£415 per week

Donmar a.d. Grandage is in demand

Director-producer expands to larger Wyndham

How much does it cost to hire Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi and Jude Law? Five figures per week plus a percentage of the gross? Not if you're Michael Grandage.

 

Each of those four names is headlining a production in his newest venture, Donmar West End, for the eye-widening sum of £415 per week. They're just four reasons why, six years into his tenure as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, director-producer Grandage is London legit's hottest hyphenate.

 

This a.d. is, to put it mildly, busy. His current revival of "The Chalk Garden" is a smash hit, and he's putting together his 2009 season, which already includes Gillian Anderson in Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Elsewhere, his "Frost/Nixon" tours the U.S. beginning in September, his U.K. revival of "Guys and Dolls" is a hit in Australia, and he and U.S. producer Arielle Tepper Madover will transfer Phyllida Lloyd's hit production of Friedrich Schiller's thriller "Mary Stuart" to Broadway in March. In 2010, he's directing Benjamin Britten's opera "Billy Budd" at Glyndebourne, and is in negotiations to direct two more operas at international houses in 2012. But it's Donmar West End that is currently at the forefront.

 

Expanding beyond his 250-seat Donmar Warehouse home into Cameron Mackintosh's newly warehouse refurbished 780-seat Wyndham's Theater, Grandage runs a year-long operation beginning Sept. 5 with Chekhov's early comedy "Ivanov." Tom Stoppard has supplied a new translation, and Branagh will play the title role. Grandage helms.

 

"Twelfth Night" follows, beginning Dec. 5, with Jacobi playing Malvolio. Starting March 13, Judi Dench stars in "Madame de Sade," Yukio Mishima's little-known drama about the wife and mother of the infamous Marquis. And the season finale is "Hamlet" (May 29-Aug. 22) starring Jude Law, directed by Branagh.

 

How did he manage to attract major names for so little outlay? The idea began with accessibility.

 

"Most West End theaters charge up to £50 for plays. At the Donmar, we have a low-price ticket policy. Our top is £32.50 down to £7.50. But with productions selling out so quickly, it's not possible to get the work to enough people and to enough of a cross-section of audiences."

 

With that in mind, Grandage approached leading actors with a proposition: "We said, if we could offer them the Donmar experience but in a larger theater for a limited season with the company wage principal intact and no participation points or royalty pool, would they be interested? All four said yes."

 

Their agreement was crucial in a season with unusually tight finances. These are not small plays, which makes this a high-risk proposition, since there has been no ticket-price hike. "Our top price is the same: £32.50 with a low of £10," Grandage says. "That means the breakeven is between 80% and 90%. Under most circumstances, you'd have to be mad not to budget at around 58%-60%."

 

But don't prices this low have serious implications for the rest of the more expensive West End?

 

"We're not a threat to the commercial community because we're a one-off event," Grandage explains. "We couldn't do it forever, because absolutely no one is going to make any money out of it. Because Cameron Mackintosh is a producer as well as a theater owner, we have been lucky enough to have a very high level of care and collaboration, but we haven't received a preferential deal. We're paying a standard rental, because it's very important that we should be respectful of the theater ecology."

 

The diversity of the season is a reflection of the Donmar policy, with Grandage's taste proving even more eclectic back at the home address. The next few months feature work as diverse as Jamie Lloyd's revival of "Piaf" (Aug. 8-Sept. 20); Alan Rickman helming Strindberg's "Creditors" (Sept. 25-Nov. 15); and John Tiffany helming "Be Near Me" (Jan. 22-March 14), a new play from a novel by Andrew O'Hagan, adapted by and starring Ian McDiarmid.

 

Until recently, transfers have been consciously few. Grandage insists they are never a motivation in the programming. Rave reviews for "The Chalk Garden" elicited numerous offers to move into the West End, but the company decided it would rather go out on a high than recast for a transfer. That resonates with Grandage's commitment to a high level of execution for often unfamiliar work which, he argues, is what defines the Donmar brand:

 

"It means different things to different people, and our audience shifts according to the show. But we consistently attract people who evidently enjoy being taken on a journey. History suggests that you should give audiences what they think they like, in other words, what they already know. That's not what we do."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117989435.html?categoryid=3190&cs=1&nid=2562

              
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Harvey Weinstein stages film fight back

Last updated at 10:34 PM on 24th July 2008

Film producer Harvey Weinstein has been involved with a few duds in recent years, although to be fair some, such as the awful Death Defying Acts, which his company released, were not of his own making.

But now in a death-defying comeback Weinstein is pulling out all the stops to film the movie musical Nine - oddly enough, about a film-maker going through a mid-life crisis - right here in Britain with a stunning cast. And he wryly reminds people that when he's been written off before, he's come back with sensational Oscar-winning hits.

The movie will turn the staid borough of Richmond upon Thames into Hollywood by the river when stars Daniel Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench and the singer Fergie take up residence next month.



They all move in, around the middle of August, to rehearse and star in Nine, which Rob Marshall will direct at nearby Shepperton Studios and in Rome, till January.

The $80-$90 million picture is being produced by Harvey Weinstein and will mark a huge boost for British actors, dancers, technicians, hair and make-up.

The film, about a director going through a mid-life crisis and how he's saved by the women in his life, will also boast a 60-strong orchestra.

Global singer Shakira is in talks to sing over the final credits with Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas.

There were rumours that after the birth of her daughter Sunday Rose, Kidman might not want to do Nine, but she's looking after her baby and doing stretch exercises, plus dance and singing lessons.

'She's almost as much in love with doing Nine as she is with the baby,' a friend of hers told me.

The film's a big deal for Weinstein after he took some hits recently with failures such as The Nanny and the Quentin Tarantino film Grindhouse.

His company, Weinstein Co, also acquired Death Defying Acts, an awful film, for U.S. TV and video rights release, but were legally obliged to release it on at least two screens, which they duly did.

A couple of reports slammed Weinstein's recent production output, and to be sure there have been duds. But he's got two potential Oscar contenders in The Road and The Reader, which Stephen Daldry directed with Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, and Penelope Cruz is up for best supporting actress consideration for her role in Woody Allen's forthcoming comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

In addition to Nine, Harvey is filming the war epic Shanghai in Thailand with John Cusack and Ken Watanabe.

'I laugh when people write me off,' Weinstein joked yesterday.

'The last time people tried to leave me for dead, we got over 40 Oscar nominations and Chicago won best picture.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1038441/BAZ-BAMIGBOYE-Penelope-Cruz-Emily-Blunt-Sienna-Miller-.html

(Okay, there's no picture of Judi in the original article, so I selected one from my library.  It's from a fundraiser she did earlier this year.)