‘Evan Hansen,’ ‘Hello, Dolly!’ lead Smith Center’s Broadway season
Something old. Something new.
And that’s just counting the reigning Tony winners for best musical — the hot Broadway ticket “Dear Evan Hansen” — and best musical revival, “Hello, Dolly!”
Both are among the 10 touring productions on The Smith Center’s 2018-19 Broadway Las Vegas season schedule. Center officials unveiled the lineup Monday evening at Reynolds Hall before an audience of invited subscribers.
Performances from two other upcoming musicals — “The Lion King” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” — were scheduled during Monday’s announcement, along with an appearance by Bernie Yuman, the longtime Siegfried & Roy manager who’s among the producers of the Gloria and Emilio Estefan musical “On Your Feet.”
This season, The Smith Center has more than 12,000 Broadway Las Vegas subscribers — about 2,000 more than in previous years, thanks to the drawing power of the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Hamilton,” which opens a monthlong run May 29.
“If I’m being completely honest, we saw the ‘Hamilton’ year as a little bit of a bubble,” Smith Center president Myron Martin acknowledges. “Did I think we could come up with a Broadway season that could rival the year of ‘Hamilton’? The reality is that we did.”
Of next season’s shows, eight are still running on Broadway, with Tony winner “Dear Evan Hansen” ranking with “Hamilton” as “another Broadway phenomenon that people have been going crazy to find tickets for,” Martin says. “And we have it.”
As for the “Hello, Dolly!” tour, star Betty Buckley — a Tony winner for “Cats” and a previous attraction at The Smith Center’s intimate Cabaret Jazz club — is “among that very small group of women who can pull this off,” he says.
A second legendary Golden Age musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” joins composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “School of Rock” on the 2018-19 schedule, along with another screen-to-stage transfer, “Waitress,” which Martin describes as “a show that people fall in love with.”
But Martin cites “Come From Away” — about a small Canadian town that welcomes 7,000 stranded airline passengers following the Sept. 11 attacks — as a lesser-known musical that emerges as “one of those shows that just grabs you.”
Rounding out the season: the 1920s murder mystery comedy “The Play That Goes Wrong,” which Martin praised for “the brilliance of the writing and the acting.”
As for “Lion King,” the Disney favorite has been touring for years (it won six Tonys, including best musical, two decades ago, but a long-running Strip production at Mandalay Bay meant The Smith Center “needed a little time” before bringing it back to Las Vegas, Martin notes. “Our time and Disney’s touring schedule had to line up.”
Most of next season’s shows will play The Smith Center for a week; “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is scheduled for two and “Lion King” has an 18-day November stay, concluding over the long Thanksgiving weekend.
“We always try to keep an eye open for family-friendly shows,” Martin explains, citing the presence of “School of Rock,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Lion King” on the schedule.
As for “Dolly!” and “Fiddler,” they may be Broadway classics, he says, “but they’re fresh titles to The Smith Center.”
Contact Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.
The Smith Center’s 2018-19 Broadway Las Vegas season
A guide to The Smith Center’s complete 2018-19 Broadway Las Vegas lineup:
“School of Rock” — Andrew Lloyd Webber delivers 14 new songs to augment the tunes featured in the 2003 movie hit about how a wannabe rocker turned substitute teacher transforms his class into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping band. (Aug. 7-12)
“On Your Feet” — Get ready to conga with this jukebox musical, which follows Emilio and Gloria Estefan from Cuba to the U.S., tracing their quest for success on the pop charts — and their determination to return there after an auto accident almost wrecks their future. (Sept. 4-9)
“Waitress” — Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 indie hit inspires this musical adaptation, featuring a score by singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, about a plucky small-town waitress (and expert pie maker) who dreams her way out of a loveless marriage. (Oct. 9-14)
“The Lion King” — Disney’s six-time Tony winner, powered by an Elton John score and director Julie Taymor’s imaginative staging, returns with its tale of lion prince Simba discovering his true identity — and power. (Nov. 7-25)
“Dear Evan Hansen” — A lonely, depressed high-school student inadvertently becomes a social media sensation in this six-time Tony winner featuring a score from “La La Land” Oscar winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. (Jan. 15-20, 2019)
“Come From Away” — Set during the week following the Sept. 11 attacks, this fact-based musical portrays the efforts of the residents of Gander, Newfoundland, to welcome, house and feed almost 7,000 stranded passengers whose planes were diverted there following the Sept. 11 attacks. (Feb. 19-24, 2019)
“Hello, Dolly!” — Betty Buckley (a Tony winner for “Cats”) takes over the starring role of sassy matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi, belting such classic Jerry Herman tunes as “Before the Parade Passes By,” in the national tour of the Tony-winning Broadway revival. (March 19-24, 2019)
“The Play That Goes Wrong” — Described as the illegitimate Broadway baby of Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python, this madcap murder mystery recounts the disastrous production of a 1920s stage thriller, missed cues, forgotten lines, collapsing sets and all. (April 18-24, 2019)
“Fiddler on the Roof” — Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher and team (“The King and I”) work their magic on Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s Broadway classic about the travails of Jewish milkman Tevye, his family and his neighbors in an early 20th-century Russian shtetl named Anatevka. (June 4-9, 2019)
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” — Roald Dahl’s beloved tale inspires a stage adaptation of the beloved 1971 movie “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” with a new score augmenting such favorites as “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man.” (June 18-30, 2019)
Current Broadway Las Vegas season subscribers may renew for the 2018-19 season now at thesmithcenter.com/broadway, by telephone (702-749-2847) or at the box office at 361 Symphony Park Ave. Those interested in season subscriptions may register their interest at thesmithcenter.com/broadway; sales for new subscriptions will be announced this spring.
Single ‘Hamilton’ tickets go on sale in late April
Single ticket sales for “Hamilton” are coming in late April. But Smith Center officials can’t say exactly when — yet.
The national tour of the Tony-winning Broadway phenomenon about Alexander Hamilton (and fellow founding fathers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and rival Aaron Burr) opens a monthlong Las Vegas run in late May.
But “we can’t announce an on-sale date” now, because the show’s producers and Smith Center officials “are trying so hard to put tickets in the hands of fans,” according to Smith Center president Myron Martin, “and out of the hands of ticket scalpers.”
Ticket sale details will be announced at a later date — including a lottery where lucky winners will be able to buy tickets for the price of a “Hamilton” — a $10 bill. Smith Center ticket information is available at thesmithcenter.com.
