Houdini

[mamaleh]

I'm sure he has plenty of irons in the fire and wouldn't return to a project that wasn't working out for him.

Ellen

[jo]

They are probably different circumstances - but Hugh did return to the PRISONERS project ( which seemed a sure thing initially as he had told some people that he would be filming in Connecticut after the run of A STEADY RAIN), after he left it and a few others looked at the role ( including DiCaprio), before Hugh decided once again that he wanted to be Keller Dover.

But maybe the parting of ways on the Houdini project had been of a different nature.

Jo

[mamaleh]

Looks like the HOUDINI project has basically been dropped. Because of Hugh's pulling out? Or maybe Hugh was prescient enough to see it was going nowhere. From a BWW interview (PC are the initials of the interviewer) with Stephen Schwartz:

"PC: Are you still involved with HOUDINI?

SS: I honestly don't know what the story is with that. I mean, currently, I am not working on that at all.

PC: He's in the zeitgeist right now it seems, especially with the recent TV miniseries.

SS: Yes, there is a lot about him out there - I know. But, I don't exactly know if anything will wind up happening with that."

- Looks like Hugh got out when the going was good.

Ellen

[jo]

To be honest, I think Hugh realized after being patient for so many years that working with Stephen Schwartz in the latter phases was not going to work out because while Hugh was schedule-bound ( even if his involvement with the project has been since 2008/2009), maybe SS did not feel time-bound to complete the project within practical timetables. I guess creative persons do not follow their muses all at the same pace ( I always use Lloyd Webber as the opposite example - despite health issues, he has been more productive).

Schwartz can always recycle his melodies to another new show smiley-rolleyes010

And maybe the financial legacies of Wicked ( and to some extent a few other of his shows) gives him the luxury of taking his time.


Jo

[jo]

Stephen Schwartz no longer involved in HOUDINI!

www.broadwayworld.com/article/Stephen-Schwartz-Talks-WICKED-Film-Update-Fate-of-HOUDINI-More-20141031

Asked about "Houdini", the musical which was originally set to star Hugh Jackman in a Broadway run, Schwartz revealed his involvement with that project is over, "although others may pursue it."

[mamaleh]

Looks like Hugh was wise to jump ship when he did.

Ellen

[jo]

But the relations with director Jack O'Brien must have continued to be warm--

Hugh and Deb attended a cabaret by Jack at Studio 54 to celebrate his long years in the theatrical business!





Will Hugh ever get the chance to work with one of theatre's foremost directors - he has TONYs for both musical and classical theatre!



Jo

[jo]

The back story of what went wrong with the HOUDINI project --


www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/theater/the-musical-houdini-travels-a-bumpy-path.html?_r=1

All Tied Up

The Musical ‘Houdini’ Travels a Bumpy Path


By PATRICK HEALYJAN. 7, 2015


HUGH JACKMAN wasn’t feeling the magic.

It was late 2013, and Mr. Jackman was reading yet another rewrite of “Houdini,” the musical he’d been developing for five years. Harry Houdini’s life once seemed so staggering and spectacular for an actor to take on — all those great escapes! But the show had become weighed down by a major plotline about Houdini’s real-life crusade to debunk spiritualists in the 1920s. There were not enough powerful moments like the song “It’ll Be Me,” part of a new score by Stephen Schwartz, his first for Broadway since “Wicked.”

With his film career in high gear, Mr. Jackman called the “Houdini” producers and bowed out — to their dismay, after spending about $500,000 on the show.

Now, instead of breaking out of a straitjacket bound by chains and locks, Mr. Jackman is on Broadway in a low-key new play, “The River.” And “Houdini,” which once aimed to open this winter, remains in limbo. A star vehicle without a star. A book and score languishing on hard drives. A show that bedeviled even A-list artists like the scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin and Mr. Schwartz, who announced in October that he had quit the show, too.

“I wanted to find a great story about Houdini, but the show just never found the right size or shape,” said Mr. Jackman, who has become Broadway’s most reliable draw since his Tony-winning debut in the 2003 musical “The Boy From Oz.” “Creating a new original musical is the Mount Everest of the theatrical art form. That’s why there are very few of them.”

More than most shows, “Houdini” lays bare the challenges of modern musical-making.

Creative teams today, like the several different ones that worked on “Houdini,” are far more distracted with multiple projects in film, theater and television than when Jerome Robbins Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim got “Gypsy” to Broadway in 1959 in just two years’ time. Mr. Sorkin, for instance, was writing his HBO series “The Newsroom” while plotting the book for “Houdini”; the “Newsroom” premiere drew mixed reviews on the eve of an important, multiday “Houdini” reading, and Mr. Sorkin was doing double duty promoting the series on late-night talk shows that week.

