwriting canon, “Trouble in Mind,” Alice Childress’s look at racism in theater; and “How I Learned to Drive,” Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer-winning drama about child sexual abuse.The competition for best musical revival is small, but strong. There were four eligible shows, and only three scored nods: “Company,” “Caroline, or Change,” and “The Music Man.” Excluded was the revival of “Funny Girl” which fared poorly with critics, but has been doing fine at the box office.“Company,” the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical, was nominated for 9 Tony awards, including best revival of a musical. Patti LuPone, a nominee at left, performed with Katrina Lenk. Matthew Murphy/O & M Co./DKC, via Associated PressThe nine nods for “Company” pack an especially emotional punch because its composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, died soon after attending the first post-shutdown preview. “The longer he’s not with us, the more I miss him,” said LuPone, who picked up her eighth Tony nomination — she’s won twice — for her work in the production.The nominations were chosen by a group of 29 people, most of whom work in the theater industry but are not financially connected to any of the eligible productions, who saw all eligible shows and voted last Friday. There were 34 eligible shows, 29 of which scored nominations; the five left out were all new plays.Up next: a group of 650 voters, including producers and performers and many others with an interest in the nominated productions, have until June 10 to vote for their favorites, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on June 12. The ceremony, at Radio City Music Hall, is to be hosted by Ariana DeBose; the first hour will be streamed on Paramount+, followed by three hours broadcast by CBS.Broadway’s grosses are down in part because tourism remains down in New York City, and in part because of ongoing concerns about the coronavirus. Many of the nominees interviewed Monday said they hoped the spotlight of the Tony Awards would lure more patrons back to Broadway.“Anyone that’s doing theater right now has been hit really hard by the pandemic,” said Marianne Elliott, a two-time Tony-winning director who scored another nomination for “Company.” “It’s gratifying to see that Broadway is coming back. To have the Tony nominations for all of these shows is just a celebration of what we do, and it’s lovely to be here.” More

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      Hollywood Star Gives Broadway a Much-Needed Boost. Sound Familiar?

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      A Broadway comeback is a box-office triumph: Parallels abound between two starry shows, more than 80 years apart.It was as dark a time as Broadway had ever seen. Multiple stages were shuttered, uncertainty abounded, and a beleaguered theatrical season was limping along, desperate for a hit. But then a Hollywood movie star — who was also a uniquely magnetic performer on the musical stage — rode into town, bestriding a vehicle perfectly suited to his outsize talents. He had retreated to a film career for nearly a decade, and frequently hinted at a Broadway return, but then, in his 50s, he finally did so — and it didn’t hurt that a beloved musical comedy ingénue was at his side.Consumers tossed money over the box-office transom by the sackful, creating one of the biggest box-office advances in memory. It was a triumph that prompted one critic to conclude: “Broadway is beginning to look like Broadway again.”While this may sound an awful lot like Hugh Jackman’s highly anticipated return to Broadway in “The Music Man” (co-starring the captivating Sutton Foster), this précis also captures another Broadway comeback: Al Jolson’s star turn in “Hold On to Your Hats,” a long-forgotten show that took a forlorn town by storm 82 years ago. And, though “The Music Man” grossed $3.5 million the other week — the most of any show since theaters reopened after the long pandemic shutdown — Jolson, it should be noted, got better reviews.Sutton Foster as Marian Paroo and Hugh Jackman as Professor Harold Hill in the Broadway revival of “The Music Man.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBy the end of the 1930s, Jolson’s eight-cylinder performance persona had been idling over in Hollywood. Although he had dominated Broadway in the late teens and the 1920s, usually in rickety vehicles that accommodated his performances in blackface, the phenomenon of talking pictures — which he had exploded with “The Jazz Singer,” the first feature-length “talkie” with musical sequences, in 1927 — had changed over the following decade.