Broadway in Chicago has finalized the lineup for its next subscription season, covering the summer and fall of 2017. New tours of An American in Paris and Les Misérables will join the previously announced touring engagements of The King and I and Something Rotten! and the Broadway-aimed tryout of Escape to Margaritaville on the five-show subscription slate, which goes on sale November 7.
An American in Paris, adapted from the 1951 MGM movie musical, features music by George and Ira Gershwin and won four 2015 Tony Awards, for choreography, lighting design, scenic design and orchestrations. Les Misérables, the ’80s megamusical based on the Victor Hugo novel, returns to the road on the strength of its 2014 Broadway revival. It’s never too far away: The last touring production of Les Mis was seen here in November 2012, and in the interim the show has been staged at both Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace and the Paramount Theatre in Aurora.
The first three entries in the subscription season will comprise a busy summer at the Oriental Theatre. First up is The King and I (June 14–July 9), starring Laura Michelle Kelly and Jose Llana in the tour based on the 2015 Lincoln Center Theater revival. Next is Something Rotten! (July 11–23), the musical spoof about down-and-out Elizabethan playwrights inventing musical theater in the shadow of Shakespeare, followed by An American in Paris (July 25–August 13).
Les Misérables will load in to the Cadillac Palace Theatre October 11–29. Escape to Margaritaville, the Jimmy Buffett jukebox musical announced last week, will play the Oriental starting November 9, 2017.
Several non-subscription shows were also announced this morning, including a Valentine’s Day engagement of the antiromantic Men Are From Mars—Women Are From Venus Live (February 14–March 5 at the Broadway Playhouse), a return of The Illusionists (February 21–26 at the Oriental), the surely classy Naked Magicians (March 14–19 at the Broadway Playhouse), and a new large-scale puppet spectacle called Circus 1903—The Golden Age of Circus (March 21–26 at the Oriental). Also on tap are the undying Beatles tribute show RAIN (March 28–April 2 at the Oriental) and the non-Equity “20th Anniversary” tour of Rent (May 16–21 at the Oriental).
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