What did the cast of Rags do in an effort to stop the rapid closing on Broadway in 1986?

[Littleshopofcarrie]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:08pm

I saw this on audience rewards and had no clue but really wanted to find out... Anyone know?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:35pm

What do you mean, what did they do?

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:37pm

I seem to recall that the cast went together to the TKTS booth (maybe with flyers?) to try to persuade folks to buy tickets.

[AnthVoice2010]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:38pm

The cast marched into Times Square (led by Goddess, Theresa Stratas)(along with a large number of theatre attendees) and had some sort of rally...I believe in protest of the power of bad reviews yet the loving audience reaction the show was getting...

They wanted people to give them a chance...

It was unheard of for the time.

Updated On: 7/1/13 at 04:38 PM

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:42pm

I seem to remember that they hit Times Square en masse with fliers but that's not so unusual. Or did they lock Stratas in the theater?

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:45pm

Yes, it was more of a rally; not just handing out fliers. And yes, I'm pretty sure Teresa Stratas was the leader.

The show was deeply flawed, but Stratas was glorious. Actually, it was a great cast all around. But Stratas . . .

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:51pm

Were the reviews that bad? I went to Wikipedia (I know) and they mentioned lukewarm reviews.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 4:54pm

I don't think they were by any means savage; disappointed, if anything, given the names associated with the show. But they weren't reviews that were going to sell ticktes.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:13pm

I recall that Liz Smith made some comment to the effect that it was one of the worst, biggest disasters ever to hit Broadway. I don't think the rest were that savage, but bad enough to abort the show's run prematurely. One of the real crying shames, IMO. The producers should have let it run at least a week more, to see if public interest could be mustered. And it ended up with some Tony nominations because whatever came after it was so God-awful that season.

[Littleshopofcarrie]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:33pm

How the heck did it get nominated for best musical??????????????????

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:36pm

As already stated -- it was a lousy season.

How did Leap of Faith get a nom?

[tazber]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:42pm

For me it ties Mack and Mabel for the best score to a flop show.

The music is glorious.

[DAME]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:46pm

Not sure if this or legs diamond was the last thing I saw at the Hellinger.

[Kad]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:47pm

But the book is very lousy. Bad enough to undo any goodwill earned by the score.

[Huss417]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:54pm

I was fortunate enough to have seen it. It had some flaws(book issues) but it was/is a great score and had a great cast. It did deserve a somewhat longer run than it had. But back then shows closed when reviews weren't great with not a lot of advance as opposed to today where they just keep throwing more and more money into it.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 5:58pm

Funny--I don't remember them doing this. I just remember feeling sad.

I remember feeling that what Teresa Stratas was doing was magical, and that Judy Kuhn's voice was thrilling.

But I also remember feeling sad when Larry Kert's song-and-dance number didn't work out. And the book felt imitative. And the set design was all wrong...what the hell was that giant Statue of Liberty head doing there?

It was part of those terrible few seasons during which it felt like the entire American Musical Theater world had forgotten how to write musicals.

And so many people were dying. AIDS was picking off the best and the brightest of an entire theatrical generation. A few years after Rags closed, Larry Kert was dead, and so was my beautiful and talented friend Mark Fotopoulos, who was in the chorus. He had been one of the Jets in the Debbie Allen West Side Story, and one of the Aggies in the movie of Best Little Whorehouse. Rags was his last Broadway show.

It was all very sad.

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 6:55pm

On a different web site, I run an academic comparative compendium of the complete works associated with notable theatrical figures, such as Stephen Schwartz for one. My research has turned up four extant versions of "Rags:" the original Broadway, a chamber-musical revision with less than ten players shortly after, and then two more rewrites and revisions.

Has anyone here seen any of the revised ones? Did they fix the problems with the book and the show, or is RAGS simply not musical material?

[Kad]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 7:12pm

My alma mater did a revised version last spring. The show just wasn't good, no fault of the talented students.

It's overlong, with too many characters that cause the show to lose focus, sometimes tangential, and very melodramatic.

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 7:46pm

I suspected as much- if your alma mater is Marymount, then I know one of the guys who was in the cast! He played a lead in the first original musical I wrote and staged.

[AnthVoice2010]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 8:19pm

Theresa Stratas - one of a kind...who leaves the world of opera for a year to help Mother Theresa with the lepers...only Stratas...

This was an artist the likes of which we have never encountered before or since....

If you think opera has nothing to do with acting...watch Stratas break your heart in fifty million pieces...


Great Stratas interview...

[temms]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 8:46pm

I saw it at Papermill in a quite-good production about 10-12 years ago, but I came away not really liking the piece. I left feeling like it was a noble effort, but I never connected with any of the characters or felt particularly caught up in what was going on. Admirable, but it didn't move me, despite the quality of the score.

My main thought was that "Ragtime" had pretty much superseded it as the go-to musical about the turn-of-the-century New York immigrant experience.

[Kad]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 8:56pm

Yes, my alma mater is Marymount!

And Ragtime accomplishes in a handful of production numbers what Rags does in its entire runtime.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 9:03pm

"If you think opera has nothing to do with acting...watch Stratas break your heart in fifty million pieces..."

IF a film version of Follies ever gets made, and IF "One More Kiss" doesn't get cut I would hope that she could be lured out of retirement to play that part and sing that song.

I wish that she had recorded the score to Rags. I assume there was some contractual issue that kept her from doing the studio recording and necessitating bringing in Julia Migenes, or was it deeper than that?

[bryan2]

Posted: 7/1/13 at 10:00pm

Having seen Rags during previews in Boston I had the pleasure of seeing CHristine Andreas when she went on for Teresa Stratas and she was amazing ...but a friend said you have to go back and see Stratus (I also so Joanna Glusak filling in for Judy Kuhn and as much as I love judy .I like Joanna Glusak (not sure if that is spelling) much better)
SO I went back a week later and saw Stratas.and I have never seen anyone like her on a stage about 5 feet tall and when she sang Children of the WInd I thought the roof would blow off..she was AMAZING....the show had problems but was in good shape when it left Boston..but then they changed a lot /cut a lot and basically couldn't get what was good back...sad because the score is great..

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 7/2/13 at 12:35am

The performance on the Tony adwards that year of the title song was simply stunning and thrilling.