“His kind of all-devouring star personality was no longer the kind that would thrive on film; Jolson was instrumental in creating the movie musical, but it had left him behind by then,” Richard Barrios, the musical film historian, recounted in a phone interview. His earlier films had been commercial blockbusters, showing off his ebullient and narcissistic way with a musical number, but Hollywood musicals were pivoting from such personality-pounding packages to more ensemble-driven stories and gentler stars such as Fred Astaire or Judy Garland. This transition made Jolson feel as if he was being put out to pasture on the West Coast — not to mention his fraying marriage to Warner Bros.’s tap-dancing ingénue Ruby Keeler. As the new decade began, Jolson’s primary passion was for playing the ponies out at Santa Anita Park.And it was a pony that would carry him back to the East Coast.The producer Alex Aarons had an idea for a stage show that would star Jack Haley, who had just starred as the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz.” The show’s concept was pretty clever by the standards of the day: a Western action hero for the Nationwide Broadcasting Company, named the Lone Rider (and his faithful companion, Concho — get it?), is recruited by denizens at the Sunshine Valley Rancho to defend them against bandits; they don’t realize he’s a radio entertainer playing a fictional character. The scenario provided for plenty of high jinks and heroism for the performer playing the Lone Rider, who’s “so tough, he uses a rattlesnake for a whip.” Spoiler alert: in real-life, he’s not. (This is an original concept, though, “borrowed” subsequently for such films as “Three Amigos” and “Galaxy Quest.”)Aarons recruited the “Wizard of Oz” lyricist, Yip Harburg, and the composer Burton Lane, who was also working in Hollywood at the time, to collaborate with the “Anything Goes” writer Guy Bolton (abetted by a few errant gag men). When Haley bowed out, Jolson was immediately interested, piqued by the comic and musical potential offered by the Lone Rider character. (Jackman, of course, has his own resonance with an action hero, having played Wolverine in the “X-Men” movies.) He signed on for a fall 1940 Broadway opening of “Hold On to Your Hats” and agreed to front 80 percent of the show’s nearly $100,000 investment.Ruby Keeler, Jolson’s wife, took on the ingénue role in the show even though she had filed for divorce.Lucas & Monroe, via Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library
      for the Performing Arts
      That meant Jolson was calling most of the shots, and he cannily shaped the new musical around his strengths. Thankfully, he eschewed any of his blackface routines (though, typical of its time, the show’s script embraced the casual racist stereotypes of Mexicans, Native Americans and Jews). But Jolson — for whom the fourth wall was a mere inconvenience — managed to stop the show each night, usually at its climax, to sing a medley of his popular hits. Audiences were given a vague context for such digressions — the Lone Rider was a radio entertainer, after all — and his interpolations so offended Harburg and Lane that they refused to leave Hollywood to watch Jolson’s antics once the show hit Broadway. (They would return to New York in 1947 for “Finian’s Rainbow.”)Another of Jolson’s creative decisions was downright deranged: He offered the ingénue role to Keeler, who had just filed for divorce back in California. According to Lane, in an interview decades later, Jolson “expressed this: ‘She’s never been on the stage with me. I think that if she works with me on the stage, she’ll see how wonderful I am and she won’t want to divorce me.’” Somehow, Keeler agreed to sign on for the thankless role and off the show went to out-of-town tryouts in the summer of 1940.“Thankless” seemed to have been the key word in the Jolson-Keeler marriage; there was a 24-year age difference between the two, and Barrios recalled a comment made by Keeler to a commentator in the 1970s: “Al was the world’s greatest entertainer. He used to tell me so every day.” Jolson’s anxiety about the incipient rapprochement got the better of him during the Chicago leg of the tryout; during their duets, Jolson would make cracks about their marriage, Keeler’s talent, Keeler’s mother. That was it. Keeler stormed off the stage, quit the show and divorced Jolson within months.None of this mattered to the cheering throng that greeted Jolson when he sidled up to Broadway’s Shubert Theater on Sept. 14, 1940. (He had wanted his cherished Winter Garden Theater — where Jackman’s “The Music Man” is currently playing — but it was occupied by the manic comedy “Hellzapoppin.”)“Al Jolson is back on the home grounds,” wrote John Anderson of the New York Journal-American, “in celebration whereof I toss my own critical headgear over the moon and over the dictionary.”10 Movies to Watch This Oscar SeasonCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

