Last week, a major investor pulled of out the venture, taking an unspecified chunk of the $2 million capitalization with them, according to a New York Times report. The unexpected cash shortfall has sent lead producer Benjamin Mordecai in search of new investors. Meanwhile, the load-in of the production's set into Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre has been delayed, and a new marquee remains unhung.

According to a show spokesman, Gem's first preview of Nov. 4 and opening date of Nov. 11 remain firm. The drama began a pre-Broadway run at Boston's Huntington Theater Company on Sept. 24. Local critics gave the show generally positive marks. The run ends Oct. 30.

The production has been somewhat bedeviled in the past couple months. While in Boston, the play was furnished with a new director and a new star.

The producers announced Sept. 17 that Anthony Chisholm would take over for Delroy Lindo in the role of Solly Two Kings. Lindo left the production due to "creative differences," a statement read. Chisholm is under the direction of Kenny Leon, who replaced Marion McClinton when the latter was hospitalized on Aug. 31.

In terms of production, Wilson holds a privileged position among American playwrights. Since Wilson's Fences struck it big on Broadway in 1987—running for a year and winning a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize—is has been a matter of course that every subsequent Wilson work reach Broadway.

Fences was followed by Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars and King Hedley II, none of which hit as big as Fences had. Mordechai was a producer on them all. Should Gem not make it to Broadway, it would be the only play from the 20th-century-cycle, besides Jitney, not to achieve that distinction. (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Wilson's first Broadway play, debuted before Fences, in 1984.)