Yup, “Ace,” last season’s Playhouse hit by Cincinnati native Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor, is revving its engines – but it hasn’t left the gate and it’s a long runway.
The musical charmer about a fatherless boy in the Fifties who meets his flying ace dad in his dreams won the heart of a first-time Broadway producer, who has started phone calls to potential investors and is said to be planning visits to St. Louis (where the show is set, and where St. Louis Rep partnered with Playhouse on the world premiere) then Cincinnati by mid-October.
“Really?” said Playhouse’s Ed Stern. “I didn’t know he was coming to town.” Stern was also surprised by the $7 million figure being reported by potential investors who’ve already been approached.
Reports have also come in that the BroadwayAcrossAmerica folks (the company that brings national tours to the Aronoff) are considering becoming producing partners. (As we all know from the Cincinnati run, this is a musical that will play in the Heartland.) But not until it hits the road with some Broadway cred, Stern points out.
The musical’s original director, Stafford Arima, who’s in town reprising his Off-Broadway hit “Altar Boyz” for Playhouse is no longer connected. Eric Schaeffer of Signature Theatre outside Washington, D.C., who first worked with Oberacker on “The Gospel According to Fishman,” is set to direct, if the $$$ lines up.
Jackie Demaline
