Good-bye Grinch? Broadway Dreaming Of A "White Christmas"

News today that a producer of RENT, "Avenue Q," and this year's Tony Award Winner for Best Musical "In The Heights," is looking to bring in his touring production of the Irving Berlin holiday musical "White Christmas" to Broadway this season. Reports state that Kevin McCollum is interested in producing the show, which is an adaptation of the famous movie musical that combines the Broadway talents of writer David Ives, director Walter Bobbie, and choreographer Randy Skinner.

The production has been touring the country, with performances in LA, Boston, Toronto, St. Paul, Detroit, and San Francisco. In St. Paul, Pioneer Press critic Dominic Papatola began his review cleverly capturing the size of the show. Papatola writes: "I'm searching for the correct modifiers to describe "Irving Berlin's White Christmas," the humongously biggified, gigantudious immensosaurus currently occupying every last square centimeter of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Well, it's big, for starters.” That production was a hit, and is currently slated to return to the Ordway.

Big fits Broadway. McCollum is eying the immense Marriott Marquis Theatre, recently vacant with the departure of "Cry-Baby," and according to Bloomberg the Actors’ Equity Association has already granted concessions for a limited run production of the show. McCollum says he’ll need concessions to make the run possible and allow it the opportunity to make back its investment in a short period of time.

Left out in the cold at the moment is the immensely popular 80-minute holiday production of "Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas," which has a fate to be decided. Sources involved in the production indicated that the show would not be on Broadway this season, but its producer said the show could return to Broadway if the right opportunity exists. Though the show lost money due to the strike last year, it is always a popular ticket with a family-friendly running time and holiday theme, like the Christmas Show at Radio City, "Grinch" has quickly become a Broadway holiday tradition. The fate of all will likely be decided in the very near future.

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