Shows · Grind
Grind
Opened 1985
71 performances
Musical, Megamusical
Unlike Mack and Mabel, our next heartbreaker may never be staged again. In the mid-seventies, Universal Pictures shelved a screenplay by Fay Kanin called This Must Be the Place. Ten years later, Kanin fashioned her screenplay into the book for Grind (Mark Hellinger; Apr. 16, '85; 79). Grind was set in Chicago in 1933 and took place for the most part in Harry Earle's Burlesque Theatre, where black and white acts are strictly segregated, both on and off stage.
- Music
- Larry Grossman
- Lyrics
- Ellen Fitzhugh
- Book
- Fay Kanin
Productions1 on Broadway
Recordings 1 recording
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…
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.