Manoa Valley Theatre has announced it is postponing its planned “Spamilton” musical. So if you have season seats for the Gerard Allesandrini parody of “Hamilton,” it was to open in July but will be staged at MVT sometime next year, specific dates to be determined.
You may contact the box office to either receive a refund, or secure tickets to Lisa Matsumoto’s “Once Upon One Time,” the local pidgin musical parodying classic fairy tale figures with island orientation, that is not part of the current season, but a summer add-on attraction at the Kaimuki Performing Arts Center.
MVT secured the rights to the popular off-Broadway musical that wholly targets the “Hamilton” production and its central characters like Alexander Hamilton and King George III. Originally, MVY secured the rights to the show, under an agreement that stipulated that “Spamilton” could not be produced in a city where the original “Hamilton” had not yet been produced. And when the pact was signed, the actual “Hamilton” musical was not yet on the radar for a Honolulu run – in December of this year, at Blaisdell Concert Hall — so the outlook changed.
The New York “Playkill” for “Spamilton.”
“In accordance with the original producer’s agreement, and we believe the MVT audience experience will be greatly enhanced after having the opportunity to attend a live performance of ‘Hamilton,’ we have made the artistic decision to produce the Hawaii premiere of ‘Spamilton; in 2023, following the conclusion of the run,” said Kip Wilborn, MVT executive director, in a statement..
Wise move – I’ve seen ‘Spamilton’ in New York, in its early run off-Broadway, and it’s true that knowing the ins and outs of the hit show will enhance the appreciation of the humor that is Alessandrini’s signature. His satiric take is arrow-sharp, but the laughs and pokes are gentle and tend to mold the experience as an homage to Lin Manuel Miranda as an admired and worshipped Broadway super trouper.
Though many here have watched “Hamilton” that still is streaming on Disney+, experiencing the live original is truly a key to enjoying what’s in store in the parody. …
Twice, as a matter of fact, in two parts and a season apart.
That’s director Jon Chu’s plan to convert the movie version of the Broadway musical, “Wicked” — which still is drawing audiences in New York — into a two-parter.
So the long-anticipated screen rendering, which will star Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, as Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, respectively, will be watched with bated breath. Either the plan will be a thunderous hit or a thudding dud.
Putting it another way: this will be the longest “intermission” for one movie divided into two, an industry first.
Ariana Grande
If nothing else, it’s a worrisome situation, and a trial balloon, particularly since movie musicals lately have become financial failures, despite rave reviews and clearly an indication of a withering audience base, largely because it’s the elderly folks who generally watch musicals but have stopped going to the cinema, partially because of the shutdown of theaters and made going back harder with time.
Cynthia Erivo
Most youths, however, are not musical fanatics, perhaps not since “Rent,” which had the rock beat that spoke to them like no other show.
You can’t fault Grande and Erivo, in this prequel to “The Wizard or Oz” story. The division of one into two doesn’t seem practical. Chu isn’t doing a sequel or a prequel; it’ one story, and he’s altering the dynamics by making it into two. The roles were famously created by Kristin Chenowith and Idina Mendel on the Great White Way,
Chu, in a Twitter post, declared that the pandemic-delayed musical, wlll be a two-parter, the initial part premiering as a Universal Pictures project on Dec. 25, 2024. The second wave will arrive a year later, on Dec. 25, 2025, hopefully without health and world issues intervening.
Split perception: Part 1…
“As we prepared the production over the last year, it became impossible to wrestle the story of ‘Wicked’ into a single film without doing some real damage to it,” Chu wrote in a statement.
…followed by Part 2.
“As we tried to cut songs or trim characters, those decisions began to feel like fatal compromises to the source material that has entertained us all for so many years. We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one ‘Wicked’ movie but two!
“With more space, we can tell the story of ‘Wicked’ as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters.
