The Nutty Professor musical plays its last performance in Nashville this weekend. Judging by this interview with the producers, they don't seem to know what happens to it next…which means that everything shuts down. The show closes, the sets and costumes go in storage somewhere and the cast members return to their normal lives while the producers seek a new place to play the show and the deal to get it there.
A friend of mine who attended a performance sent the following with the wish that I withhold his name…
The show I saw was good not great. I can certainly imagine it with more work being shaped into a Broadway-worthy production but they're not there yet. I suppose it got more difficult to get to that point when Marvin Hamlisch died but if I were the producer, I sure wouldn't give up on this show. Michael Andrew is very good in the lead role but he is basically doing a Jerry Lewis impression for the entire show. In all the press, Jerry wrote about encouraging Andrew to find his own characterization and to not just do an imitation and what he does is an imitation.
That's not necessarily wrong. It may be very right. The audience isn't there to see Michael Andrew. They're there to see Jerry. There seemed to be a lot of disappointment at the performance I attended because Jerry was nowhere to be seen. Before the show, that's what people were talking about. Will Jerry appear on stage at the end? Is he in the house? I gather he sometimes comes out for the final bows and makes a little speech and sometimes he doesn't. Sitting behind me were people who'd brought things for him to autograph if they got the chance. As we left, I heard one of them say "Maybe he'll be out in the lobby" but of course he wasn't. The theater was not full, by the way. We paid full price for our tickets because we were driving there from out of town and wanted to make sure we had seats but then as the date and we got closer to Nashville, I saw lots of places I could have gotten tickets for half-price.
The cast is very energetic and the dancing is very good. I'm rooting for this show to succeed but it's not ready for New York now. I hope wherever they go, they either keep Jerry off the stage completely or have him appear every night. The evening ended on a bit of a downer for some people because they had seen all these press photos of him on stage and thought they were going to get to see Jerry Lewis in person and then they didn't.
I can see that being a problem…but also maybe a secret weapon in a way. Anyway, I hope it goes on and I have a feeling it will. As a producer once told me about a project I was involved in, "It's all in the hands of the guys who control the pursestrings now." That one didn't go forward…but that one didn't have Jerry Lewis attached.