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      ‘Music Man’ Sets Box Office Record for a Reopened Broadway

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      The Hugh Jackman-led revival has 76 trombones, 110 cornets, and took in $3.5 million in ticket sales last week, more than any show since the pandemic began.Broadway has a new box office leader: A starry revival of “The Music Man” grossed $3.5 million last week, the most of any show since theaters reopened after the long pandemic shutdown.The musical, with a cast led by the ever popular Hugh Jackman, is outselling “Hamilton” and every other show, triumphing over tepid reviews as it plays to full houses and sells tickets at top-tier prices.Data released Tuesday by the Broadway League showed that “The Music Man” had grossed over $3 million for five weeks in a row.The industry’s three big mainstays remain strong: Last week, “Hamilton” brought in $2.3 million, “Wicked” was at $1.9 million and “The Lion King” at $1.8 million.The box office numbers were the first for individual shows to be publicly released by the League since March of 2020, and suggested, as expected, that the relatively small number of mostly big-name shows that survived the Omicron spike of the coronavirus late last year are fairly hardy, and most appear to be bringing in more money than they are spending on a week-to-week basis. The industry faces another stress test ahead, as the number of shows increases; no one knows whether there is enough audience to support the newcomers as well as the established productions.Among the highlights, according to the new information: A revival of the Neil Simon comedy “Plaza Suite” starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick is starting very strong, reflecting the enormous appeal of the two stars, who are married to each other and have not appeared together onstage for years. The play, still in previews, grossed $1.7 million last week, which is a huge number for a small-cast play in a modest-size venue.“The Music Man,” which also stars the gifted Sutton Foster, had the highest average ticket price, at $283, and the highest premium ticket price, at $697. “Plaza Suite” was also selling notably high-priced premium seats, at $549, reflecting Parker’s popularity.The numbers do show signs of concern for some shows. “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical,” played to houses that were only 55 percent full last week, grossing $778,000. And a new musical, “Paradise Square,” started slow in previews — the show drew large audiences (it was 97 percent full) but with unsustainably low ticket prices (it grossed just $355,000, with an average ticket price of $47). And sales for shows including “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Come From Away” and “Chicago” have notably softened since before the pandemic.But there is also good news for other shows. In particular, the newly released box office data suggests that “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” has benefited from its decision to consolidate from a two-part play to one part during the pandemic. The show grossed $1.7 million last week; the two-part version had been bringing in around $1 million during non-holiday weeks before the pandemic.By the end of last week there were 22 shows running in the 41 Broadway houses, up from a low of 19 earlier in the year. The average ticket price was a healthy $136, and 92 percent of all seats were occupied, although there were fewer spots to fill overall because so many theaters did not have shows in them. More

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      On the Scene: ‘Music Man,’ a Big Broadway Bet 🎺

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      On the Scene: ‘Music Man,’ a Big Broadway Bet 🎺Matt Stevens🎭 Reporting from BroadwayThe Omicron variant has made this a tough winter for the theater. “The Music Man,” a big-budget, star-studded musical, opened Thursday hoping to provide Broadway with something of a booster shot in the arm. 
