Morning Report - News from Aug. 8, 2002

THEATER

Go Dark on Sept. 11? Broadway Is Split

To perform or not to perform? That’s the question facing dozens of Broadway shows as they approach the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.

The show will go on at “The Producers,” “Hairspray” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” But Disney musicals (“The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aida”) and more than a dozen other productions will be dark Sept. 11. Many are scheduling a Sunday matinee to make up for the cancellation.

“Chicago” producer Barry Weissler said playing that day would be too “difficult and too emotional.” But others believe that business as usual makes a positive statement.

“I think there is a whole group of people that feel, ‘I am going to an event to show that this did not hurt my enthusiasm to be a participant in the world,’ ” said “Metamorphosis” producer Roy Gabay.

Springer Opera: A Highlight of Edinburgh

A concert production of the completed “Jerry Springer: The Opera” has become the must-see event at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In its first outing since a London workshop last February, the show sold out, drawing luminaries such as Cameron Mackintosh, director Nicholas Hytner (“The Madness of King George”) and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Hytner described the piece as a “marriage of high and low culture.”

“To hear the kind of vulgar chaos of Jerry Springer submitted to the disciplines of classical opera results in more than the sum of those two halves,” he was quoted as saying in the London newspaper the Telegraph.

The show features expletive-filled arias, a chorus line of quick-stepping Ku Klux Klan members and a host of pathetic talk-show guests. Though interest from West End producers in London is great, creators Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee have not made a decision about the show’s future.

POP/ROCK

Festival Seating for Springsteen Concert

A ban on the festival seating arrangement that contributed to a fatal 1979 stampede at a Cincinnati arena will be lifted for a Bruce Springsteen concert this fall.

The singer requested that the city reinstate such general admission seating, in which fans stand instead of taking assigned seats on the main floor. The city has allowed only reserved seating since 11 people attending a Who concert were trampled to death after fans rushed the doors at what was then known as Riverfront Stadium.

Cincinnati police defended the decision to lift the ban for the Springsteen concert. “They’re not a crowd likely to get rowdy and cause trouble,” said spokesman Lt. Kurt Byrd. Paul Wertheimer, a Chicago-based safety consultant, disagreed. “People all the time forget the lessons of the past,” he said.

QUICK TAKES

Three members of the British rock group Oasis--guitarist Noel Gallagher, bass player Andy Bell and keyboard player Jay Darlington--suffered cuts and bruises Tuesday when a taxi in which they were riding was involved in a head-on collision in Indianapolis. Wednesday evening’s concert was canceled.... The Geffen Playhouse is extending the special engagement of mime Marcel Marceau through Aug. 25. On Friday, the show set a Geffen box-office record, selling $34,395 worth of tickets in one day.... Island Def Jam Records is releasing what is being billed as Mariah Carey’s comeback album on Dec. 10.