Theater News

Zanna, Don’t! to Close on June 29

Jai Rodriguez in Zanna, Don’t!(Photo © Joan Marcus)
Jai Rodriguez in Zanna, Don’t!
(Photo © Joan Marcus)

It has just been announced that the Off-Broadway musical fairy tale Zanna, Don’t! will close on June 29 after 17 previews and 118 regular performances at the John Houseman Theater.

According to a statement from the show’s producer, Jack M. Dalgleish, the show is eyeing a Broadway run. “I have spoken to a few seasoned Broadway producers who find the idea of bringing Zanna to Broadway interesting and I will be pursuing that idea vigorously,” Dalgleish said. “The economics of producing on Broadway seem to make more sense.”

The book, music, and lyrics of Zanna, Don’t were written by Tim Acito, with additional contributions to the book and lyrics by Alexander Dinelaris. The show is set in an alternate world where homosexuality is the norm and two straight teenagers face a host of obstacles in expressing their love. Jai Rodriguez stars as Zanna, the magical being who’s determined to bring love into their lives (and everyone else’s). The show’s original cast recording is scheduled to be released by PS Classics later this summer.

In his negative review of the current Off-Broadway production, TheaterMania’s Michael Portantiere wrote: “Many theatergoers will be willing to slough off the show’s flaws because of its pro-gay sensibility and because the overall package is so entertaining, but honestly: Is it fair that a musical with truly inept lyrics and a problematic book should achieve and sustain any significant level of success?” Conversely, in a review of the show’s earlier Off-Off-Broadway incarnation, TheaterMania’s David Finkle opined that Zanna is “silly, melodic, romantic, and imaginative. In other words, it’s just about everything you might ask for from an eight-actor tuner at a time when — thank our lucky stars! — practitioners seem to be remembering that the term for enterprises like these used to be ‘musical comedy.'”

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Zanna, Don’t!

Closed: June 29, 2003