(Cast members to tour. Sascha Halbhuber, Peter Court, Charon Williams Ros, Lyle Buxton and Bryan Hiles. Lisa Bobbert, who played Sally Bowles, is unfortunately not available to tour)(Report by Billy Suter, courtesy of The Mercury)
Fresh from sweeping the boards at the ninth annual Mercury Durban Theatre Awards, Durban’s chief production company, KickstArt, is planning a bumper 2012 season – with a glittering highlight to be a sumptuous production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast next Christmas.
In addition, negotiations are well under way, and all looks exceptionally rosy, for the company’s acclaimed Cabaret, staged at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in August and the winner of a pile of awards in Durban, to tour to Cape Town and Joburg next year.
Cabaret director Steven Stead, who co-owns KickstArt with partner Greg King, says they are particularly pleased about being very close to finalising a deal with top impresario Pieter Toerien to co-produce and present their production of Cabaret at Montecasino Theatre in Joburg in June and July, and at the Theatre on the Bay in Cape Town next August and September.
“This is a major breakthrough for us, and for Durban theatre generally, as there is very little notice, generally, paid by the rest of the country to what goes on here, theatrically speaking – with the obvious exception of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, where Durban does shine and is recognised,” says Stead.
Sadly, because of the length of the planned runs in Joburg and Cape Town, most of the Durban cast will not be able to travel for the five months of the planned tour.
Among them is Lisa Bobbert, winner of the Mercury Durban Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Musical, for her stellar performance as Sally Bowles, the role which won an Oscar for Liza Minnelli in Bob Fosse’s classic 1972 film version of Cabaret.
“It is a tremendous pity that the fabulous Lisa can’t get away from her three children for nearly half a year to play Sally, but we have managed to tentatively cast Joburg musicals star Samantha Peo in the role,” adds Stead.
Two other award-winners from this year’s awards – the superb Charon Williams-Ros (as Fraulein Schneider) and Peter Court (as Herr Schultz), together with award-nominee Bryan Hiles (as Cliff) – are available to tour.
Stead says negotiations are also well under way for award-winner Sascha Halbhuber, based in Germany, to reprise his role as Cabaret’s flamboyant Emcee. (Also since confirmed are Bryan Hiles and Lyle Buxton)
KickstArt is particularly excited about having landed stage rights for Beauty and the Beast, which will become the company’s most costly show to date, budgeted at R800,000-plus, when it opens at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.
“We may design our own sets and costumes (we certainly couldn’t afford to bring in a complete Disney replica of the Broadway production … we don’t have nearly R7 million kicking about!), but we have to use the Disney marketing imagery, which is fine with us.”
Some casting is confirmed. The roles of Beauty and Beast are still to be filled, but KickstArt has signed up Lyle Buxton as the vain, ultra-masculine Gaston, Williams-Ros as the kindly and maternal enchanted teapot Mrs Potts, Rory Booth as Gaston’s bumbling sidekick Lefoux and Bryan Hiles as the debonair and enchanted candelabra Lumiere.
Based on the 1991 Disney film, Beauty and the Beast boasts music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and a book by Linda Woolverton. Seven new songs were written for the stage musical, which ran on Broadway for 5,464 performances between 1994 and 2007, becoming Broadway’s eighth-longest running production in history. The musical has played in 13 countries and 115 cities, including Joburg and Cape Town.
Meanwhile, KickstArt has landed another coup for 2012 in that the company has been invited to present the South African premiere of American John Logan’s Tony Award-winning 2010 play, Red, at the Loft theatre at Durban’s Playhouse from March 27 to 30. It will later be performed at the National Arts Festival, before heading for the Theatre on the Square in Joburg for a month.
A play about artist Mark Rothko, Red was first produced in London in December 2009. It revolves around Rothko being in his New York studio in 1958-9, painting a group of murals for the expensive and exclusive Four Seasons restaurant. As he mixes paints, makes the frames and paints the canvases, he gives orders to his assistant, Ken, who brashly questions Rothko’s theories of art and his agreeing to work on such a commercial project.
The original London production starred Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as Ken. Wikipedia reports that the play, with its two leads, transferred to Broadway for a short engagement from March 2010, leading to it being named as last year’s Tony Award-winner for Best Play. Additionally, Redmayne won a 2010 Tony for best actor.
KickstArt’s other production planned for next year is a classic farce, Don’t Dress For Dinner, featuring a cast of six. It will be staged at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from February 9 to 26. Casting is being finalised. Don’t Dress For Dinner is a two-act play by French playwright Marc Camoletti, a sequel to his farcical comedy, Boeing Boeing. Don’t Dress For Dinner ran in Paris for more than two years under the name Pyjamas Pour Six, and was also staged in London, with Simon Cadell and Su Pollard.
The production, reports Wikipedia, is set in a renovated French farmhouse about a two-hour drive from Paris, where a man called Bernard is hoping to pack his wife, Jacqueline, away to her mother’s for the weekend, in the hope of bedding his mistress, Suzanne, a model and actress. As an alibi, Bernard has hired high-level cook, Suzette, and invited his friend Robert to dinner. Nothing, of course, goes as planned…
KickstArt’s latest show, the lavish pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, directed by Steven Stead and designed by Greg King, runs from December 6 to January 9 at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. More about it next Friday*! – Billy Suter
(* An article about the props in this production is featured in The Mercury Goodlife of December 2)
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