The musical also points up the difficulties of star vehicles — once common in the era of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin — because most stars won’t commit anymore to a long development process and a year of performances. And “Houdini” is part of the trend of producers pushing to turn an idea or movie into a musical — rather than artists pursuing a passion project, with producers nurturing them.


“My most successful musicals were singularly driven by their creators, not by me,” said Jeffrey Seller, the producer of Tony winners like “Rent” and “In the Heights” (and this season’s “The Last Ship,” which is closing Jan. 24). “It was the producer David Merrick’s idea to turn ‘The Matchmaker’ into ‘Hello, Dolly!,’ but it’s far more often the artists who start with the best ideas. Producers can help keep them focused and help fight the biggest enemy to making musicals — the multitasking that all of us do now.”

For those who worked on “Houdini,” the show remains a delicate, even painful subject. Most declined to comment on the record or would answer questions only by email through publicists. Many said they didn’t want to draw attention to the musical’s travails because its producers are trying to attract a new creative team and star to resuscitate the show. “We strongly believe ‘Houdini’ can be a remarkable theatrical experience,” said David Rockwell, one of the producers. “It’s not easy to create new work, yet the greatest rewards come from big thinking and creative risk.”

“Houdini” was never supposed to take this long, not nearly. The idea started a decade ago with Mr. Rockwell, an architect and theater set designer, who had a long fascination with the legendary magician. Houdini’s life — he died in 1926 at the age of 52 — had been explored on screen, in a 1953 movie and more recently in a cable mini-series, but not on a Broadway stage. (A 1990s bio-musical never made it far.)

Mr. Rockwell, coming off a 2003 Tony nomination for the musical “Hairspray,” began kicking around concepts with a close friend, Kurt Andersen, the novelist and founder of Spy magazine. Mr. Andersen ended up writing a script treatment that ran for more than 50 pages; the first act focused on Houdini struggling to grow beyond the willfulness that helped make him a star, while the second act explored the conflict between Houdini and the increasingly popular advent of spiritualists, among them the author Arthur Conan Doyle and the medium Margery Crandon.

As fate would have it, Mr. Rockwell was the set designer for the 2009 Oscars ceremony, which Mr. Jackman was hosting. It turned out that the actor had an interest in Houdini, too. They got to chatting, and soon Mr. Jackman was plunging ahead with the musical.

To the surprise of Mr. Rockwell and others, Mr. Jackman told an Australian newspaper in spring 2009 that he was playing Houdini and that the show might reach Broadway as soon as 2010 — setting up expectations for its arrival in New York.



For any musical, finding a composer and a scriptwriter who fit beautifully is why teams like Rodgers and Hammerstein are so rare. Mr. Rockwell, Mr. Andersen and Jack O’Brien, the Tony-winning director attached to the project, initially worked with Danny Elfman (best known for scoring Tim Burton movies like “Beetlejuice” and “Batman”) and the lyricists David Yazbek and Glenn Slater.

Then, in 2010, Mr. Andersen moved into the role of creative consultant, remaining a close adviser to Mr. Rockwell, after the “Houdini” team decided to seek a scriptwriter who had worked successfully on Broadway before. They were thrilled to land Mr. Sorkin, who had a Broadway hit with “A Few Good Men” and would soon win an Oscar for “The Social Network.”

Progress was slow, however, and not enough of the work was clicking. Mr. Elfman’s music was on the dark side, and Mr. Sorkin — who had never written a Broadway musical — was trying to crack the story while separately developing “The Newsroom.” The producers — Mr. Rockwell recruited Scott Sanders, who had produced “The Color Purple” on Broadway — decided that a new composer was in order, and in 2011 they began to pursue Mr. Schwartz.



A difficult dance soon ensued. In conversations and over email, Mr. Schwartz told the producers that he didn’t want to write another Broadway musical, people involved with the show said. He was already very wealthy and beloved after 40 years’ worth of shows — “Godspell,” “Pippin” and “Wicked,” among them. He had even written a largely forgotten Broadway hit from the 1970s, “The Magic Show,” which starred Doug Henning and featured onstage illusions.

He was also loath to face Broadway critics again, who have been mixed on his work. (He has never won a Tony.) But the producers encouraged Mr. Schwartz to meet with Mr. Sorkin; they did, and decided to give “Houdini” a try.

Their busy schedules soon proved an obstacle. Much of their work happened on separate coasts, in isolation or over email.


