The new season of the Balañá Group arrives “with a very varied offer, to reach all kinds of audiences”, explains María José Balañá, the group’s theater director. Among the most attractive proposals, the Tivoli will host the musical version of the film Ghost, starring David Bustamante, and will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the legendary musical Grease.
In February, La Cage de las Locas will return, the musical by Àngel Llàcer and Manu Guix that has broken all records. The production, which premiered in Barcelona five years ago, will offer its last season at the Tívoli, before finally bringing its success story to a close.
With respect to the text theater, Jordi Galceran will premiere a new play, FitzRoy, directed by Sergi Belbel. Ten years after El crédit, the renowned playwright will present the adventures of a female roper in a mountain in Patagonia on the Borràs stage in February. Antes, por Navidad, La Calòrica will take its last hit: What do we talk about while we’re not talking about all this shit.
La9 del Bosque, the old movie theater converted into a theater, will establish itself as Barcelona’s comedy space, with Jordi Merca, Andreu Casanova, Danny Boy and Bruno Oro, among others. Balañá likes to take risks, and that is why he staged a Hamlet at the Aribau cinema, with the complicity of the company La Perla 29. The theater director points out that new proposals are being considered for the old cinema in the “playful and cultural” field, but it is still early to specify anything.
Despite all the obstacles of the pandemic, “especially the regional confinement,” Balañá points out, his theaters have sold 523,000 tickets last season. At Tivoli, Singing in the Rain was the most watched show in Catalonia (164,000 spectators). And with 212,000 admissions, that room “gathered more spectators than the Liceu”, highlights the director.
“It was a very complicated season due to the pandemic -he continues-, we had to reschedule, foreign companies could not come, but even so we are satisfied with the result because we have worked hard”. In fact, the third most watched show, Adeu, Arturo, by La Cubana, was also shown in a group theater, the Coliseum.
