I kinda feel guilty covering this. Earlier this year, my friends Paul Dini, Misty Lee and I attended a live production of A Christmas Carol at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. For those who enjoy theatrical disasters — and I don't — it was the Super Bowl times ten. Advertised stars did not appear and the ones who did didn't know their lines. The stage crew didn't know which order to bring the sets in. There was much laughter where there should not have been laughter. We ended up cheering the performers at the end of it for just getting to the end of it. Later, there were reports that the endeavor had lost tons of money and that folks who worked on it had yet to receive pay.
The same producer-director is now attempting to mount a new tour of the Dickens classic with a different set of stars, some of whom have already disappeared from the advertising. The show was to have opened in Philadelphia, then moved to Boston, Baltimore, Minneapolis and Chicago but it's being reported that no theater has yet been booked for the first two cities…and Minneapolis has now been cancelled. These are not good signs.
And another not-good sign: Reporters around the country are writing about the problems and digging up ominous things about the producer's past…including the fact that he apparently wrote the script for this version while serving time in prison. Here's a report in the Chicago Reader that even quotes this blog. Like I said, I feel a bit guilty to be following this. It's like watching a train wreck from afar…painful to experience but difficult to ignore.