Chu has not been paying attention to the fate of high-profile, hit musicals of the recent past, that have struggled at the box office despite positive media reviews. Interestingly, the last film Chu directed was Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning inspirational “In the Heights,” which was a grand, dance-fueled homage to the Puerto Rican Washington Heights locale in New York, but the marketing failed the product. It streamed on HBO Max but also played in movie houses to enthusiastic reviews but dreadful attendance, with a meager $44 million gross world-wide.
Then there was director Steven Spielberg’s high-budget interpretation of the music of Leonard Bernstein’s Oscar-winning “West Side Story,” with lyrics, if you recall, by Stephen Sondheim. While Ariana DeBose as the new Anita earned a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, the film was one that couldn’t generate crowds. In simple terms, it was box office bomb: An artistic winner, but a box office loser. The film grossed only $75.9 million globally, when it needed $300 million to break even.
The reflection on why or how both award-winning resources seemed to assert that audiences weren’t keen about movie musicals anymore is debatable. But these song-and-dance fests appeal to the older generation, which rarely support filmed musicals anymore.
The last big Hollywood film musical was the Hugh Jackman-led “Les Miserables,” an undeniable hit as a staged musical, which grossed $441 million world-wide. The title is routinely staged in theaters, occasionally rebooted on Broadway, so it has built-in followers, a plus nowadays for filmed movie musicals.
Clearly, there are varying theories about why musicals don’t attract movie fans. One, it has to be a hot attraction. Remember the movie version of the stage musical, “Hamilton,” was held hostage for more than a year, but was delayed as a theatrical product and released at the height of the pandemic as a streaming title for Disney+, where show creator Miranda has his hands and toes in assorted Disney endeavors. The streaming was a great shot for Disney+, which earned huge numbers of new fans, possibly folks who couldn’t afford to see “Hamilton” on stage because of the unaffordable premium prices that plagued the show for several years.
Initially, 7.8 million watched the “Hamilton” stream, reaching 3.9 million households, upping Disney+ subscribers to 60.5 million. These figures are from secondary sources, since Disney remains mum about its hits or misses. Since a Disney+ membership also included Hulu and ESPN access, the deal was, simply, “affordable.”
Miranda, of course, continues to pump up his creativity at the Mouse House, the most recent being the unexpected streaming hit, “Encanto,” with the unintended runaway hit song,”We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” a title that wasn’t submitted for Oscar contention yet evolved into the first Oscarcast show to feature a full-fledged performance of a non-nominated tune, because, well, it would generate high viewership. (The actual reason: Van Morrison, by choice, declined to perform his nominated song because he was on tour, so there was a time slot for another song, and Disney, which owns ABC, opted to wedge in “Bruno,” and it worked.)
The upcoming “Wicked” is based on the Broadway show, adapted by Winnie Holzman, adapted from Gregory Maguire’s novel, “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.” It runs for 2 hours and 45 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission, so one wonders how many more minutes, or hours, Chun will need to package the drama the tunes into halves. The music and lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz, who will provide the screenplay for the film, and it’s quite possible he could create one or two more tunes, to justify extra running time while yielding a dose of freshness. Producer Marc Platt, who produced the stage show, will also produce the movie and its two halves and might certainly seek a larger budget to justify two parts vs. one.
Traditionally, it’s old hat for for movies to offer sequels, prequels, and more spin-offs than imaginable; think of George Lucas‘ “Star Wars” back-and-forth franchise, along with the blockbuster “Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark” series, the “Superman” remakes and sequels, the “Spiderman” brand with different lead webb-makers and even the “Jurassic Park” dinosaur adventures that still keep roaring along with the unending Marvel superhero adventures that ride the crest periodically. Like the “Batman” bounty, no need to label ’em 1, 2 or 3. Those classic “James Bond” and “Pink Panther” comedies were never sequels, merely different tales built on a centerpiece character popular with movie fans. Ditto, the “Fast and Furious” catalogue. You can scour for more similar films that gave birth to another film or a third.