      Here’s what the night looked like → More

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      Review: Even With Hugh Jackman, ‘The Music Man’ Goes Flat

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      Sutton Foster also stars in this neat, perky, overly cautious Broadway revival of a musical that needs to be more of a con.There comes a moment in the latest Broadway production of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” when high spirits, terrific dancing and big stars align in an extended marvel of showbiz salesmanship.Unfortunately, that moment is the curtain call.Until then, the musical, which opened on Thursday night at the Winter Garden Theater, only intermittently offers the joys we expect from a classic revival starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster — especially one so obviously patterned on the success of another classic revival, “Hello, Dolly!,” a few seasons back.The frenzy of love unleashed in that show by Bette Midler, supported by substantially the same creative team — including the director Jerry Zaks, the choreographer Warren Carlyle and the set and costume designer Santo Loquasto — has gone missing here, despite all the deluxe trimmings and 42 people onstage. Instead we get an extremely neat, generally perky, overly cautious take on a musical that, being about the con game of love and music, needs more danger in the telling.That’s something I’d have thought Jackman would deliver. His previous New York outings, especially in musicals like “The Boy From Oz” in 2003 and a “Back on Broadway” concert in 2011, were unbuttoned affairs, sometimes literally, threatening at any moment to spill over the lip of the stage. As such, Harold Hill, the traveling salesman who dupes Iowans into buying instruments for an imaginary band, would seem to be a perfect fit for him — or at any rate an impossible fit for anyone else.But Jackman mostly suppresses his sharky charisma here; this is not a star turn like Dolly Levi or, for that matter, Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz.” Instead, he seems to see Hill as a character role: a cool manipulator and traveling horndog who in being unprincipled must also be unlovable.The result is a smart but strangely inward performance. By turning away from the audience, he not only undersells big numbers like “Ya Got Trouble” — in which Hill spellbinds the citizens of River City into believing that the recent arrival of a pool table will cause juvenile delinquency and that a boys’ band is the solution — but also undersells us.Sutton Foster with Kayla Teruel, seated, and Jackman in the show, which is directed by Jerry Zaks.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs the town librarian who sees through him immediately, Foster does not have that problem; her take on Marian is witty and front-facing throughout. She fully commits to the seriousness but also to the size of the comedy, letting it arise from the big internal conflicts of a woman with standards too high for her own happiness. You believe it when her mother (Marie Mullen, lovely) complains in semi-spoken song that “not a man alive could hope to measure up to that blend a’ Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat and Noah Webster you’ve concocted for yourself outa your Irish imagination, your Iowa stubbornness and your liberry fulla’ books.”But the casting of Foster introduces a problem even she cannot solve. With its outpouring of musical styles and counterpoint numbers, Willson’s score is brilliantly designed to push different worldviews into proximity and sometimes into harmony. Soaring above the more pedestrian sounds of the townspeople with their lowdown dances, thickly harmonized barbershop quartets and crisp civic anthems, Marian’s soprano literalizes the idealism at the heart of her character and conflict. Her lilting “Goodnight, My Someone” and Hill’s raucous “Seventy-Six Trombones” could not be more oppositional — until it turns out they are in fact the same melody, in different octaves and at different tempos.Jackman with Benjamin Pajak as Marian’s brother, Winthrop, and Marie Mullen as her mother, Mrs. Paroo.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThough Foster can sing the required notes, she is really a belter, with a mezzo quality to her voice regardless of the pitch. In her high-flung songs she works too hard to force the bloom when what’s needed is ease and exuberance. “My White Knight,” an aria that is usually a rangy highlight of the role, is performed here in a lower key and as fast as possible; it comes off less as a stratospheric dream than a street-level race, making Marian sound, and thus feel, pretty much like everyone else.Unfortunately, that flatness is endemic to the production. The central element of Loquasto’s set is a full-width barn wall whose doors occasionally slide open to reveal vignettes played out against drops painted in the style of Grant Wood (another Iowan). But even when the barn disappears completely, the staging feels two-dimensional — and so old-fashioned (except for the astonishingly good dancers performing Carlyle’s athletic choreography) that it might have come