Every season the Shubert has at least one amazing booking that demonstrates how hard the place works to maintain its unique reputation in American theater history.
In recent years, the Shubert has hosted the construction and rehearsal of the national tours of Jersey Boys and Hair.
This year the Shubert nabbed Fela!, the cutting edge musical about the revered Afrobeat provocateur Fela Kuti, who died in 1997. Fela! is only having a limited tour, hitting less than a dozen cities. The cast members hail from both the New York and London productions of the show.
Fela! ran for over a year on Broadway and won four of the 11 Tony awards for which it was nominated. A simulcast of the London production was screened in cinemas internationally in January. The show played in Fela’s native Nigeria last year.
It’s extremely rare that a national tour of a Broadway show will not make its Connecticut debut at the Bushnell in Hartford. The Bushnell has 2800 seats and was extensively renovated decades ago so it could accommodate the largest Broadway tours. The Shubert, whose concise original design has thwarted attempts to expand its stage or auditorium, has less than half the seats of the Bushnell. Shows such as Mamma Mia or Beauty and the Beast have played the Bushnell several times before.
New Haven’s the right city for Fela!
The first major biography of Fela was published in 2000 by Michael Veal, who teaches ethnomusicology at Yale and was a guest saxophonist with Fela’s band Egypt 80. Fela—The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon is an extraordinary resource, translating and explicating Fela’s lyrics and using firsthand reporting and interviews with Fela and his associates to tell a complicated story of a modern musical rebel.
Stephen Hendel, the producer who had the original idea to create a musical about Fela, went to Yale. (See Frank Rizzo’s interview with Hendel in the Hartford Courant here.)
Fela’s son Femi Kuti played New Haven Green a decade ago and opened for Dave Matthews Band in Hartford in 2009. When Antibalas—a band deeply inspired by Fela—came to Toad’s Place in New Haven in 2007, they were already deeply involved in the development of a musical based on Fela’s life and work. The main creative force behind Fela!—A New Musical was Bill T. Jones, who’s appeared on several occasions at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas (including a poetry discussion in 2010 and a two-part dance concert this past summer). Jones conceived the show, directed and choreographed it, and co-wrote its book with Jim Lewis.
Fela! had its first Shubert performance tonight—Thursday, Oct. 20—and continues at the theater through a Sunday matinee Oct. 23. Bill T. Jones will be present for a pre-show Q&A at 1 p.m. before that final Sunday performance.
To borrow the title of one of the dynamic Afrobeat pioneer’s first singles… “Fela’s Special.” Tickets and details here.