The run closed June 22, 1985
- Opened
- April 16, 1985
- Closed
- June 22, 1985
- Performances
- 71
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- Mark Hellinger Theatre
Of the 465 productions we hold that opened in the 1980s and record a performance count, this is the 179th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Who was in it23 named
Donald Acree
Ruth Brisbane
Candy Brown
Brian Mckay
Sharon Murray
Steve Owsley
Jackie Jay Patterson
Malcolm Perry
Marion Ramsey
Ray Roderick
Wynonna Smith
Oscar Stokes
Lee Wallace
Kelly Walters
9 of these 23 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 14 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name — so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.
Creative team
- Director
- Harold Prince
- Choreographer
- Lester Wilson
- Orchestrations
- Bill Byers
A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.
Tony Awards 0 from 1 nomination
| Best Musical | Nominated |
Around this production
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…
For Grind, Prince was listed seventh among the nine producers above the title. But he certainly was the one and only director in the piece, and at this point in Prince’s career, that mattered more. Broadway Musicals the Biggest Hit and the Biggest Flop of Filichia Peter New Yor, p. 162
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.
Speaker not recorded. Broadway Yearbook 2001 2002 A Relevant and Irreverent Steven Suskin Kindle 2003 , p. 95- Old-time burlesque has been glorified in Broadway shows like Grind and the enormously successful Sugar Babies, showing that good burlesque never goes out of fashion. Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 113
- Even if based on literary texts, concept musicals were not really conceived in the spirit of textual adaptations at all. Many looked directly to diverse forms of musical theater presentation, often for the purpose of exploring the very meanings through which they had been culturally constructed as "shows"-that is, as f… Showtime A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre Larry Stempel, p. 561
- "Prince continued to work through Broadway channels. But failing on Broadway again with two conceptually based pieces (A Doll's Life, 1982; Grind, 1985), he sought and found success by developing musicals outside the United States-notably in London (following the earlier success of Evita in 1978 with Phantom of the Ope… Showtime A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre Larry Stempel, p. 583
- Since 1985’s Grind had also provided her with a dreary gospel song, it’s a wonder she didn’t think she was in a revival of that show. The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz Paxton Mcnallie 2016 Rowm, p. 123
- Klotz won three additional Tony awards for her designs, all for shows produced by Prince: Grind (1985), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), and the 1994 revival of Showboat (1994). The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia Rick Pender Rowman Littlefield Publishing Lanh, p. 384
Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.
What this page does not know
- No photograph of this staging. 48 of 13,459 productions hold one.
- No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
- No recording is held for Grind at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.