straight from 1957, when “The Music Man” premiered on Broadway. Or even 1912, when it’s set.I suppose you could argue that an old-fashioned show deserves an old-fashioned staging like the kind that worked for “Dolly” — and it’s certainly true that “The Music Man,” as written, includes some antique elements that give us pause today. This production rightly omits, for instance, the “Wa Tan We” girls of the “local wigwam of Heeawatha” and their “Indian war dance.” Even though such ludicrous appropriations are authentic to the setting, a musical comedy need not be a documentary.But omit too much and what’s left lacks texture. Running shorter than its advertised length, this revival cuts a lot, eliminating even minor details that might cause offense. The boy who is secretly dating the mayor’s daughter is no longer the son of “one a’them day laborers south a’town,” presumably because the suggestion of class prejudice is too hot for a comedy to handle in 2022.Same with the show’s treatment of men’s casual harassment of women. You can’t really remove it from the main story; Hill’s modus operandi involves seducing piano teachers and leaving them flat. (At one point he refers to Marian as his “commission.”) In light of that, it seems foolish merely to change a lyric here or there; in the dopey dance tune “Shipoopi,” the couplet “the girl who’s hard to get … but you can win her yet” has become suddenly enlightened as “the boy who’s seen the light … to treat a woman right.”What world are we in?Jefferson Mays, center, as the River City mayor, with, from left: Eddie Korbich, Daniel Torres, Nicholas Ward and Phillip Boykin.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Music Man” can work today. I’ve seen it be thrilling as recently as 2018, in a Stratford Festival production that didn’t shy away from the chance it offers to explore class differences and, with a Black Harold Hill, even racial ones. In this production, too — a colorblind one — some performers manage the trick of making their characters, as Willson requested, valentines to small town folk, not caricatures. Jefferson Mays as the blustery mayor and Jayne Houdyshell as his imperious wife get all the humor out of their roles without diluting the way their ideal of civic culture is just another kind of con.As, no doubt, is ours; one of the points Willson makes in “Rock Island,” the spoken-word number that opens the show, is that old products remain sellable even when old packages become “obsolete.” It’s just that if you’re a traveling salesman, you “gotta know the territory.”No doubt that’s as true for musicals as it was for Uneeda Biscuits. If we’re going to keep selling classic shows, we have to find meaningful new ways to package them. Even for the best salesmen among us, and Jackman is surely that, the territory is changing fast.The Music ManAt the Winter Garden Theater, Manhattan; musicmanonbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. More

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      How Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster and ‘The Music Man’ Withstood Covid

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      Nearly 60 cast and crew members have tested positive since rehearsals began. Now, following a 10-day shutdown during previews, opening night is near.As soon as Hugh Jackman learned that the leading lady of “The Music Man,” Sutton Foster — whom he spent a substantial portion of every night breathing on, sweating on and locking lips with onstage — had tested positive for the coronavirus, he knew it was just a matter of time.“I’m pretty sure on every C.D.C. guideline, making out with someone with Covid is not recommended,” Jackman, 53, said in a phone conversation in late January. He is starring opposite Foster as the scam artist Harold Hill in the high-profile revival of Meredith Willson’s 1957 musical, which is scheduled to open Feb. 10 at the Winter Garden Theater.And, sure enough, five days later, came the positive proof on his at-home Covid test. Already down about a third of the show’s 46-person cast, and with both leads out, the producers canceled the next 11 performances. (The cast and crew were still paid during the shutdown, Kate Horton, one of the musical’s producers, said.)Though performances resumed a little over a week later, it was just the latest setback for a starry, star-crossed revival of the feel-good comedy, which won the Tony Award for best new musical in 1958. Originally scheduled to begin previews in September 2020, the show had already pushed back its opening night twice and weathered the departure of its lead producer, Scott Rudin, amid renewed scrutiny of his bullying behavior.The production, which is capitalized for up to $24 million, reunites much of the creative team behind the Tony-winning 2017 revival of “Hello, Dolly!,” including the director, Jerry Zaks. Its cast includes six Tony winners: Jackman; Foster, who plays the librarian Marian Paroo; Shuler Hensley; Jefferson Mays; Jayne Houdyshell; and Marie Mullen.In phone interviews last month, six members of the show’s cast and creative team outlined the measures they took to keep the show going amid a coronavirus outbreak; the vital role of actors known as swings, who have no regular role in a show and cover up to a dozen ensemble parts; and how they kept their spirits up amid a challenging preview period. