Is there an Adele Dazeem effect?
David Stone, producer of Broadway’s new musical “If/Then,” starring Idina Menzel, says that the box office receipts for the show doubled on Monday, after Menzel sang on the Oscars Sunday night–and John Travolta, in introducing her, rendered her name as what has been widely transcribed as “Adele Dazeem.”
“The wrap was more than twice what we did the previous Monday,” Stone said on Tuesday, adding that an appearance Monday night on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show,” in which Menzel sang in a taped segment the Oscar-winning “Let it Go” from “Frozen,” seemed to be fueling a further sales spike on Tuesday.
Whether Travolta’s bizarre gaffe–the subject of which became an instant social media sensation–is a big factor in the box office boost is not entirely clear. But it certainly didn’t hurt.
The innovative “If/Then,” in which Menzel plays a middle-aged woman on two alternate life paths, had a tryout run at Washington’s National Theatre in November and December. It begins preview performances at Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre Wednesday night and officially opens March 30.