But this two-part “Wicked” endeavor is a first to split one resource to configure a Part 1 and Part 2. Presumably, the whole will be sliced into two, running times to be determined, but a second installment won’t be a sequel, but will be a conclusion of the storytelling. “The End’ still is two years away. …
It matters not from where you come, but it’s all about what you do with your life. With a will, you can succeed, despite the odds.
So sayeth, in different tones, the two stellar honorees in the Sales and Marketing Executives’ double-barreled celebration last night at the Sheraton Waikiki’s Hawaii Ballroom.
Mufi Hannemann, president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism organization, and Cha Thompson, retired co-founder of Tihati Productions, were saluted side-by-side for their exemplary leadership and service to the hospitality community in Hawaii. In marketing lingo, they are the best sellers, instrumental in servicing the somewhat tentative community of the visitor industry, particularly when the market has been affected by the dark cloud of the pandemic in the past 2 1/2 years.
Mufi Hannemann
Hannemann technically was the 2019 honoree, Thompson the 2021 awardee, but neither could be properly recognized because of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic. So SME doubled up, recognizing both individuals in the group’s first-ever dinner gala (previously recognitions were made over simpler luncheon events).
Coincidentally, both Hannemann and Thompson projected commonality in backgrounds and in service. And they live up to SME’s Hawaiian theme: “E hele me ka pu’olo,” which translates to “leave a place in better condition than when you got there.”
Both grew up in ZIP codes not generally associated with achievement; both are minority leaders of color (Samoan and Hawaiian, and/or a mixture of Polynesian ethnicity) and faced growing-up-time challenges. A stellar athlete in basketball and football, who ached to attend and graduate from an Ivy League college, Hannemann is an Iolani graduate who earned scholarships to attend Harvard, and broke down barriers to become the first-ever Samoan graduate from Harvard. Before taking on the leadership of HLTA, the state’s largest and oldest private sector tourism organization, he was an elected City Council member and a two-term Mayor of Honolulu.
Robert Cazimero sings, Cha Thompson dances.
Thompson, the self-annointed Queen of Kalihi, is proud to be a Farrington High School graduate, where her sweetheart, Jack Thompson, shared a passion for Polynesian entertainment; she, as a hula stylist, he as a Samoan flaming fire-knife dancer, and both co-founded Tihati Productions. In 2019, before the pandemic shut down everything, Tihati marked its 50th anniversary as the state’s and world’s largest producer of Polynesian spectacles with 12 shows on four of the state’s key islands with more than 1,200 employees who uphold the authentic cultural roots of the South Seas islands.
Not surprisingly, both Hannemann and Thompson have corralled White House-related accomplishments; as a beneficiary of the scholarships of the White House Fellowship program, Hannemann has established the Pacific Century Fellows modeled after the D.C. pioneer, and has been appointed to serve five U.S. presidents.
Thompson’s Tihati brand has been recognized by three presidents, and is the only state entertainment entity that has staged a full-on luau show on White House grounds during the Barack Obama presidency, and Tihati has established scholarships to fuel future performers. In a passionate revelation, Thompson said it was not easy being a Hawaiian-Samoan entity in the early days, where her company had to prove it had the smarts to make a living like any other fledgling small business, commonly facing the naysayers in the community.
Karen Keawehawaii
With its depth and breadth of island entertainent, Tihati provided mainstream headliners including Robert Cazimero and Karen Keawehawaii, who performed brief vocals for the dinner crowd; not surprisingly, Cazimero tapped Thompson to provide her trademark hula for his “Hawaiian Lullaby” selection; and nobody says no to Cazimero.
Excerpts from Tihati’s vast library of artristy – hula maidens, dancing to a tune tracking the array of island lei, animated and rigorous male dancers, capturing the syncopation and drum-fueled energy of the pulse of Polynesia – to charm and excite the spectators. It was a slightly scaled down version of Tihati’s 50th anniversary gala in the same showroom.
