You might say that for Ken Gentry, Civil War — the play — was more about losing the battle and, he hopes, winning the war. Unlike so many road shows, this is not the story of a successful Broadway production, picked up by an eager touring company hoping to capitalize on Broadway’s success with strong box offices from Charlotte to San Francisco.
Instead, this is the story of a production that closed in less than two months of its opening on Broadway (April 22, 1999 to June 13, 1999); was nominated for seven Tony Awards, but won none; that “got critically slammed,” Gentry said, and that has had a rebuilding – and a rebirth on the road.
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The show, Civil War, opens at the Providence Performing Arts Center tomorrow night (Feb. 29).
It has, Gentry said, picked itself up from the ashes of Broadway’s St. James Theater to find appreciative audiences on the road, along with friendlier critics, reacting to a production that has been re-ordered and re-tooled.
”I thought it was a sad thing that it died because of the critics,” said Gentry, who is executive producer of Gentry Associates, a company that operates Networks, the producers of the road show Civil War. “I felt the show just needed retooling.
”If we retool this and repackage it, and it delivers the results of just wonderful acknowledgement and enjoyment from the audience, then it would seem to me that by repackaging and reworking some of it, it would still be a great idea.”
And so with that in mind, Gentry and company went about remaking the Civil War. They took what Gentry said was a show that was rich in material, “had great appeal,” but just needed some reworking, and re-ordering of some of the scenes.
He said his company fired the entire creative team – with the exception of the authors, Frank Wildhorn, Jack Murphy and Gregory Boyd – hired “an entirely new creative team and reconceived the show, using the same music. We looked at it in a slightly different way, then put two stars in the show (country singer Larry Gatlin stars in Providence), which sort of gave it a second level of perceived value, and put it back out.”
It previewed in Charlotte, North Carolina, and opened on January 18.
“The response has been excellent, outstanding,” Gentry said. “It has done well on the road. Word of mouth is driving ticket sales up. Reviews are greatly improved – a rave review in Variety. It’s done well,” and the bottom line, “everybody’s making money.”
What patrons will see is a depiction of the Civil War set to a soft rock score, with some country and gospel touches.
“Our project was to take the Civil War as a piece – because all of us in this country, some begrudgingly, have to study this in school,” Gentry said. “The story is told through snapshots of what was going on with different people in the war, from Lincoln to a soldier dying all from letters or pieces from the period” — a show, Gentry said that both entertains and educates, that presents the Civil War with a “real contemporary feel.”
While that formula may not have worked well on Broadway, with a little effort it appears to be working on the road, “doing very well” in fact, said Gentry. “The show is making money, right on projections next fall is being booked as we speak.”
