This is what it looks like inside the Kazino supper club, home to “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.”
Credit: Chad Batka
Remember last week when we were lamenting the tragic, too-soon end to the glorious run of “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812”?
The new “War and Peace” musical, which began uptown at Ars Nova and then relocated to a pop-up supper club in the Meatpacking District, is following the trend of “immersive” theater by surrounding the audience, at their tables, with the show — like an inverted 360-degree stage. (Typically, in “immersive” theater the audience participates in the spectacle, themselves autonomous, while here they are seated and the play is simply woven through the seating. Viewers do not interact with characters or have control over their storylines.)
Well, our wish for the chance to see it just one more time has come true. Although the show officially closed in the Meatpacking District on Monday, the publicists allowed us exactly one day to grieve before announcing today that the show has been greenlighted for a rebirth — supper club tent, Kazino, and all — in the Theater District in just a few weeks. Although specifics have not been released, the new location will be at West 45th Street between Times Square and Eighth Street. The show will have yet another limited run, from Sept. 24 to Dec. 31. The casting for this new incarnation has yet to be announced.
Oh, and remember how we were also pining for an official soundtrack so that we could stop stalking the paltry four numbers that are presently available on Dave Malloy’s blog? That wish also came true! Apparently, a recording session took place on Aug. 26. Now we’re only left to wonder and speculate about which cast members will be on the official soundtrack, since it’s shifted a few times as the play has grown (although we like both Dave Malloy and the more recent David Abeles as the titular Pierre). The soundtrack will be released at some point this fall from Ghostlight Records. We’ll keep you posted about when that will be available, because we plan to be among the first to get our hands on it.
Will “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” ever truly end? This stint right in the heart of Midtown will surely garner massive attention that it might have forgone in the past, tucked away on 13th Street below the High Line. Maybe, like its predecessor “Sleep No More,” it will garner enough popularity to find a somewhat permanent home somewhere in New York City. Then, though we painstakingly avoid hipsterisms, we will be thrilled to get to say, nyah nyah nyah, we loved it first.
