Shows · Grind · Mark Hellinger, 1985
Grind, 1985
Of the productions that opened in the 1980s, this had the 178th longest run.
Who was in it23 named
Donald Acree
Ruth Brisbane
Candy Brown
Brian Mckay
Sharon Murray
Steve Owsley
Jackie Jay Patterson
Malcolm Perry
Marion Ramsey
Ray Roderick
Wynonna Smith
Oscar Stokes
Lee Wallace
Creative team
- Director
- Harold Prince
- Choreographer
- Lester Wilson
- Orchestrations
- Bill Byers 2
Tony Awards 0 from 1 nomination
Recordings
1 recording of Grind exist, but none was released while this run was on. See Grind for all of them.
Around this production
Grind is a 1985 musical with music by Larry Grossman, lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh, and a book by Fay Kanin. Grind is a portrait of a largely African-American burlesque house in Chicago in the Thirties. Reviews of the production were mixed at best. In his The New York Times review, Frank Rich wrote: "...the show has become a desperate barrage of arbitrary musical numbers, portentous staging devices, extravagant costumes..., confused plot twists and sociological bromides..." Grind eventually closed after a run of slightly more than two months, losing its entire $4.75 million investment. It was one of a string of six Broadway flops directed by Hal Prince in the 1980s, and Prince and three other me…
For Grind, Prince was listed seventh among the nine producers above the title. But he certainly was the one and only director in the piece, and at this point in Prince’s career, that mattered more. Broadway Musicals the Biggest Hit and the Biggest Flop of Filichia Peter New Yor, p. 162
it was staged like Ben Vereen’s big solo “A New Man” in the 1985 musical Grind, a number that appeared out of the blue (and out of context) when Hal Prince asked Bob Fosse to try to salvage that hopelessly bleak mishmash.
Broadway Yearbook 2001 2002 A Relevant and Irreverent Steven Suskin Kindle 2003 , p. 95Something wrong here? Correct a field or report the problem. Every change is recorded in public under the contributor licence.