By Dale King BOCA RATON – Three springtimes ago, Marilynn Wick rescued the closed and bankrupt Caldwell Theatre from the auction block and turned it into a combination costume museum, restaurant and performance center. Wick’s main business, Costume World, acquired the property in March 2013 with an option to buy, a decision based on a belief — and a vow — to breathe new life … [Read more...]
Wick revives Kander and Ebb’s ‘Curtains’
In the out-of-town tryout within the musical 42nd Street, the leading lady merely breaks her ankle. In the tryout depicted in Curtains, a so-so show from 2007 by the renowned composer-lyricist team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, the leading lady is murdered offstage during the curtain calls. That fictional leading lady, Jessica Cranshaw, is a classic triple threat — she can’t … [Read more...]
Reams, Charles make Wick’s ‘La Cage’ well worth return visit
Only an incurable optimist like Jerry Herman would write that “The best of times is now,” as he did in his enduring hit musical, La Cage aux Folles. He wrote it in 1983, in the midst of the Reagan administration, as the AIDS epidemic was on the increase. That’s how much of an optimist he is. The song appears in the first gay-themed musical to hit Broadway, a number that … [Read more...]
Wick Costume Museum ideal draw for fans of musicals
It is said that Marilynn Wick bought the former Caldwell Theatre chiefly to house her superlative costume collection. Producing shows was simply an afterthought because an auditorium came with the building. True or not, The Wick Theatre is just one more production company in our area, albeit a very welcome one. But there is nothing like Wick’s newly opened Costume Museum … [Read more...]
Marilynn Wick: South Florida’s costume mogul revives a theater
Marilynn Wick, president and chief executive officer of Costume World, the major national retailer and renter of theatrical costumes, has given herself a new challenge. Having bought the dormant Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton to house her 1.2 million costumes — many of them Broadway originals — and to place her Broadway Collection Museum in larger quarters, she also gained a … [Read more...]