Casting of Helen Sinclair- Page 2
Casting of Helen Sinclair
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
nasty_khakis
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/15/07
#27Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/6/13 at 10:44amIf Jan Maxwell were cast her bag would get very heavy very quickly!
#28Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/6/13 at 12:36pm
As much as I would love to see someone like Jan Maxwell take on the role, I'm guessing they will decide on someone in the same vein as Marin Mazzie voice wise.
RaisedonMusicals: I guess you're right. If someone like Marin workshopped it than someone like Audra could make sense.. She certainly has the right presence for it.
#29Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/6/13 at 1:16pmWho played Eden in the reading?
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#30Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/6/13 at 6:57pmI sound like a broken record, but Murphy and Mazzie were my top choices (I can't believe Mazzie isn't going on with the production, that's a real shame), with Ebersole as a close third, knowing both are out, naturally Donna Murphy is whom I believe would be the best choice. I do love the idea of someone unexpected like Audra McDonald or Julie White. I also submit Karen Ziemba, who was delightful in CURTAINS but hasn't been around. Needless to say, the casting of this role is bound to be extremely exciting, there's so many places they could go.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#31Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/6/13 at 7:11pmI have it on good authority Neil Patrick Harris will be playing Helen Sinclair.
Owen22
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/24/11
#33Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 3:33pmAlice Ripley. That would be my choice!
“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
``oscar wilde``
#34Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 3:40pmJane Krakowski would be perfection! (If she wasn't an alto)
#35Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 3:46pm
I have no idea what the role calls for vocally, but I think Jane has a decent upper range. But she is certainly not a soaring soprano.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxCD0UwwpDw
#36Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 3:50pmI forgot about Nine! You are right, her upper range is pretty good. I'm not sure she has a "healthy soprano" up to F but anything is possible.
#37Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 4:20pmJane trained really hard to sing "A Call from the Vatican," so the notes might not just naturally come to her the way, say Audra McDonald sings them so effortlessly, but I've no doubt she'd put all her effort into it and do wonderful things in the role. She'd be a natural fit, she's a perfect comedienne, has the Broadway pedigree and is a name. She didn't wait a second to return to Broadway after ALLY MCBEAL ended, though now she has a family so she might want to take it easy before getting back into an 8 shows/week routine. Still, they should beg her to be involved.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#38Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 6:20pm
I have no idea why they want Helen to have a range above Tallulah Bankhead.
Dianne Wiest almost was fired from the part, because she was "sucking" so badly. She met with Woody to try to save herself and the film from recasting, they tried that deep, phony voice, he said, "Yeah, do that" ... and she won an Oscar.
Well, maybe not that quick of a turnaround, but almost.
So let's make the big mistake they did when they shot the first scenes of the movie and make her a soprano!
Great idea!
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#39Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 6:21pmMegan Mullally is a genius idea.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
#40Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/7/13 at 8:12pm
About Eden. I've heard that the person who will be doing the lab in November may or may or may not be offered the role.
I have also heard that they may have cast the role of Cheech but are not announcing it yet.
Finally, I've heard that they (Woody and Stro) are being REALLY careful about casting Helen Sinclair. They want to get it right.
The names that have been talked about more than once here (excluding "movie stars" are (in no particular order): Ebersole, McDonald, Skinner, Mullally, Carmello, Nielson, SR Scott, V Clark, Krakowski, Luker, Maxwell and Ripley. On voice requirements alone, the only two I might exclude would be Krakowsi and Ripley (though I can see either one in the role.) I also think that Ebersole, as much as I love her, is probably a bit too old.
It will be interesting to see if they cast one of the above, or someone no one's thought of (yet.)
CZJ at opening night party for A Little Night Music, Dec 13, 2009.
SFFrontRow
Broadway Star Joined: 3/19/05
#41Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 3:11pm
When I first heard of this, I thought of Judy Kaye (and I know she may be a little old for the role). She has proven to have just the right bit of cluelessness (saw her in Souvenier and the original Phantom cast) to pull off Helen.
That having been said, of all the suggestions on this thread I think Megan Mullally would DEFINITELY be killer in this role. AND she is just the right age.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#42Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 3:25pm
"The names that have been talked about more than once here (excluding "movie stars" are (in no particular order): Ebersole, McDonald, Skinner, Mullally, Carmello, Nielson, SR Scott, V Clark, Krakowski, Luker, Maxwell and Ripley."
And, unless you are counting her as a "movie star," Plimpton.
Best12, at first I was equally surprised Helen is a soprano, but don't nec. think it's Wiest's first stages of finding her repeating themselves; just because the character eluded Wiest in her usual vocal range and was nailed by her with an atypical - for Dianne - deep smoky voice, doesn't means Helen, in the hands - and voice - of another actress, like Ebersole - couldn't be reborn as a soprano. In fact, it might be a big mistake to try almost certainly in vain to replicate Wiest's legendary vocalization as Helen rather than tonally recalibrating the role.
Krakowski could be wonderful.
Updated On: 7/8/13 at 03:25 PM
#43Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 3:34pmBut don't you think that Woody already knows the songs that he's going to interpolate and thus knows the vocal range of the singer he needs in the role? I mean, the casting notice was very specific in that regard.
CZJ at opening night party for A Little Night Music, Dec 13, 2009.
#44Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 3:48pmYeah, I think they should really not try to get an actress who can imitate Wiest's brilliant interpretation. I like that they are going in a different direction for the role. The more I think about Jane Krakowski in the part, the more right it sounds, but any of these ladies would be wonderful in their own right. Just cast the role already!
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#45Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 3:55pm
One of the things that's so great about how Wiest uses her voice in the film is that she doesn't do the "Bankhead" bit for the whole performance.
There is a scene on the park bench with John Cusack where she lets her hair down a bit. Her voice rises up and becomes more natural (for Wiest). Then she gives him the cigarette case and starts her "Don't speak!" shtick that had me laughing 'til I cried.
The point is that she explored the phoniness of that voice and let her "real voice" slip in for that scene. Very revealing for Helen.
It was brilliant, as was the rest of that performance.
I still think it's a mistake to have a soprano in that part, though. Hopefully, they'll play with the keys in rehearsal and figure out what works best for the character, not just the actress.
They need a Bea Arthur, Lucille Ball or Tallulah Bankhead as Helen ... or someone who can pretend to be like them. There was a "weight" to women who acted like that on stage.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 7/8/13 at 03:55 PM
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#46Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 4:03pmI don't think making her have a soprano range is really all that bad for the character. The casting notice also says "strong low, solid mix." We really have no idea how they are interpreting her musically yet. She could just need that healthy soprano for one moment.
#47Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 4:05pm
Well, Wiest is a "soprano," at least in her speaking voice. She put on the low notes for the role.
Perhaps it's the same strategy here.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
SFFrontRow
Broadway Star Joined: 3/19/05
#48Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 4:09pm
And, if we want to go a little older...
Kathleen Turner, Tyne Daly, Linda Lavin.
They could play it as a mature actress, moving into twilight but still trying to stay current and hopelessly and cluelessly NOT.
#49Casting of Helen Sinclair
Posted: 7/8/13 at 4:12pmI think Jan Maxwell is the best choice by far.
