The Shubert Organization is having a serious run of bad luck! After non-existent Rebecca investor Paul Abrams “died” of malaria, causing the production to go belly up, the Shubert’s were left without a booking in the Broadhurst. This prompted Chairman Phil Smith to forge a peace treaty with ex-wife Tricia Walsh-Smith and discuss bringing her new musical Change the Day into the darkened theatre. Agreements were in place and casting had begun with Kim Kardashian tapped to star in the show when tragedy struck for a second time early Friday evening. Pensioner Jack Scrotum, the main investor in Change the Day collapsed whilst in the midst of a vicious argument with Walsh-Smith. Onlookers said that Walsh-Smith showed up at Scrotum’s residence, Cobble Hill Retirement Home, Brooklyn, furious that a check Scrotum had made out to the production had bounced. “She got into a horrendous spat with him,” a resident told me. “They were going at it hammer and tongs when Scrotum suddenly clutched his chest and dropped to the floor like a dead fly. The staff did their best to revive him but it was too late – Scrotum had popped his clogs. Walsh-Smith was devastated.”

Scrotum’s death is just another hard knock in what’s been a very tough year for Walsh-Smith. As reported in last week’s column, earlier this year the outgoing playwright was conned by an international fraudster, causing her to lose her London home and sell all her possessions to survive. “With Jack Scrotum onboard we thought things had turned around,” Walsh-Smith’s co-writer, Simon Kay said. “But now she’s back in the mire – it’s a hellish position to be in, and because of English law the UK press can’t report it until the trial begins in January. In the meantime she’s couch surfing. The big fear is that she won’t be able to hold out financially and I fear she may end it all like her brother. It’s a nightmare. She wrote to Phil in July, as she doesn’t get alimony from him or medical, and begged him to lend a hand, after all they were together for thirteen years -- but he won’t. I know he’s still pissed over her going on Youtube and airing their dirty laundry but he was the one chucking her out and about to change the locks on their apartment. The video was self-preservation for Tricia and she took it down a long time ago.”

Scrotum’s death and rubber check is definitely a nail in the coffin for Walsh-Smith, as Change the Day has now been postponed until Fall 2013. Shubert honchos have taken a booking for the Broadhurst, albeit a short one -- Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, in which Tom Hanks makes his Broadway debut, opening April 1, through to June 16.
Adding to the mayhem is the apparent casting of New York Post theatre columnist Michael Riedel as the devil. “It was a hoax,” Riedel admitted last night. “I was trying to help the producers raise funding.”
When I mentioned to Riedel that surely Kim Kardashian’s name was enough to bring in the investors, Riedel replied. “I don’t want to sound full of myself, but where Broadway’s concerned I have a helluva lot more clout than Kim.”
So Stewart Lane taking over the column was a ruse?
“Of course it was!” Riedel chuckled. “Stewart Lane reporting Broadway… did anyone seriously believe it?”
Stranger things have happened – George W. Bush was America’s 43rd president…

Clark Bent
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