Players in and out of the “Houdini” trajectory: from left, the producers Scott Sanders and David Rockwell, and the composers Danny Elfman and Stephen Schwartz. Credit Phil Bray/Walt Disney Pictures; Robert Caplin for The New York Times; Kevin Winter/Getty Images; Deidre Schoo for The New York Times

Mr. Sorkin chose to set his story during Houdini’s final days, in 1926, with much of the action taking place in flashbacks. (A copy of his 2012 script, with Mr. Schwartz’s lyrics, was provided to The New York Times by a member of the production team.) The show centered on Houdini and Margery Crandon, who emerges as a complex character, by turns antagonistic and comforting, as she accompanies him in a dreamlike state as he relives moments in his life. (Jane Krakowski of TV’s “30 Rock” and a Tony winner for “Nine,” played Margery in readings.) Some passages are funny, some tender, but many others are full of the long, brainy conversations that are a hallmark of Mr. Sorkin’s writing but less common in musicals. (Mr. Sorkin’s agent said that the writer would not comment for this article.)


Mr. Schwartz, meanwhile, wrote more than a dozen songs for the show, exploring Houdini’s relationship with his rabbi father (“Have a Little Faith in Me”) and the inherent deceptiveness within illusions (“It’s a Cakewalk”). But work sessions proved difficult to schedule; in 2011, for instance, members of the “Houdini” team flew to San Francisco to meet Mr. Jackman, who squeezed in meetings as he was rehearsing a concert that would soon become his smash revue “Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway.” And developing thrilling moments of magic often seemed secondary to the plot about the spiritualists.

Kenneth Silverman, author of the biography “Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss,” who has not been involved with the show, said the focus on Houdini and Margery was “an intriguing idea” for a musical but also potentially fraught.

“Houdini’s experience with her and the spiritualists was a very hostile one, but focusing on it risks taking away from the hugely entertaining moments of illusion and escape that defined his life,” said Mr. Silverman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1985 for his biography of Cotton Mather.

The producers, while supportive of the Sorkin-Schwartz approach, didn’t feel the show was gelling. Mr. Sorkin ultimately chose to leave the show in early 2013 and focus on “The Newsroom” and a screenplay about Steve Jobs. He was replaced by David Ives, a playwright (“Venus in Fur”) and frequent musical script doctor, who pursued his own spin on Houdini and the spiritualists.

The seemingly endless development process — write, rewrite, reading, reading again — happens all over New York all the time, mostly involving young performers and shows that go nowhere. Even celebrities like Mr. Jackman have to endure it, balancing their hunger to sing (which he did, to acclaim, in the film version of “Les Misérables”) with patience that a gestating project will grow into greatness.


Other players in and out of the “Houdini” trajectory: from left, the actress Jane Krakowski, and the book writers Aaron Sorkin and Kurt Anderson. Credit Frazer Harrison/Getty Images; Nina Prommer/European Pressphoto Agency; Thomas Hart Shelby

It’s not for the money, as their agents will attest; often these stars are sacrificing huge paychecks to carve out time for a stage role that may never even come to be.

Building a new musical around a Hollywood star has become nearly impossible, given the time demands. Decades ago, Broadway artists wrote shows for Merman, Martin, Rosalind Russell, Gertrude Lawrence and Lena Horne, but now these star vehicles are rare — the Broadway musical “If/Then” was written for a past Tony winner, Idina Menzel.




Mr. Jackman, speaking in an interview this fall before starting performances in “The River,” said that while he realized scripts took a long time to hone and often improved significantly only during and after a tryout production, he lost faith as the “Houdini” development process dragged out.


“What I didn’t realize is it can take 10 years to get new musicals going,” he said. “To get everything right with ‘Houdini’ — the script right, the music right, all the elements right, and the timing right — was very hard. And we couldn’t get it right. Also, people had other jobs. I had jobs, Aaron had jobs, Stephen. It was taking an extraordinary amount of time.”

Yet Mr. Jackman also hated the idea of letting people down. He had grown particularly close to Mr. Sanders and the director, Mr. O’Brien, two men who share his gregarious spirit and sunny sense of humor. Mr. Jackman happily walked the red carpet at the opening night of Mr. Sanders’s 2013 Broadway musical, “After Midnight,” and had also attended a special screening of the producer’s film “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.” And in the rehearsal room, the three men — as well as others — seemed at their happiest when they were cooking up possible stunts or laughing about ways to take advantage of Mr. Jackman’s sex appeal, like dunking him shirtless in a water tank to recreate a famous Houdini stunt.

“I’ve never heard Hugh say no, not in his life — his natural desire is to say yes to people, to try anything and make it work,” said Warren Carlyle, a longtime friend who directed Mr. Jackman in “Back on Broadway,” and who also became close with Mr. Sanders while directing “After Midnight.” “I knew Hugh was wrestling with what to do about ‘Houdini’ because he knew the ramifications of leaving. He knew it would be a big blow to Scott and David and to Jack, who was like a really good father figure, pushing Hugh as an actor in all the right ways.”

