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Stages 2001 a musical feast

The characters range from a woman with fish-scale skin to a superhero who cannot fly. And the goal in every case is to become an artistically and financially successful American musical.

Held Saturday and Sunday at the Theatre Building and open to the public, “Stages 2001” is the annual festival of new musicals put together by a long-established Chicago group called New Tuners. “Our main purpose,” says artistic director John Sparks, “is to give the writers and composers a chance to interact with an audience. But we are also providing a marketplace that will help those shows that are further along in the process get more productions.”

So if you see a lot of producer types from out of town wandering down Belmont Avenue, they are probably here to take a look at the 13 new musicals on offer.

The festival does not usually send shows to Broadway. With a few notable exceptions, the Great White Way tends to be reserved these days for well-established names. But given the strong national market for musicals, it’s perfectly possible for a show to do very nicely in the hinterlands.

“Thirty years ago, if it wasn’t headed for Broadway, it wasn’t worth doing,” Sparks says. “But people are sick of revivals now. And a lot of theaters across the county are introducing their audiences to the pleasures of new musicals.”

“Stages 2001,” which runs from early in the morning until late at night, is divided into two categories, “Pitches” and “Staged Readings,” both of which have their advantages for the public.

If you go and see some of the “Pitches,” you’ll get to see only excerpts from each show (but that will represent the best bits of shows that have had a lot of work done on them).

Musicals being pitched include “Emma & Company,” an Edna Ferber adaptation seen previously at the Theatre Building; “Funny, You Don’t Look Like a Grandmother,” a revue about grandmothers with music by Robert Waldman; and “Lucky in the Rain,” a show about the Paris Tribune in the 1920s, written around the music of Jimmy McHugh.

“Grandmothers are not fuddy-duddies sitting with shawls over their shoulder,” said Waldman in an interview, noting that the target market for his show is folks of a certain age. “I’ve written traditional show music that hopefully is comfortable to people over the age of 55.”

Sherman Yellen, who wrote the book to “Lucky in the Rain,” says that his show includes such characters as Gertrude Stein and “General McClean,” who is based on the legendary publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Col. Robert R. McCormick.

“One review murdered this show,” says Yellen of the show’s debut production at the Goodspeed Opera House in New Jersey. “We have written a tribute to the golden age of the American musical. We think it would do well now in regional theaters.”

Of the full-length “Staged Readings” on offer this weekend, the most amusing looks to be “Jason and the Golden Fleece,” by the English team of Denise Wright and Peter Anthony.

“It’s a fantasy and a bit of a laugh,” chortled the self-deprecating Anthony over the telephone from London last week, noting that the music falls within the idiom of catchy pop ditties. “We tell Jason’s story from the perspective of the fellow who built his boat.”

Anthony is making his first trip to the United States this weekend, just to see how his musical baby does in Chicago.

Sniffing out a winner

Speaking of hopeful shows, the people involved with “The Sweet Smell of Success,” the new Broadway musical with book by John Guare, lyrics by Craig Carnelia and music by Marvin Hamlisch, are beginning to ratchet up their work.

And if you have been kicking yourself for missing “The Producers” during its pre-Broadway Chicago engagement, when tickets were easily available early on, this might be something to put on your radar right now. The show, trying out at the Shubert Theatre from Dec. 23 to Jan. 27, will come and go very fast.

Waiting for reviews before you decide whether to go could be risky; because much of the Chicago run is “previews,” critics won’t be saying anything until mid-January. The official on-sale date is Sept. 21, but if you go in person to the Shubert box office beginning Sept. 7, I’m told, you won’t be turned away.

There is, of course, no guarantee that “Sweet Smell” will be anything close to the quality of “The Producers.” It’s not the same people, after all. But there are some similarities. Both are based on familiar movies, both are following a similar tryout calender and both have monster budgets and represent the highest profile openings of their respective Broadway seasons.

And the personnel of “Sweet Smell” includes some major talent. Nicholas Hytner (“Miss Saigon”) directs. The fabulous Bob Crowley (“Aida”) is doing the sets (a source who has seen his drawings for the show in New York reports they look “stunning”). And John Lithgow stars.

“This has turned into a very expensive show,” said producer Scott Zeigler of Clear Channel Entertainment from New York last week. “We’re very excited about starting in Chicago.”