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| Profile |
Bon Voyage
Matt Purdue
05/01/2007
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Conventional wisdom holds that
nine of 10 Broadway shows fail to make money. For producers and investors,
extreme risk is an understatement. One of Broadway’s newest production teams,
married partners Moya Doherty and John McColgan, find themselves walking this
tightrope. They have commissioned and launched The Pirate Queen, by all accounts an ambitious, expensive, epic of a musical, on New York’s
42nd Street. The show is based on the true story of a 16th-century seafaring
Irish chieftan, Grace O’Malley, and her struggles to unite her country’s clans
to oppose the English, led by another matriarch, Queen Elizabeth I.
 | HADLEY FRASER and Stephanie J. Block perform in The Pirate Queen, produced by Moya Doherty and John McColgan.(Photograph by Joan Marcus.) |
Last fall, The
Pirate Queen previewed to mixed reviews in
Chicago and, as this story went to press in March, Doherty, McColgan, cast and
crew were tweaking the show for its Broadway bow in early April. During its
preliminary run, Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune called it an "earnest
and epic but ill-ruddered and oft-cartoonish voyage," while Steve Oxman wrote in
Variety that "despite great singing, it fails fundamentally to create characters
deep enough to engage an audience."
After spending just over $10 million of their—and their
investors’—money to bring the show to the stage, Doherty and McColgan, the first
Irish producers to launch a musical on Broadway, admitted in London’s
Daily Mail that the combination of their roots and the output of two
French writers, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, may have lent the
show a European sensibility lost on North American theatergoers. "We obviously
have some hurdles to meet the expectations of our audience," Doherty told
Worth. "That is the most important—beyond reviews and beyond
awards. History has shown that there are shows that do not receive the awards
and do not receive the critical acclaim, but do receive the
audience."
Beauty and the Beast, for
example, won just one Tony (for costume design), but has played more than 5,200
times on Broadway. Mama
Mia!, a show based on the music of ABBA,
never won a Tony, but has staged more than 2,000 Broadway performances, grossed
$1.6 billion around the world, and will reportedly be adapted into a feature
film produced by Tom Hanks.
"We are interested in doing something that reveals something about ourselves and our
culture, as well as producing entertainment." |
In 1994, Doherty created Riverdance, growing the Irish
step-dancing performance from a seven-minute intermission piece on a European
television special to, one year later, a full stage production that opened in
Dublin. McColgan directed that show. Today, Riverdance continues to make money
around the world, with two companies touring throughout Europe and North
America. Their theatrical triumph (published reports peg their Riverdance
earnings at more than $90 million) helped Doherty and McColgan attract investors
for The Pirate Queen—and the right kind of investors. Many of their current
backers also invested in Riverdance, including U2 manager Paul
McGuinness. "We made five phone calls and got five yeses straightaway," Doherty
recalls. "Then we got one phone call from a man who said, ‘I want to invest in
[The Pirate Queen.] I want to invest my life savings.’ I said to John, ‘Have
him bet on a horse.’"
Their Riverdance achievement also afforded
them the capital to hire the best in the business to create their new show.
They’ve spared no expense, beginning with the writers. Even jaded theatergoers
gasp at the names Boublil and Schonberg. The pair penned the most- performed
musical in the world, eight-time Tony winner Les Miserables, which has grossed more
than $1.8 billion and been viewed by more than 50 million people. They also
collaborated on Miss
Saigon, which set a Broadway record for
advance-ticket sales ($24 million) and reportedly repaid investors in less than
10 months. Two-time Tony Award winner Frank Gelati directs The Pirate Queen.
Scenic designer Eugene Lee has won three Tony awards and costume designer Martin
Pakledinaz has won two.
Since The Pirate
Queen’s Chicago preview, the producers have
invested more dollars into the creative team, luring two well-known artists to
rework it for Broadway: Tony Award winner Richard Maltby Jr., who cowrote the
lyrics for Miss
Saigon, and Graciela Daniele, who has worked
on such hits as Ragtime, to oversee musical staging.
"We decided to cast it in North America with some Irish dancers, singers and
musicians," Doherty says. "The risk is high, but the reward is also high. North
America has some of the most talented wonderfully experienced people in
the world of musical theater."
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