Mr. Jackman’s misgivings had reached a high point by the time of a holiday party at his Greenwich Village apartment in mid-December 2013, which Mr. Sanders and others on the “Houdini” team attended. The show’s Chicago tryout plans and Broadway timetable had been repeatedly delayed — finally pushed back to the 2015-16 season — because of development work and scheduling, though Mr. Jackman still seemed on board. Shortly after the party, Mr. Jackman called Mr. Sanders and said he could no longer sign on for a likely 18-month period of rehearsals and performances in Chicago followed by rehearsals and a run on Broadway.

Asked if Mr. Jackman had underestimated the challenges of making a new musical — or if, in the end, the work wasn’t good enough — Mr. Sanders said by email: “The process of creating a musical is akin to capturing lightning in a bottle. We were trying to do that, with some remarkable artists, and their schedules didn’t sync up. We had to evaluate the situation and accept that our process would take longer than expected and sadly Hugh wasn’t able to commit to the time.”




Soon after Mr. Jackman left, Mr. Schwartz met with the producers and said he no longer wanted to continue with the project, either. This pattern — artist after artist quitting when it suited them — underscored the downside of a producer-driven musical. But word of Mr. Schwartz’s departure did not become public until October, when he told The Hartford Courant that he was done with “Houdini” but that “others may pursue it.” The article irritated Mr. Sanders, for one, who called Mr. Schwartz to express his annoyance, contending that the takeaway from The Courant was that “Houdini” was dead.

But it isn’t, the producers say. They are now talking to other composers, writers and actors about the possibility of restarting again. Mr. Schwartz, who said by email that he found Mr. Sorkin “fun and stimulating” and praised Mr. Jackman’s “positive and enthusiastic attitude,” has told the producers he is amenable if they still want to use some of his songs.

As for a new projected timetable, the producers — who started out aiming for 2010 before moving the dates again and again — are opting not to offer any this time around.

“We plan on continuing to develop the musical and will be excited to share the news when we are ready,” Mr. Sanders said by email. “As any magician knows, you never show how the illusion is made real.”

As for Mr. Jackman, he has decided to make another original musical about another showman, P. T. Barnum. Only this time it’s a movie, due out Christmas Day 2016.





A version of this article appears in print on January 11, 2015, on page AR1 of the New York edition with the headline: All Tied Up . Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

*This back story could be the subject of a play or a new musical itself

*During the period Hugh was attached to the project ( I remember him saying at the stagedoor of the Schoenfeld in 2009 that "HOUDINI was being re-written" at that time) to 2013, he had starred in A STEADY RAIN, also in REAL STEEL, in his one-man show ( from San Francisco to Broadway via Toronto), as Valjean in the film adaptation of LES MISERABLES which was another stage musical that took decades to adapt to the screen, as THE WOLVERINE which also suffered many delays before filming actually took place, and in PRISONERS ( ironically, he also left the project after he was first attached to it sometime in 2009 and returned to film it in 2013).

*GREATEST SHOWMAN also took a long laborious route before getting the greenlight from FOX studio. In this case, it was again the star power of Jackman ( and also being the key figure in the studio's most lucrative franchise) which kept the project going. While still in pre-production, there is now a firm start to filming ( September 2015, according to Hugh at the CITS stagedoor) and even a Christmas Day 2016 release date.

*If by some luck, HOUDINI reinvents magic and eventually works, would the producers pursue the once-and-future Broadway magic-man, named Hugh Jackman, once again?


Jo

[mamaleh]

Fascinating story. Too bad it didn't work out. They couldn't expect Hugh, with his full schedule of commitments, to hang on while the creative team changed over and over again. Still, I wonder how he'd have sung those Schwartz songs. We'll likely never hear him perform them.

Ellen

[mamaleh]

A different musical take on Houdini's life is set to hit the stage soon--without HJ, of course.

www.playbill.com/article/a-new-musical-about-harry-houdini-is-in-the-works

Ellen

[jo]

Seeing that photo supposedly of Houdini underneath the water in the tank -- shudder!

I'd hate to see Hugh be like that in 8 shows a week! Okay in a movie, but in a musical on Broadway - No, No, No!!!

Jo

[jo]

From a twitter exchange discussing Houdini --

Fully clothed - LOL!  Didn't Houdini perform less clothed

Singing - sigh! I guess we can't get even a brief glimpse or Steven Schwartz may post a notice on copyright infringement.

I do remember that Hugh completed workshops for the first act of the musical. But Schwartz was taking so long and Hugh had t leave the project because of a forthcoming film project. This must be late 2011 or early 2012? I remember that we lunched at the Rotunda in San Francisco ( time of the first tryout for Back on Broadway) and the waiter sort of shared that he served Hugh and Aaron Sorkin ( who was writing the book for the musical) lunch the day before. That was April 2011.

If I am not mistaken, Hugh left the project maybe because he just got the chance to be in Les Misérables ( started filming in early 2012)?


Jo