There's been rumblings about a revised Side Show for a couple years. The cult musical about Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twin side show performers, has a beautiful score. It's a rare school year if a few of my theater students don't ask me if I know Side Show. It's rarer still when they don't follow that up with "Do you have the score? I want to sing 'I Will Never Leave You.'" Suffice to say I have the song memorized at this point. The Henry Krieger/Bill Russell musical is coming back. Playbill reports that La Jolla Playhouse in California and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. will be hosting the updated version of Side Show next season. This is quite exciting. There's so much to this story and so many ways to go about telling it. Who know what ideas director Bill Condon came up with to restructure the show?
And not to get ahead of ourselves, but The Kennedy Center and La Jolla Playhouse have a history of transferring productions to Broadway. La Jolla hosted Memphis, Jersey Boys, and Thoroughly Modern Millie before their Broadway runs. The Kennedy Center did the same for the recent revivals of Follies, Master Class, and Ragtime. Could Side Show really be coming back to New York? A guy can dream.
In conclusion, here's Alice Ripley's most rage-inducing stage failure. Watch for when the wind during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade knocks her out of sync with Emily Skinner. Flames on the side of her face, people.
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