ONSTAGE
"Holler If Ya Hear Me" runs through Sunday. Retail price: $59-$139. Palace Theatre, 1564 Broadway, New York. 1-800-745-3000, www.hollerifyahearme.com, www.ticketmaster.com.
"Same Time Next Year" runs through Aug. 3. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays (also at 11 a.m. July 23 and 7 p.m. July 27). $15-$60. The True Colors Theatre Company production is at Southwest Arts Center, 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta. 1-877-725-8849, www.ticketalternative.com, www.truecolorstheatre.org.
At MyAJC.com/living, you'll find our behind-the-scenes look at "Holler If Ya Hear Me," including video interviews with Kenny Leon and the cast.
Atlanta director Kenny Leon's hip-hop musical "Holler If Ya Hear Me" struggled to find a sufficient audience on Broadway, and producers had been trying to raise $5 million to keep the show open. But producers announced late Monday the show's run will end on Sunday.
Hollywood veteran Eric L. Gold, lead producer of the musical built around a score by the late Atlantan Tupac Shakur, earlier had told Variety, "It's week to week right now. … It's an expensive game. … I made a rookie mistake by underestimating how much capital was necessary, but I'm tenacious."
Initially capitalized at $8 million, the musical debuted June 19 to reviews that varied from tepid to cautiously positive.
“I have never been more proud of a project or group of artists, nor the audiences that found their way to the Palace Theatre to see this groundbreaking musical theater piece,” Leon said in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Monday night.
Appearing on Tom Joyner’s syndicated radio show on Monday morning, Leon was pitching the show with fervor.
“It sounds like I’m begging, but I am,” he said. “I want folks to run and see it because if they do, I think they’ll be rewarded with something that’s very meaningful and impactful to their lives.”
He called Shakur “an American voice that we hardly hear. I’ve done, what, almost 10 Broadway shows now and I just want to diversify Broadway because that’s our largest stage in the country and everybody’s voice should be on that stage.”
For the week ending July 13, “Holler” took in only $154,948 at the box office and played to a 45.4-percent full audience with an average ticket price of $38.44, according to Playbill.
On Broadway, that’s a bargain. Tickets for other recently opened musicals go for roughly double that of “Holler,” starring Saul Williams and former Atlantan Saycon Sengbloh.
“We continue to push for diversity on the American stage in every conceivable way…” Leon said in the Monday night email. “’Holler If Ya Hear Me’ reminds us that some of our young Americans just want to be heard, and if we listen closely enough we may hear something that impacts all of our lives. I am pretty positive that this musical will find its way around the world. It’s been a joy to be just a small part of its creation.”
Shakur’s songs and poetry — alternately astringent and delicate — are the core of a production, with a book by longtime Leon colleague Todd Kreidler, that is set in a purposely unidentified Midwestern city in the present day. Gun violence is prevalent, and a recently released inmate (Williams) tries to repair fractured friendships, navigate a love triangle and adapt to life as a free man.
“If we don’t succeed, it’s going to be difficult to do another rap or hip-hop show on Broadway,” Gold told Variety.
Leon currently is in Atlanta, where he opened opposite Phylicia Rashad last week in a revival of "Same Time Next Year" for his True Colors Theatre Company.
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