Sunset Boulevard closing in New York March 22 and soon to close in London and Vancouver, has also postponed or cancelled several dates on its U.S. national tour.
Though the show is currently playing at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, MO, through March 22, a call to Jones Hall in Houston, where the musical was supposed to run July 18-Aug. 16, led to information from the "Broadway Series" that Sunset has been indefinitely postponed. Tickets to the Houston Sunset are being automatically swapped, "on a same day basis," for tickets to the Show Boat tour.
A Playbill On-Line reader from California received the same information when checking on his tickets at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.
Carla Gibson, spokesperson for the Fox Theatre, had heard nothing of the tour's postponement and confirmed that Linda Balgord (Norma), Lauren Kennedy (Betty), Ron Bohmer (Joe) and Ed Dixon (Max) are all still appearing in the production there. A spokesperson for the Chicago Opera House told Playbill On-Line that the tour would also play its scheduled run there, March 28-June 7. However, the next stop, at the Kentucky Center in Louisville, has been cancelled, with Show Boat booked there June 1-30 (instead of the June 13-July 12 proposed run of Sunset). Ticket holders are asked to call the Broadway series at (502) 584-7469 for details.
The U.S. national tour -- initially proposed for a six-year run -- opened July 10, 1996 at the Denver Performing Arts Center and then played in Minneapolis' Orpheum Theatre. Asked in February about the status of the tour, production spokesman John Barlow denied rumors that there would be cast changes once the show comes to Chicago in late March. Barlow told the Los Angeles Times (March 4) that "business could be much better" for the touring production, and that future dates were being "reassessed." However, re-casting the relatively unknown lead "is not being discussed and was not a factor in this decision."
Balgord made her Broadway debut as Fosca's mother in Passion and has appeared at the Goodman Theatre in Sunday In The Park With George. Bohmer was Enjolras in Les Miz on Broadway and starred opposite Balgord in the national tour of Aspects Of Love.
--By David Lefkowitz
