TIME AND THE CONWAYS Revival Set for American Airlines Theatre, Fall 2017

[BroadwayConcierge]

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/DOWNTON-ABBEY-Star-Elizabeth-McGovern-Will-Lead-TIME-AND-THE-CONWAYS-on-Broadway-Rebecca-Taichman-Set-to-Direct-20170510

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) just announced the new Broadway production of Time and the Conways by J. B. Priestley, directed by Tony nominee Rebecca Taichman (Indecent), and starring Oscar, Emmy & Golden Globe nominee Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey). Time and the Conways returns to Broadway for the first time since its premiere in 1938.

[neonlightsxo]

I hope the rest of their season is more exciting than this.

[BroadwayConcierge]

neonlightsxo said: "I hope the rest of their season is more exciting than this."

Me too. We didn't get a big, splashy Roundabout musical production this past season like we've gotten so accustomed to in previous years. Hoping they'll make up for it this season!

[AC126748]

It's a solid play, and McGovern is good casting (I saw a production in the West End about 10 years ago). I could see this being like their production of The Winslow Boy a few years ago--coming out of nowhere and being really high quality.

And after Indecent, I'm on board with anything Taichman is directing.

[Kad]

I was actually in a production of this in college! It's an odd, rather obscure little play in America, rooted in Priestley's reaction to a theory of time that postulated that all time happens simultaneously and that the notion that linear time is simply our way of handling it. If nothing else, this gives it a metaphysical dynamic that sets it apart from most other drawing room dramas.

[perfectliar]

BroadwayConcierge said: "Me too. We didn't get a big, splashy Roundabout musical production this past season like we've gotten so accustomed to in previous years. Hoping they'll make up for it this season!"

Holiday Inn doesn't count?

[BroadwayConcierge]

perfectliar said: "Holiday Inn doesn't count?"

That's true (I actually forgot about Holiday Inn), but it didn't generate that much of an excited/animated audience response. I was thinking along the lines of She Loves Me or On the Twentieth Century.

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Please not Imelda Staunton Gypsy...nothing against that production, but I want a show that doesn't get revived every eight years AND isn't already recorded onstage.

[PurpleFanta]

This production starts previews in less than two months, and tickets aren't on sale to the public yet. And they haven't announced the rest of the cast. Is that normal?

[Valentina3]

"Time and the Conways will begin preview performances on September 14, 2017 and opens officially on October 10, 2017. This is a limited engagement through November 26, 2017."

This seems like an awfully short run (total 10.5 weeks) with a disproportionate preview (3.5 weeks) vs actually open (7 weeks). Would that be enough time for even Tony voters to see the show and to try and recoup, or would they take themselves out of consideration? I get that Roundabout is a non-profit with a subscription base - but it just seems odd financially, based on what I know about theater finances in general. It also seems like a really short time for their subscriber base to be able to catch the production.

O well. I'll watch it anyway.

[LarryD2]

I don't have time to do any side-by-side comparisons, but you'll find that the length of the run is in line with most Roundabout productions. Also, as you seem to know, productions from non-for-profit theaters are not under the same pressure to make money/pay back investors as commercial productions.

[little_sally]

What is the deal with the rest of Roundabout's Broadway season? Are they even planning to use Studio 54 this year?

[neonlightsxo]

The last I heard re: Roundabout was that much of what they had planned for 2017/2018 had fallen through and gotten pushed back to the following year. What's been holding them up since then I don't know.

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Even though Marvin's Room is one of the first new productions of the 2017-18 Broadway season, it's actually Roundabout's final Broadway production of their 2016-17 season.

[BroadwayConcierge]

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-TV-Watch-Elizabeth-McGovern-in-New-Trailer-for-TIME-AND-THE-CONWAYS-20170807

[BroadwayConcierge]

Whoa... this is actually an incredible cast. Didn't see this coming!

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/189364/gabriel-ebert-anna-camp-steven-boyer-more-to-join-elizabeth-mcgovern-on-broadway-in-time-and-the-conways/

[disneybroadwayfan22]

So great to see Gabriel Ebert going strong. 

[little_sally]

I wasn't expecting a cast this good. Now I'll have to see it.

[JBroadway]

Great cast! Snagged a HipTix seat a few days ago for September 23rd. Now I'm more excited. To be honest, even though I'm excited for the cast, I'm a little wary. I feel like Roundabout's play revivals have disappointed me time and time again. They always cast great people, but for some reason the productions always fall short for me. Perhaps Roundabout doesn't pick very good directors for each project. We know Taichman is talented, but it remains to be seen whether this is the right show for her. Still, I'll go in with an open mind, and one way or the other I'll get to see this great cast. 

[BakerWilliams]

The problem with Roundabout is that they hire good directors, but for the wrong shows. Simon Godwin can do great things with Shakespeare, but Chekhov? Sam Gold doesn't know how to revive a work when he isn't doing his pseudo-avant-garde b.s. Doug Hughes only knows how to do new work. Scott Hughes himself is a miserable director when he isn't working in musical theatre because he directs everything like it's a musical. 

Basically, they hire directors who know how to produce new things/classical theatre and throw them into modern revivals without an understanding that revivals are a totally different ballgame. And then they don't hire directors who are known and tested directors of revivals who could have turned their shows around. Where is Jenn Thompson? Where is David Cromer?

And then of course they produce plays that are just such limp noodles. A company that produces mostly revivals has hundreds upon hundreds of great works of theatre that they can choose from, and look what they pick! Don't Dress for Dinner? Marvin's Room? You do an Athol Fugard play and you chose The Road to Mecca, his worst play? What about A Lesson from Aloes or Blood Knot or literally anything else? 

Almost all of their exceptional work is at the Laura Pels. Love, Love, Love, The Humans, even their interesting revivals like Milk Train or Indian Ink gets relegated to off-Broadway.

 

Of course, every once in awhile they really hit the brass gong. Noises Off, Machinal, Pygmalion. It's shows like those that keep dragging me back though I am disappointed more often than not.

[Patty3]

Did Acess10 tickets go on sale for this yet? I can't remember if they go on sale during presale or when general public seats go on sale. I usually get an e-mail from Roundabout.

[VintageSnarker]

Going in November. I always love Gabriel Ebert and Boyer was fantastic in Assassins. Fingers crossed this is one of their better revivals but for a Hiptix ticket, it's not much of a loss either way. Curious how the Idina show will sell but I'm not too bothered about the rest of their announced season.

[JBroadway]

Patty3 said: "Did Acess10 tickets go on sale for this yet? I can't remember if they go on sale during presale or when general public seats go on sale. I usually get an e-mail from Roundabout."

 

Are they still doing access10?

 

[PurpleFanta]

Yes, they are still doing access10. I got the final seat to the first preview yesterday, and that was the only seat available for the applicable dates when I looked.

[JBroadway]

VintageSnarker said: "Curious how the Idina show will sell"

I can assume that it will be a really tough ticket to get. It's Idina in an Off-Broadway house.