The creator of “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” said the show’s producer has refused to fully compensate him for the musical’s international productions and that the artist is now on trial with attempt to force payment.
Dave Malloy, who wrote the books, music, and lyrics for the show, filed a petition in the New York County Superior Court asking a judge to appoint an arbitrator to settle his dispute with producer Howard Kagan.
In the court document, filed April 11, Malloy said he was in debt “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for the production of the musical, which took place in Japan in 2019 and in South Korea in 2019. 2021.
“The Great Comet,” adapted from part of the classic Tolstoy novel War and Peace, arrived on Broadway in 2016 after a series of Off Broadway and suburban productions, starting with the nonprofit. Profit Ars Nova. The musical, starring Josh Groban, was critically acclaimed and nominated for 12 Tony Awards, but won only two, for landscape and lighting design, and closed at a loss the following year. 2017.
The production has endured some public controversy before. In 2016, Ars Nova asked the court for help a bitter dispute with Kagan about how the nonprofit is credited in the program’s Playbill. That dispute is settledbut then the next year, Broadway production boomed after a debate about who will star in the show after Groban’s departure, and amid questions about its finances.
Attorneys for Malloy and Blue Wizard Music, publisher of “Great Comet,” declined to comment; Kagan’s attorney and his Comet Lands production company on Broadway did not respond to a request for comment.
