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Blue Man takes a pounding
Toronto show to close January 7
Run falls short of predicted decade
Sep. 28, 2006. 08:00 AM
MARTIN KNELMAN
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
Blue Man Group — a show its producers hoped would run a decade — will close on Jan. 7 after 18 months at the Panasonic Theatre. And that makes Toronto unique — the only place where this funky spoof of performance art has ever closed.
It's still running in the other six cities where it has opened — New York (where it has been a fixture at Astor Place in the East Village since 1991), Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, London and Berlin — and another production will open in December in Amsterdam.
The combination of the show's track record elsewhere and Toronto's credentials as a sophisticated theatre centre emboldened Clear Channel Entertainment to buy the New Yorker Theatre and spend $12 million turning it into a state-of-the-art home for Blue Man. (Naming rights were sold to Panasonic.)
But Toronto never quite fell in love with the show, which got off to a sour start last year when it was picketed for refusing to employ members of performers and musicians unions.
"It's disheartening that Toronto hasn't rebounded yet and has lately been unable to support long-run shows," Laura Camien, press rep for Blue Man Productions said by phone from New York last night.
"But given that fact, we feel very proud of running a year and a half, and we have very positive feelings about Toronto."
In fact, by the time the show closes it will have brought in about $14 million at the box office and been seen by almost 250,000 people — making it one of the most successful off-Broadway shows in Toronto theatre history.
Yet the reluctance of Toronto ticket buyers to meet the great expectations of the show's producers won't help the city's claim to be a hot theatre town.
Still, there's an upside: Suddenly we have in the Bloor/Yonge area a terrific, smartly renovated 700-seat theatre suitable for commercially viable off-Broadway shows.
The likely scenario is that it will continue operating under the Canadian branch of Live Nations (Clear Channel's theatrical division).
Ronald Andrew, who runs the Canadian operation, declined to comment.
Toronto show to close January 7
Run falls short of predicted decade
Sep. 28, 2006. 08:00 AM
MARTIN KNELMAN
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
Blue Man Group — a show its producers hoped would run a decade — will close on Jan. 7 after 18 months at the Panasonic Theatre. And that makes Toronto unique — the only place where this funky spoof of performance art has ever closed.
It's still running in the other six cities where it has opened — New York (where it has been a fixture at Astor Place in the East Village since 1991), Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, London and Berlin — and another production will open in December in Amsterdam.
The combination of the show's track record elsewhere and Toronto's credentials as a sophisticated theatre centre emboldened Clear Channel Entertainment to buy the New Yorker Theatre and spend $12 million turning it into a state-of-the-art home for Blue Man. (Naming rights were sold to Panasonic.)
But Toronto never quite fell in love with the show, which got off to a sour start last year when it was picketed for refusing to employ members of performers and musicians unions.
"It's disheartening that Toronto hasn't rebounded yet and has lately been unable to support long-run shows," Laura Camien, press rep for Blue Man Productions said by phone from New York last night.
"But given that fact, we feel very proud of running a year and a half, and we have very positive feelings about Toronto."
In fact, by the time the show closes it will have brought in about $14 million at the box office and been seen by almost 250,000 people — making it one of the most successful off-Broadway shows in Toronto theatre history.
Yet the reluctance of Toronto ticket buyers to meet the great expectations of the show's producers won't help the city's claim to be a hot theatre town.
Still, there's an upside: Suddenly we have in the Bloor/Yonge area a terrific, smartly renovated 700-seat theatre suitable for commercially viable off-Broadway shows.
The likely scenario is that it will continue operating under the Canadian branch of Live Nations (Clear Channel's theatrical division).
Ronald Andrew, who runs the Canadian operation, declined to comment.