You would think it was a contradiction when producer Richard Martini says there are simply too many revivals in the theater, and a real need for “new product.”
You would think it a contradiction because among the shows Martini is producing is a nationwide tour of “Fame,” a movie and television hit. But “Fame, The Musical” only opened its first North American tour last fall. It appears at the Providence Performing Arts Center this week, Tuesday through Sunday.
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For Martini, Fame is “something new, not a revival,” with its focus on a group of students at a New York performing arts high school, who share their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
For Rhode Island, besides its theatrical contribution, Fame will bring with it a touring company of 55, including a cast of 30 and nine touring musicians, and the kind of spending that means hundreds of thousands of dollars infused into the local economy over a six-day period.
And for Martini, it means success well beyond what he expected.
“We had a tough time selling it originally,” New Jersey native Martini said. “I thought we would do okay, but now it’s been phenomenal.”
Phenomenal means expectations of playing in 65 to 70 of the top 100 markets in the North America. Bookings, he said, are already out to the end of 2000.
It’s the bookings and a show’s potential for profitability, that have driven the theater to become “more corporate” and “very star driven,” Martini said. “It’s getting more difficult to do new product,” something, he says, he wishes “we could do.”
And he would like to see more plays as well: “Life shouldn’t be just musicals,” said Martini, who also produces the play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” which he presented last year at the Providence Performing Arts Center.
