Fela and his band. The Nigerian artist has been portrayed on Broadway with a musical which began in 2009.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Roland Ogbonnaya With Agency Report
5 May 2010
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Lagos — More than 12 years after he died, honour and recognition have continued to come the way of Nigerian Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.Fela, a new dance musical that tells the story of the Afrobeat legend, and another musical topped the nominees for the 64th annual Tony Awards, which was announced yesterday.
Another top nominee with Fela is "La Cage aux Folles," a show about a long-time gay couple dealing with love and family. It won the Tony Award for best musical in 1984 and the Tony for best musical revival (its first) in 2005.
In a shift from recent years, this year's Tony Award nominations do not favour shows that are still running, or are runaway hits at the box office, or are likely to tour nationally.
The new musical Fela and the musical revival "La Cage aux Folles" each received the most nominations, 11, and neither has hot ticket sales right now or plans to tour in the United States (though Fela will go to London later this year). Next up is "Fences" with 10 nominations, which is making plenty of money but is set to end its limited engagement in July.
But after that are "Memphis" with eight nominations and middling grosses; "Ragtime" with seven - and it closed in January with a total loss to investors of its $8 million capitalisation; and, among others, "A View From the Bridge" (six), "The Royal Family" (five), "Finian's Rainbow" (three), and "In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)" (three) - which have all closed.
Fela tells the extravagant, decadent, and rebellious world of the Afrobeat legend who died in August 1997. Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk, and African rhythm and harmonies), Fela explores Kuti's controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician.
Featuring many of Fela's most captivating songs, Fela is a provocative hybrid of concert, dance, and musical theatre. Shawn Jay-Z Carter and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Ruth and Stephen Hendel, Roy Gabay, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Edward Tyler Nahem and Slava Smolokowski produce the project.
Others are Chip Merles/Ken Greiner, Douglas G. Smith, Steve Semlitz/Cathy Glaser, Daryl Roth/True Love Productions, Susan Dietz/Mort Swinsky and Knitting Factory Entertainme.With yesterday's nomination, this is the second time "La Cage" was being nominated for best musical revival.
"La Cage" has come a long way from 1984, when some critics and members of the theater elite held the show in modest regard, viewing it as a campy spectacle about drag queens and gay self-hatred.
Audiences however took to the musical enthusiastically, and it became one of the most accessible gay love stories on stage, running for 1,761 performances and becoming more commercially popular than other major gay-themed Broadway productions like "Torch Song Trilogy" or "Angels in America."
It also beat out Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George" in 1984 for best musical, to the shock of some musical theater purists. In 1984, "La Cage" received nine Tony nominations; in 2005, the show received four.
This year, the new revival, which was first produced at London's Menier Chocolate Factory, has 11, tying Fela for the most nominations of the 2009-10 season.
The nominees are now before the voters, a relatively small group of 700 who would seem to have conflicts of interest galore (their shows being among the nominees, or friends working on some nominated shows, or rivals working on others).
There are also the out-of-town voters who will be casting ballots:
Other nominations are: 10 Memphis - 8 Ragtime - 7 Red -7A View From the Bridge - 6 The Royal Family - 5 Enron - 4 A Little Night Music - 4 Promises, Promises - 4 American Idiot - 3 Finian's Rainbow - 3 Lend Me a Tenor - 3 Million Dollar Quartet - 3. The nominations also include: The Addams Family - 2 Come Fly Away - 2 Everyday Rapture - 2 Hamlet - 2 Next Fall - 2 Time Stands Still - 2 and A Behanding in Spokane - 1 Collected Stories - 1 Looped - 1 Present Laughter - 1 Race - 1 Superior Donuts - 1.
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