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.When the “Music Man” revival was announced in March 2019, it looked as if it would be the marquee event of the fall 2020 Broadway season. Amid the industrywide shutdown, opening night was pushed to May 2021, and then again to Feb. 10, 2022. Finally, this past October, the show started rehearsals.The show’s director, Jerry Zaks, left, and its choreographer, Warren Carlyle, overseeing rehearsals.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesJERRY ZAKS (director) We felt we had gotten past Covid, and we were just happy to be there. We dived in and went nonstop.HUGH JACKMAN (Professor Harold Hill) It was so great to be back in the room.KATHY VOYTKO (swing/Marian understudy) It was a thrill to test negative every day.On Dec. 20, amid the Omicron surge, “The Music Man” had its first preview. Four covers — an actor who goes on for another actor who calls out of a show — were onstage.KATE HORTON (producer) I would look at the situation we were facing each day, and I would have conversations with stage management and the creative team and we would decide what to do.SUTTON FOSTER (Marian Paroo) At one point, there were 14 people out of the show. We had swings covering seven roles and trying to hold up that show. And they did. It was remarkable. One of our swings, Emily Hoder, is 10 years old, and she was covering three tracks.ZAKS I couldn’t do the critical work of addressing the material, making changes in the lighting, fixing the sound, because we had so may people out. There was a moment when we asked ourselves if we’d have to push opening night.Then it happened: On Thursday, Dec. 23, the morning of the fourth preview, Foster tested positive.FOSTER We’ve been vigilant, but I have a 4 ½-year-old daughter who goes to preschool. On December 20, the night of our first preview, she hadn’t been feeling good, and my husband took her to the doctor and she tested positive. But every day I was testing negative, negative, negative. Then on Thursday morning, I did a rapid test at home, and it immediately was just this rude red line. And I was like, “OK, here we go.”But the show still went on that night, thanks to Voytko, a swing and an understudy for Marian, who mainlined the role in eight hours.VOYTKO I had an 11 o’clock costume fitting, and, just before noon, our costume designer, Santo [Loquasto], said “Kathy, call Thomas [Recktenwald],” who’s our production stage manager. And I sort of had that sinking feeling. And sure enough, he said, “You’re on.” I voice-texted my husband because my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t possibly have used my phone. Then I put my phone on silent, and I grabbed my emergency cheat sheet I had made.“I want people to understand that these are unprecedented times in theater,” said Jackman, who plays the scam artist Harold Hill opposite Foster’s Marian Paroo.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesJACKMAN She had her first rehearsal as Marian at 1; we had until 5. We got through every scene once. I think maybe she got to redo something twice.WARREN CARLYLE (choreographer) There are three really tricky sequences that could take an actress down: the finale; “Shipoopi” at the top of Act II because there’s a lot of dance for her there; and the library sequence, which is very prop heavy. There are something like 75 library books and a million different things that have to go in a million different places.VOYTKO A big goal post was getting through “My White Knight” because the lyrics have a patter section, which is a bit of a tongue twister. And I only had two shots at the dance for “Shipoopi” with Hugh and the tap finale before we had to do them in front of an audience.And she did. She got a standing ovation, and Jackman delivered a curtain speech praising understudies and swings that went viral.JACKMAN I want people to understand that these are unprecedented times in theater. I was so moved by what Kathy had gone through. I’ve never seen anything like that.After other breakthrough cases, the production canceled its Saturday evening and Sunday matinee performances on Dec. 25 and 26. On Tuesday, Dec. 28, Jackman tested positive.JACKMAN I was already feeling a bit funky when I was doing the show the night before, even though I was testing negative at the time, so it wasn’t a surprise. I was pretty nauseated, with a scratchy throat and a runny nose. My wife was amazing — we’d been sleeping in the same bed together, obviously, so I think she expected to get it too, which she did. But I’m vaccinated and boosted, so I was fine after a few days.The show eventually canceled its next 11 performances, through Wednesday, Jan. 5.HORTON Every time somebody is out when you’re so early in the life of the show, you need to do a technical rehearsal with the stand-in. But when you get to a certain number of people being out, there isn’t enough time to do that and make sure everyone onstage is safe. We got to a point where there were over 10 people off, so it was a very straightforward decision, actually.But the production never considered postponing its opening or following in the footsteps of “Mrs. Doubtfire,” whose producer, Kevin McCollum, decided in January to pause performances for nine weeks, with plans to resume in March (“To Kill a Mockingbird,” like “The Music Man” co-produced by Barry Diller, announced a hiatus later that month).And there was music: The show is scheduled to open on Feb. 10 at the Winter Garden Theater.