Tihati dancers, in a hula about different island lei.
With two honorees, it made sense that there were two emcees, the one complementing the other: Billy V. and Augie T. The former is a veteran announcer-emcee, invited by Thompson; the latter is the stand up comedian,, tapped by Hannemann, and like Thompson and Keawehawaii, are former Farringtonians.
At one point, Hannemann made a humble and earnest revelation, that he initially declined the request of SME that he join the list of honorees; he recommended another possible recipient, who also served admirably in visitor hospitality community, but agreed only after a second individual (Thompson) would share the spotlight, admitting she was the perfect match with parallel missions to serve the hospitality community. He was right. …
It’s the “$64,000 Question,” tapping the rhetoric of the 1950s TV game show: Why is CBS stalling and delaying the go-ahead green light for one of its top procedurals, “Magnum P.I.”?
Many other cop and investigative series on the network already have been renewed for a return this fall.
Not so for the “Magnum” camp. Season 4 is pau and in the can. No doubt, the cast is on standby, awaiting the go or no word.
But honestly, Season 5 is undoubtedly somewhere over the rainbow, but still, mum’s the word.
Jay Hernandez
Ratings for its Friday night slot, preceding “Blue Bloods,” has been solid. “BB” is Friday’s hottie and its 13th season is ahead, led by original Magnum star Tom Selleck, now Commissioner Regan.
Jay Hernandez is the current Thomas Magnum, private investigator in paradise; he’s popular and has done no wrong.
The show deserves another season.
Why? Scripts have been pretty solid.
And aside from those somewhat infrequent but humbug road closures for filming — notably the passage way through the tunnels of the Koolaus – they have been rare, so tolerable.
The cast is properly diverse, even if no true isle-reared actor has one of the plum co-starring roles, a fault for mostly all the network shows lensed here. As I’ve preached before, that’s a missed opportunity, and my ongoing mantra.
Waiting for the green light….
So what gives?
Are the showrunners waiting for Selleck, who created the role in the first go-round with Higgins, to agree to a cameo? (Not likely, he’s moved on to “Blue Bloods” and is indifferent to interfere with the spin-off reboot; and after eight years as a P.I., he was tired and wanted to terminate the show).
So what’s bewildering for the overdue invitation for the new Magnum to proceed and start planning a summer start on the new season of episodes, since we’ve heard of no chatter nor disenchantment to move ahead, to film new episodes to launch the fifth season this fall.
CBS kept the reboot of “Hawaii Five-0” alive for more than a decade. Now, that was a skosh overlong, considering Alex O’Loughlin as Steve McGarrett wanted out, perhaps for three seasons before shutdown, and Scott Caan was an unhappy camper from early on. Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park smelled a salary rat, and perhaps a racial bias, so they exited the show midway through the journey, and we all weren’t surprised that there were behind-the-scenes shenanigans with problematic showrunner Peter Lenkov. His firing was not surprising; his conduct was an issue that created unrest among the cast; the network dismissed him.
But “Magnum”— the other Lenkov-launched series here — has had all its ducks in a row, even surviving the gender switch, turning Higgins into Juliet Higgins, enacted by Perdita Weeks. But we all forgave and forgot.
CBS already has green-lit new seasons, albeit with quirky circumstances, for its “NCIS” franchise series.
Mark Harmon
If you’ve noticed, the original NCIS no longer features iconic Mark Harmon, as the incomparable Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Strangely, he’s still in the opening credits, even if his character no longer is part of the active acting team. Similarly, the original crime drama enables Duckie, the medical examiner Dr. Daniel Mallard played by David McCallum, to be counted as a team member even if he’s not on call for every episode.
