Saw SHREK yesterday afternoon and NINE TO FIVE last night. Both great.

SHREK is very creative, charming and entertaining … some really fabulous songs in there – not what you would expect. Brian D’Arcy James and Sutton Foster are both utterly wonderful and charming. The costumes and sets are incredible making us wonder how it will tour. Hopefully it won’t be scaled back too much! Tina is very positive about getting the show for Dayton in the next few years.

NINE TO FIVE, on which we are a producer as part of the Independent Presenters Network, was great. I was really impressed with the trio of actresses in the leads – Allison Janney doesn’t have the strongest voice, but she has a fabulous number in the second act that was written just for her! Of course her acting is superb. The staging and choreography are the next stand out to me. Very inventive choreography, very contemporary really – the whole thing is set in the late 70s/early 80s, same time as the movie was. Mark Kudisch plays Hart and he is a good foil for the ladies, as he told us was his role in the Creative Connection panel they did for us. He spends most of the show in a Foy fly harness which he says is suprisingly comfortable. Ha! Again, Tina is eager to get this show for Dayton as soon as possible and since we are part of the investment team via IPN, that will help our ability to get it on our season sooner rather than later.

Today is all conference sessions and one more show tonight – WEST SIDE STORY. WSS is one of the titles I grew up with – listened to the movie sound track and still know all the words. Can’t wait.

- Sue Stevens

First day of the Broadway League Annual Road Conference in New York City was a busy one. Great panels and speakers on topics such as the synergy between education and marketing; current social media trends and how to apply them; diversity in the workplace; top concerns of touring Broadway presenters today; etc. Tuesday evening, Michael Roediger and I saw the Broadway revival of HAIR at the Martin Beck Theatre (now the Hirschfeld Theatre). Incredible performances and all the in-your-face rebellion and passion of the 60s of the original and then some – or so my older colleagues in the League were saying at intermission. One gentleman recalled the original production and said this one was like a really great flashback. Not for the faint of heart with lots of simulated sex and drug use (of course), profanity, and even full front nudity, HAIR is packed with infectious enthusiasm. More later on what the rest of our party saw last night.

Tomorrow I’ve been asked to chime in on the subject of customer service, how you track it, how you focus on it, how you reward staff who “get it.” A subject that Victoria Theatre Association is pretty well versed in. I’ll be talking about our customer service survey on our website – check it out at the survey link in the upper right corner of the home page. I’ll also be talking about our Spotlight Awards and how we encourage and reward our staff to take the utmost care of our patrons.

Dayton native and Tony-nominated Allison Janney was one of a panel of speakers from NINE TO FIVE at a conference session Tuesday. She and her fellow cast members were joined by Dolly Parton to be interviewed with wit and style by the inimitable Liz Smith. A real treat!

- Sue Stevens

This week is the annual Broadway League conference in New York City – THE big industry trade show and conference for the Broadway and touring Broadway industries. Victoria Theatre Association’s Tina McPhearson and Sue Stevens are in New York (lucky them!), and they’ll be sending back reports from the conference throughout the week. And here is Sue’s first installment:

In just a few minutes, the Tony Award nominees will be announced [see the entry below for details] … I should be on Times Square to hear them live, but I got in a tad late last night.

Tina, Michael and I were at ROCK OF AGES at the Brooks Atkinson last night (which was great ’80s hair band rock fun – a bit raunchy but then so were the ’80s). The audience sure rocked out – the mainfloor was packed with Broadway League members starting off right the Annual League Road Conference. The balcony was packed with screaming Constantine Maroulis fans. He was truly great – very charming, in great voice, respectable moves.

The story centers on his character a wannabe rocker working a famous bar on the Sunset Strip in LA when German developers propose to the mayor that they tear out all the bars and strip joints to create a wholesome strip mall environment. Naturally rebellion begins … check out the website at www.rockofagesmusical.com for more.

This year’s Tony Award nominations were announced this morning. Billy Elliot, The Musical earned 15 nominations, the most of any show of the season. Billy Elliot and Mel Brooks’ The Producers are now tied for the most Tony nominations ever received by one show. Other shows that fared well include Next to Normal (11), Hair (8), Shrek the Musical (8), Mary Stuart (7), The Norman Conquests (7), God of Carnage (6) and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (6).

Read all the details at Playbill.com

The New York Times features an article today about how the banking and credit crisis is hitting Broadway, in terms of its ability to secure financing for new projects:

Tragedy Tomorrow, Economic Woes Tonight
By Patricia Cohen
Like most longtime Broadway producers, James Freydberg is used to getting loans. But recently he found that despite what he said was his perfect credit rating, his bank was not so accommodating. “Banks are unwilling or unable to loan money,” he said.
[ Read the full article ]