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesHORTON We knew mathematically we would get through it. Once a certain number of people are out and you know they’re coming back, it was just a revolving-door situation, like who was going to be back when. And the demand for the show is so huge that we knew we had audiences waiting for us.Previews resumed on Thursday, Jan. 6. Finally, the full company was onstage together for the first time, with no covers or swings.ZAKS It wasn’t until the end of January that I was able to make the changes and cuts that I wanted to make.FOSTER We had an extraordinarily long preview process — over six weeks. In shows I’ve done in the past, the preview period has been about four weeks. So even though we lost 10 days, we’re still in good shape.HORTON Things have stabilized hugely. Advance sales have been fantastic. We’ve gone a couple of weeks now with no positive tests.VOYTKO I did three shows in a row with Hugh — smooching, panting under dance numbers in each other’s faces — but I never tested positive! We were joking that an epidemiologist should do some sort of study.Now, with opening night in less than a week, the cast, crew and creative team are ready to celebrate.JACKMAN It’s amazing to be on a stage with a cast that’s near 50 people and a 25-piece orchestra. It’s a story about faith, belief and community that’s so timely. It’s one of those perfect musicals.VOYTKO Nothing will ever be as stressful as going on in a fourth preview as Marian. My greatest hope is that everyone is healthy on opening night, and I can cheer them on from the audience! More

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      Hugh Jackman Announces He Has Covid-19

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      Hugh Jackman, who is starring as Professor Harold Hill in “The Music Man” at the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway, announced on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.“I just wanted you to hear from me that I tested positive this morning for Covid,” Jackman said in an Instagram video. “My symptoms are like a cold: I have a scratchy throat and a bit of a runny nose, but I’m fine. And I’m just going to do everything I can to get better, A.S.A.P., and as soon as I’m cleared, I’ll be back onstage.”Shortly after Mr. Jackman posted his video, “The Music Man” announced on Instagram that all performances would be canceled through Saturday. Tickets can be refunded or exchanged where they were purchased. Performances will resume on Sunday, and Mr. Jackman will return to the show on Jan. 6. Several other Tony winners star in “The Music Man” alongside Mr. Jackman: Sutton Foster as Marian Paroo, Shuler Hensley as Marcellus Washburn, Jefferson Mays as Mayor Shinn, Jayne Houdyshell as Mrs. Shinn and Marie Mullen as Mrs. Paroo.Preview performances for “The Music Man” began on Dec. 20, with opening night scheduled for Feb. 10.While “The Music Man” has managed to stay open, other shows have not. The New York City Ballet announced Tuesday that it was canceling its remaining performances of “The Nutcracker.” The producers of “Ain’t Too Proud,” a jukebox musical about the Temptations, also announced on Tuesday that their show will close on Jan. 16. The show has not run since Dec. 15, citing coronavirus cases. It is planning to resume on Tuesday, Dec. 28, and hoping to run for three more weeks before closing for good. Last week, the musicals “Jagged Little Pill” and “Waitress,” as well as the play “Thoughts of a Colored Man” announced that they had closed without so much as a farewell performance — all were already on hiatus because of coronavirus cases among cast or crew.The efforts of “The Music Man” to stay open had just been highlighted on Thursday night, when the actress Kathy Voytko, a swing and an understudy for Marian Paroo in the musical, filled in for Ms. Foster, who had Covid, at the last minute. After the show, the actress and dancer Katherine Winter posted an Instagram video of Mr. Jackman praising understudies and swings as “the bedrock of Broadway.”“Kathy, when she turned up at work at 12 o’clock, could have played any of eight roles,” Jackman said at the curtain call. “It happened to be the leading lady. She found out at 12 noon today, and at 1 o’clock she had her very first rehearsal as Marian Paroo.”As the coronavirus and its Omicron variant spread, understudies and swings are becoming more important than ever: Shows are relying on them to step in for sick or unavailable leads.“This is unprecedented,” Mr. Jackman continued. “It’s not only happening here at the Winter Garden, but all over Broadway. This is a time we’ve never known.” More