There’s more strange elements on sister show “NCIS: L.A.,” Linda Hunt, as Henrietta Lange, has been absent from the regular pace of storytelling – Hetty is mentioned but not commonly seen – a peculiarity not fully explained. Hunt is 77 and the NCIS honchos reportedly kept her safe and secure during the height of COVID concerns, and though she was off show for nearly two seasons, she made a brief return on the show’s first episode this season. Her character’s status: she’s secure and invisible in Syria. The tradeoff is the recurring Gerald McRaney, as Adm. Hollace Kilbride, who has inherited her screen time, not a wholly acceptable or logical playout.
Of course, the latest serial, “NCIS: Hawai‘i,” has been tapped for a second season without any asterisked characters – meaning no roles have been tapped for limited programming.
Which bounces back to the basic earlier discussion: Why has the renewal of “Magnum” been delayed? We’re all anticipating No. 5. …
Have you been caught in the spell of “Tokyo Vice,” the enticing and intriguing HBO Max series that explores the dark corridors and Yakuza-clouded world of Japan journalism?
Ansel Elgort, who was Tony in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” stars as a newbie gaijin (foreign) crime reporter named Jake Adelstein, who is trying to earn his stripes in the daunting world of Japan’s gloomy and structural media world, based on Jake Adelstein’s novel about a fish-out-of sea element. While Elgort appears to speak and write fluent Japanese, he cannot appease his bosses because he asks too many questions, doesn’t abide to demeaning orders since he smells opportunity in the shadowy world of Hiroto Katagiri, the veteran police chief played by legendary Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, who has the power and voice to emphatically ban a cub reporter’s story, reasons not needed.
Ansel Elgort
Elgort is one of the executive producers of this hypnotic drama, which explores the underbelly of Tokyo’s 1990s club-and-crime scene, where an apparent murder cannot be reported as such, unless the cops say it is. The reporter is an eager soul with a thirst for that prime story that will put him on the map, but in the three (of eight) episodes I’ve watched, he’s still got a lot of tough challenges to confront. His fashionably long tresses, tall and lanky frame might project a model, but clearly, he’s a loose cannon uncertain what to make of Rinko Kikuchi’s Emi, his contemporary boss who oversees his assignments but always trashes his work. So he’s still working on his fame to turn around his shame.
Ansel Elgort, center, the Japanese-speaking gaijin in “Tokyo Vice.”
Director Michael Mann, who helmed the pilot episode, projects a film noirish universe, with its obvious hooks: crooked Yakuza agents pressuring clients to pay protection fees; hostess bars where Samantha, a transplanted haole played by Rachel Keller, is trying to work out her status since she speaks and adapts to Japanese ways. Samantha and Adelstein become friends as he conducts his own investigations to discover there is a link between the demise of two Japanese nationals whose deaths might be related, even in the manner of death. One, with multiple stabbing wounds; the other, a gasoline-stained guy who lights a match in an spectacle of a fiery finale; different but decidedly with similar hooks.
Action aside, a pleasant surprise was to discover an Island name in the credit rolls – that of Haiku, Maui native Destin Daniel Cretton, who is one of the producers for at least six episodes of “Tokyo Vice.” Suddenly, it became “Tokyo Nice,” with a local spin in the story and action.
Destin Daniel Cretton
Cretten, of course, is known primarily for shaping and directing “Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings,” the mammoth Marvel box office hit, which made Simu Liu a major action film star.
This, along with other yet-to-be-completed projects, including a sequel to “Shang-Chi,” will keep his name on the front burner for the next few years.
All the episodes of “Tokyo Vice” are streaming now and the spoken Japanese is sub-titled for gaijin viewers.
It’s gritty, atmospheric, and preciously dark, and part of the fun is to recognize quick shots of Japan’s bevy of tucked-away sushi bars and ramen shops, amid the crowded streets and alleyways of marketplaces and the network of subway trains.
And oh, about Elgort’s nihongo – no, he’s not fluent in the Japanese lingo but had to memorize lines, but managed to be a convincing conversationalist because of his diction and delivery. Apparently, he became a master of his lines and even could ad-lib, properly, the manner and the message in Japanese. …
