{"id":29104,"date":"2024-03-25T15:13:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/director-des-mcanuff-on-the-whos-tommy-the-world-has-perhaps-caught-up-to-tommy-walker\/"},"modified":"2024-03-25T15:13:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:13:30","slug":"director-des-mcanuff-on-the-whos-tommy-the-world-has-perhaps-caught-up-to-tommy-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/director-des-mcanuff-on-the-whos-tommy-the-world-has-perhaps-caught-up-to-tommy-walker\/","title":{"rendered":"Director Des McAnuff on ‘The Who’s Tommy’: \u201cThe world has perhaps caught up to Tommy Walker\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Ali Louis Bourzgui (Tommy) and the ensemble of ‘The Who’s Tommy’\/Photo credit Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The newly reimagined version of <\/span>The Who’s Tommy\u00a0<\/span><\/em>is set to open on Broadway Thursday, and director Des McAnuff<\/strong>, who\u00a0also directed the original production, says the idea to bring it back was sparked\u00a0by another <\/span>Tommy<\/span><\/em> project.<\/span><\/p>\n

McAnuff tells ABC Audio he and The Who<\/strong>\u2019s Pete Townshend<\/strong> were working on a movie version of the musical when the idea of bringing it back to the stage\u00a0came up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we came to the realization that the world has perhaps caught up to Tommy Walker,\u201d\u00a0he explains, noting, \u201cThe piece seemed to take on a whole new kind of pertinence.” He adds,\u00a0\u201cIt’s not so much that the piece changed radically, it’s that the world around us had changed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on The Who\u2019s 1969 album and 1975 film, the original production of\u00a0<\/span>Tommy\u00a0<\/span><\/em>opened on Broadway on April 22, 1993. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Direction for McAnuff and Best Original Score for Townshend.<\/span><\/p>\n

McAnuff says\u00a0that even though it’s been 30 years since the original production, the\u00a0story of <\/span>Tommy<\/span><\/em> is particularly relatable in our current climate, specifically in the second act, \u201cwhen Tommy becomes this imam, guru, political leader, a rock star and has a kind of an epiphany about that.\u201d He notes that it\u2019s something \u201cone would hope more leaders would do.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for Townshend’s involvement, McAnuff says the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is \u201cwildly enthusiastic about the piece,\u201d\u00a0sharing that\u00a0after\u00a0decades\u00a0of working together\u00a0he sort of knows what Pete likes.<\/span><\/p>\n

But,\u00a0McAnuff says, \u201cI would not consider doing anything without his blessing.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tommy The Musical<\/span><\/em> opens March 28 at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre. Tickets <\/span>are available now<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ali Louis Bourzgui (Tommy) and the ensemble of ‘The Who’s Tommy’\/Photo credit Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman The newly reimagined version of The Who’s Tommy\u00a0is set to open on Broadway Thursday, and director Des McAnuff, who\u00a0also directed the original production, says the idea to bring it back was sparked\u00a0by anotherRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,43,4],"tags":[7,134,317,114,315,316,142,106],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/101gold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}