If Broadway could crown its current reigning king, director Alex Timbers would fit the bill.
The two-time Tony nominee, 40, currently has two hit musicals playing on the Great White Way, both based on blockbuster films. His wild take on Tim Burton’sBeetlejuicewas recently nominated for eight Tony Awards, including best musical. And just last week,Moulin Rouge! The Musical, his decadent adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s iconic 2001 screen musical, opened to rapturous reviews after a series of sold out previews.
As Timbers tells PEOPLE, it wasn’t his master plan to have two of his productions play in New York City at the same time.
“I’ve been working onBeetlejuicefor 10 years andMoulin Rouge!for six. So it’s truly just a wild coincidence that both are happening at the same time,” he explains. “But I love both. I love both of those films.”
“I think what unitesMoulin Rouge!andBeetlejuice, even though they’re incredibly different in tone and vision and scope, is that they both involveworldcreation,” he adds.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical.Mathew Murphy 2019.
That’s indeed the case with both shows. When audiences enterBeetlejuice, playing at the Winter Garden Theatre, they’re immediately greeted with fog emanating from the stage and neon lighting that evokes the underworld as depicted in the 1988 cult classic. Over at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre,Moulin Rouge!guests are transported to a tawdry French cabaret, with scantily clad performers traipsing around the orchestra area before the musical has even begun.
“When I start the journey on any show, I really am thinking about the audience first,” Timbers says. “The idea of stepping into a new space and for two and a half hours, you’re transporting people to a far-off land. For me, that’s kind of the most delicious challenge.”
Matthew Murphy
“A lot of people were excited to be involved inMoulin Rouge!,” shares Timbers. “We didn’t get every song we wanted, but we got very lucky, and in some cases we wrote letters to the artist, explaining how the song would be used — and so a lot of the appeals really ended up being personal, artist to artist.”
When the Rolling Stones agreed to be featured in the show with one condition (that the musical incorporate “multiple songs” from their catalogue, per Timbers), book writer John Logan devised a medley to meet their request.
“That was really the artist saying, ‘Go forth and fullyMoulin Rouge!it,” says Timbers.
Moulin Rogue! The Musicalis now playing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.
source: people.com
