Issue #245: October 15, 2010

• It looks like it will be a busy musical season with potentially nine original musicals opening.  Among the scheduled tuners you’ll find Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Elf, The Scottsboro Boys, Spider-Man, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Plus, The Book of Mormon, Sister Act and Wonderland.  Not to be left out is a spring opening for Catch Me If You Can.

• Following it’s pre-Broadway run in Toronto (currently at the Princess of Wales Theatre) Priscilla, Queen of the Desert will open at the Palace Theater on February 28. 
  

• In celebration of his belated 80th birthday, Stephen Sondheim has been awarded a theatre in his name.  The former Henry Miller Theater on 43rd Street has been renamed for the hit musical composer known for such productions as West Side Story, Company, Gypsy, A Little Night Music, Follies, etc.

• Carrie Fisher brings her sharp wit to the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto this summer with her one-woman show Wishful Drinking, July 12 to August 21.  
  

• Toronto can look forward to a roster of musicals for the 2011 season from producer Dancap.  The Dolly Parton tuner 9 to 5 The Musical joins The Addams Family, Tony and Pulitzer winner Next to Normal, Tony winner for Best Musical Memphis, the Twyla Tharp tribute to Frank Sinatra Come Fly Away and the return of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s stunning South Pacific.  
  

• Rock of Ages is still packing them in a the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto…so much so they have put a new block of seats on sale taking the production through to December 19.