The Denver Center for the Performing Arts will be bringing the pop — and two drastically different historical musicals — to Denver as part of a 2023-24 Broadway touring season that will radically redefine gender, it was announced Monday.
The season includes musicals inspired by pop stars Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Sting and Alanis Morissette. “Six,” a pop musical based on the Henry VIII’s six wives, is coming, alongside the warhorse independence musical “1776” — only this time performed by a cast fully comprised of performers who identify as female, non-binary and trans. The new revival doesn’t even open on Broadway until October, but the plan is for it to tour the country next year with its multiracial cast intact. And that would include Regis Jesuit High School graduate Mehry Eslaminia as the roll-call secretary, Charles Thomson.
Also coming: Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” with bachelor Bobby now an unmarried female named Bobbie. Both gender-flipping stories will allow audiences to re-examine America (and how we make theater) in new ways and at two very different times in history.
And then there’s “Beetlejuice” for Tim Burton movie buffs.
Returning favorites will include “The Book of Mormon,” Disney’s “Aladdin,” “Les Misérables” and “Wicked.” But for now, only full subscription packages are available for purchase, starting at $553 (payment plans available), at denvercenter.org/broadway. The package includes the following shows, all at the Buell Theatre:
• March 21-April 2, 2023: “1776”
• Aug. 16-27, 2023: “Jagged Little Pill”
• Sept. 5-17, 2023: “Beetlejuice”
• Oct. 18-29, 2023: “TINA – The Tina Turner Musical”
• Dec. 5-24, 2023: “SIX”
• Feb. 13-25, 2024: “Message in a Bottle”
• April 10-28, 2024: “MJ”
• May/June 2024: “Company”
• One additional cabaret show at the Garner Galleria Theatre to be announced
A date for single-ticket sales is yet to be announced. That’s when the following shows will also become available for purchase:
• April 14-16, 2023: “Anastasia”
• May 10-21, 2023: “Les Misérables”
• June 13-18, 2023: Disney’s “Aladdin”
• June 21-July 2, 2023: “The Book of Mormon”
• November 21-26, 2023: “Annie”
• July 24-Aug. 25, 2024: “Wicked”
Additional non-subscription titles will be added throughout the year.
The highest-profile musical of the season was “A Strange Loop,” which won the Tony Award for best musical, but it is not yet being sent out on the road for touring. “SIX,” the show many considered more likely to win the Tony Award simply because it is far more commercially viable for touring, turns the fated queens into loosely identifiable pop icons (they don’t say it, but think Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Adele, Pink…) in what is advertised as a 21st-century celebration of 16th-century girl power. The cast and band are all-female.
Both “1776” and “Jagged Little Pill,” based on Alanis Morissette’s seminal 1995 album, are directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus, who came to Denver in 2014 for the pre-Broadway run of her revival of “Pippin.” (Her re-imagined 2009 version of “Hair,” by the way, is presently being staged at the Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden).
About the only title most theater fans might not instantly recognize is “Message in a Bottle,” a dance-theater piece based on the hits of Sting. The story is set in a peaceful village that comes under attack. “Jagged Little Pill” is not a bio-musical, either. It has a book by Diablo Cody (“Juno”) and tells the story of an imperfect American family.
To read more about each title, go to denvercenter.org.
Alex Brightman and the Broadway company of 'Beetlejuice.'