Old Globe Forced to Cancel Barnum

Tony Award winner John Doyle’s proposed production of the 1980 Cy Coleman-Michael Stewart-Mark Bramble musical Barnum, scheduled to play at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, July 12- August 19, has been cancelled due to the theater’s inability to come to an agreement with the show’s rights holders. Doyle is working with Globe on a replacement production, with an announcment scheduled to be made in the coming weeks.

The Old Globe’s summer season will also feature a revival of John Van Druten’s 1950 comedy Bell, Book and Candle, directed by Darko Tresnjak, August 4-September 9. The play concerns a bona fide witch who falls in love with a publisher, leading to numerous complications. The original Broadway production starred Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer, while the film version starred Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.

The Globe’s annual Summer Shakespeare Festival will feature three of the Bard’s plays in repertory: Two Gentlemen of Verona, to be directed by Matt August; Measure for Measure, to be directed by Paul Mullins; and Hamlet, to be directed by Tresnjak. They will run from June 16 through September 30. In addition, the Globe will present the West Coast premiere of Avenue Q at the Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego, June 30-August 5.

Doyle received the Tony Award as Best Director of a Musical for the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd. His production of Company is now on Broadway, and he is directing the L.A. Opera production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, with Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, which wlll open on February 10.

For more information, call 619-23-GLOBE or visit www.TheOldGlobe.org.