Breaking News - DINER Postpones San Francisco Engagement for New, More Intimate Workshop; Will Open on Broadway April 10, 2013

Base Entertainment (Co-CEOs Scott Zeiger and Brian Becker) announced today that the new musical DINER has postponed its previously announced pre-Broadway engagement scheduled to play San Francisco's SHN Curran Theatre from Tuesday, October 23, 2012, through Sunday, November 18, 2012, to retool the production for a more intimate Broadway venue.

Coming to Broadway in one of the most crowded spring seasons in some time, the production was originally envisioned and designed for a large Broadway musical house, but with the healthy crop of Broadway musicals and revivals, both current and hopefuls, there are more shows vying for large musical houses than are available. Faced with this challenge the producers and creative team of DINER embarked on an exploratory exercise to determine if the show would play as effectively in a theatre with a capacity no larger than 1,100 seats, for which there is greater opportunity. Holding themselves to uncompromising standards they happily discovered that their answer was "yes."

The retooled production will not be completed in time for a San Francisco bow in October 2012, instead those dates will be utilized for a four week fully-staged workshop in New York for the creative team to make necessary artistic revisions. The production is investigating alternate San Francisco dates in early 2013. DINER will open on Broadway April 10, 2013, at a theatre to be announced.

"Once you have locked in your physical production out-of-town there is no flexibility to subsequently play a smaller venue. With no guarantee of a large musical house in the spring this was our only fiscally responsible choice. We are also encouraged by recent examples of successful, critically-acclaimed musicals playing theatres with roughly the same capacity that we will play," said producer Scott Zeiger. "We are exceptionally pleased to bring DINER to Broadway in the spring and will announce our home very shortly."

"I love that we are envisioning DINER for a more intimate theatre. I think Barry's wonderfully vivid characters and Sheryl's fabulously rockin' score will be even more thrilling in a smaller venue where the audience can experience the show viscerally," said director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall.

Based on the critically acclaimed 1982 film, DINER has a book by Academy Award winner and original DINER screenwriter Barry Levinson, music & lyrics by 9-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, and direction and choreography by 3-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall, with a design team that includes scenic design by Derek McLane, lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski, sound design by Scott Lehrer, and orchestrations and music direction by Mitchell Froom.

DINER is set in Baltimore, 1959, when six high school friends reunite at the one place they know they'll always belong: the Diner. Now in their twenties, the friends have stumbled into adulthood and struggle to keep from growing apart. Life, love, responsibility – it's all on the table. DINER celebrates good times, great music and best friends.

DINER was Barry Levinson's screen directing debut, and he received an Academy Award nomination for his original screenplay. The bittersweet comedy starred Kevin Bacon, Ellen Barkin, Tim Daly, Steve Guttenberg, Paul Reiser, Mickey Rourke and Daniel Stern.

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