‘Moulin Rouge’ can-cans into Segerstrom Hall en route to Hollywood
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“Moulin Rouge! The Musical” will can-can into Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa for a five-night run beginning Wednesday before the Tony Award-winning show moves to the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.
The musical is inspired by director Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film, “Moulin Rouge.” The movie follows Satine (Nicole Kidman), a cabaret singer in 1890s Paris, who hides her love affair with impoverished writer Christian (Ewan McGregor) from the rich duke (Richard Roxburgh) to whom she is betrothed.
While the story is fictional, the real-life Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris and its storied, bawdy atmosphere serve as the backdrop. Christian, portrayed as a gifted poet, “writes” the most brilliant poems made up of the lyrics of the greatest love songs of the last 160 years.
“Moulin Rouge! The Musical” includes many of the songs from the movie but also incorporates more recent hits, building a score that covers composers from Jacques Offenbach to Lady Gaga. The North American tour stars Arianna Rosario as Satine, Jay Armstrong Johnson as Christian, Andrew Brewer as the Duke of Monroth and Robert Petkoff as Moulin Rouge owner Harold Zidler, who serves as a master of ceremonies in a red tailcoat jacket and top hat.
The original show opened in 2019 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in New York City to critical acclaim, but its momentum was lost when the pandemic shut down Broadway. When the show reopened in 2021, the musical won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical.
A Segerstrom Hall run in 2023 sold out.
Directed by Alex Timberstand with book by John Logan, choreography by Sonya Tayeh and music supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Justine Levine, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” is designed to evoke the immersive world of Luhrmann’s “Red Curtain Trilogy,” which is filled with truth, beauty, freedom and love. (The trilogy is rounded out with the Australian director’s first two films, “Strictly Ballroom” and “Romeo + Juliet.”)
Tickets for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” start at $44 and are available at scfta.org. Performances run Oct. 28 through Nov. 2.
