Girls Just Wanna Make Films

Henning Tögel is chasing Cyndi Lauper for $800,000, claiming the singer broke her contract to play a run of German dates set to start July 4.

The shows came out May 19, when Tögel and other promoters heard Lauper was canceling all of her 13-date European tour that was to begin in Denmark June 30.

The Stuttgart-based promoter says he can’t understand how the American Grammy and Emmy-winning singer-songwriter signed the contracts for shows in Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg, Dortmund and Leipzig, along with others including festival slots in Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland, and then pulled out because she had “prior film and television commitments.”

He said that was the explanation he was given when Lauper dumped her German shows “without warning.”

“Why does she sign a contact committing herself to perform live shows at a certain time, when she has already signed a contract to be somewhere else at that same time?” the Moderne Welt chief said, raising a question that his lawyers will likely put before a New York judge in August.

Tögel, whose company is celebrating its 25th anniversary at the Stuttgart Mercedes Benz Museum June 24, is asking for the money it spent on advertising, selling tickets and securing venues.

At press time it wasn’t known if any of the other promoters have taken legal action over the cancellations. The tour was also due to visit Czech Republic and France.