Don’t mind us as we start googling flights to New York. The Boss is set to grace Broadway by starting a residency for two months.
Bruce Springsteen will make his Broadway debut at the Walter Kerr Theatre for an eight-week run in the fall, as first reported in the New York Post. He is set to play five shows a week.
“He wants to play a smaller house,” a theater source says. “He wants to try something more intimate, and he likes the idea of being on Broadway.”
Seemingly Springsteen is keen to do a pared-down and more low key version of the set he usually performs in huge arenas and stadiums all over the world.
It is also understood that Springsteen is being ever the clever businessman for this residency and is managing to keep his costs down for the show. Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns the Kerr, is giving him the venue rent free.
The 975-seat Kerr has been empty since the musical “Amélie” closed in May.
“He’ll keep the lights on in the building, and they’ll sell gazillions of dollars worth of booze,” a source says.
The compact setting will house the smallest nightly crowds Springsteen has consistently played since he was starting out as a young boy in Jersey Shore nearly five decades ago. By comparison, according to Forbes, his The River Tour 2016 averaged 17,500 fans a night in North America and 65,500 in Europe, while going on to amass $268.3 million in ticket sales and finishing as the highest-grossing tour of 2016.
It is unknown when the show is going to be put on exactly, but its believed that it will be happening sometime around Novemeber.
Some insiders believe Springsteen’s Broadway gig may be a curtain raiser to another project — turning his best-selling memoir, “Born To Run,” into a musical. There have been many rumours about a Springsteen themed Broadway play for a while now, and these shows seem to suggest that the play could be a bit more than rumours.
There has been a big increase in recent times of big time musicians trying their hands out on Broadway. Making it seem like it could be the start of a major shift on Broadway. As the current slate shows, musicians can be a better financial bet than movie stars. They tend to have a bigger global reach, with a product that more easily crosses language barriers – with a proportionately larger fan base.
However, lets not busy ourselves with worries about our second trip to see the play, we’re just focusing on the confirmed shows. *goes back to googling flights*
Photo Cred: Whittlz
