SUBSIDIZED ‘SOCIETY’

The West End’s musical producers may have lower costs than their Broadway counterparts, but some rely on provincial tryouts to keep expenses even lower. Now previewing here is “High Society,” a new version of the Cole Porter film musical that was tested, improved and packaged in England’s Midlands.

Based on both the Philip Barry play “The Philadelphia Story” (the 1940 film version starred Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart) as well as its 1956 MGM musicalization starring Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Celeste Holm and Louis Armstrong, “High Society” is the second major Porter revival this year. His 1948 “Kiss Me Kate” just opened at the Royal Shakespeare Co.’s home in Stratford-on-Avon in what is seen as renewed interest in the late composer/lyricist.

“High Society” doesn’t open officially on the West End until Feb. 25, but musical-theater buffs had 12 weeks to catch it at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre 1 1/2 hours north by train. Not unlike Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House, where the musical “Annie” was developed, the nonprofit Leicester Haymarket is also the place where the enormously successful revival of “Me and My Girl” was developed.

Both shows were produced at the Haymarket by arrangement with the late Richard Armitage and the Noel Gay Organization, and Armitage’s son Alex Armitage says they added some funds to bring “High Society” “up to West End standards.” The Leicester Haymarket will receive royalties and share in any future profits “High Society” may generate, he adds.

The show, starring Trevor Eve, Stephen Rea, Natasha Richardson and Angela Richards, was completely sold-out during its pre-London run. The producer’s ability to guarantee a West End theater and book it in advance was also helpful in convincing London-based actors to spend as many as 16 rehearsal and performance weeks in Leicester, adds the show’s general manager, David Cole.

“High Society” essentially goes back to the Barry play, then adds Cole Porter songs from the film and elsewhere. Director Richard Eyre, recently named Peter Hall’s successor as artistic director of the National Theatre, has said that in writing the book for the musical, he found that much of Barry’s play “had been carelessly thrown away” to accommodate the film stars. And there were also only six songs in the film. So he “plundered” the play, the film, the Cole Porter songbook and his own muse to come up with the new version.

The show changed considerably after opening in Leicester last November. Alex Armitage calls the Leicester production “a work in progress,” commenting that “at the end of the second week in January, we added new orchestrations, a new scene, new choreography, bits of new script and a new finale and turned it from a show that Leicester audiences enjoyed to a show that Leicester audiences stood up and screamed about.”

By using this not-for-profit route to get to London, the producer estimates it will run about 1.1 million--or nearly $1.7 million--to get onstage here, as compared with “Me and My Girl,” which cost 800,000, or about $1.2 million. In both cases, the costs were far below what they otherwise might have been. (“Girl” later cost nearly $4 million to mount on Broadway, he says.)

“To us, it means we can bring in a musical that is comparable to musicals (that began in London) costing two or three times as much,” says Armitage. “It is such an advantage to us to have the workshops and depth of Leicester expertise to draw on. We approach opening night in London having played a quarter of a year. I don’t think we will ever contemplate a play or musical (for the West End) without taking it first for a short provincial run.”

General manager Cole says there have been talks with James Nederlander, one of “Girl’s” Broadway producers, about a possible New York production of “High Society,” but neither Cole nor Armitage would be more specific.

They have also received a copy of Cole Porter’s 1939 musical “Du Barry Was a Lady” from a trustee of Porter’s estate. “ ‘Du Barry’ is a project I’m really looking forward to and considering carefully,” says Armitage, “but let’s get ‘High Society’ open first.”