theatre spotlight
by tom andrew
PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL
BROADWAY SUPERSTAR ADAM PASCAL STARS IN NEW SHOW BASED ON ONE OF HOLLYWOOD’S MOST BELOVED ROMANTIC STORIES
Just who is Adam Pascal? The answer is easy if you ask people who like musicals, or who are Rent-heads. The truth is Adam Pascal is much more than what most people think. Yes, Pascal was in the original Broadway cast of the now historic musical Rent, but he was also in shows like Aida, Cabaret, Chess, Hair and Chicago. Currently, Pascal can be seen in the first national tour of Pretty Woman: The Musical playing Edward Lewis, the role portrayed by Richard Gere in the iconic movie. Southern Californians can catch Pascal in the show from Tuesday, July 5 through Sunday, July 17 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa and Tuesday, July 26 through Sunday, July 31 at Civic Theatre in San Diego. Lately, it seems that many hit movies are being turned into musicals and not with much success. There are always many reasons for the lack of success for this, but with Pretty Woman the musical has at least a few reasons for its success: the talented Pascal, an original score by Grammy winner Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, and a book written by Garry Marshall. Still, one wonders what it was about this movie turned musical that caught Pascal’s eye. “There are a lot of factors,” Pascal said. “The first one being this is what I do for a living. I predominantly do musical theatre. It’s the dominate part of my career, and the trend has been, clearly has been adopting a movie into a musical. So, if I rule that out, if it’s conceptually something I don’t want to be a part of, I’m not going to work.” Pascal has other reasons as to why he decided to take on this show, even though other musicals like it didn’t have much success critically or at the box office. “They all clearly have varying degrees of success,” Pascal said. “Some work and some don’t work. It’s hard to say why one thing works and one thing doesn’t. Sometimes it’s maybe the songs aren’t very good. It can
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www.rage.lgbt | JULY 2022
