I see they made some changes, they cut The World Above and its reprise... now we have If Only (Triton's Lament) and If Only (Ariel's Lament) instead! sounds interesting!
I hate these changes. I love The World Above, it's one of my favorite songs. I also love I want the Good Times Back. The second act is what needs the most work. Stop avoiding the real issue by fixing other things, put Vanessa back in the show and the film's ending. No other change will salvage this show, ever. All the theaters that have tried to retool this show can't be stupid enough not to realize that.
No, they're not, but they are given a text and they do what they can with it. They can request permission to cut lines or songs, but wholesale restructuring and rewrites is not within their power if Disney is settled on the form of this show. They can't just do it. The rights holders have to consent. The maid drive in Vanessa's character is using Ariel's own voice against her. Until that can be effectively managed, there is zero point in the. Anessa plotline outside of the film. It is a firm catch -22.
In the film, Vanessa rarely ever speaks. She just has the short song which could definitely be expanded for the stage and lip synced to the voice of the actress playing Ariel. Just think of the possibly amazing staging that could have been done with with Vanessa and Ursula's reflection.
Just think of the headache every bitchy queen on this website and their senior counterparts at All That Chat would give us all, not to mention the officials at AEA at the idea of making an actress on a Broadway stage lipsync almost an entire a t AND to the voice of another actress AND the ridiculous feedback and crazinesss should such a lengthy sequence fail in performance, grinding an entire act to a hailt.
I unfortunately going to see this mess of musical next Saturday. My closest friend really wanted to go and she did not have a whole lot of money to buy the tickets. I'm really not that all excited about it for many reasons. It lacks the heart that the movie had; the "Beyond My Wildest Dreams" scene has maids dressed up like chickens; and it replaced a wonderful musical on Broadway that I loved, 'Beauty and the Beast'. The only good that came out this show was that it was the big breakthrough for the wonderfully talented, Sierra Boggess.
I'm a fan of Steve Blanchard, so it'll be great to see him play King Triton. I saw Alan Mingo Jr. as Donkey in the national tour of 'Shrek the Musical' and he was very funny. I'm not really ecstatic about seeing Chelsea Morgan Stock as Ariel. When she performed "Part of Your World" at a bookstore and Broadway in Bryant Park, she pronounced her vowels wrong. She sung "barn" instead of "burn" and "tarn" instead of "turn".
The lip synching would be a necessary part of the staging to tell the story. If you and all the people over at all that chat (who I could care less about since I never post there) will get your panties in a bunch over it, then you could just easily find an actress to play (again the tiny role of) Vanessa who can sound close enough to the actress playing Ariel. Either of those two choices would be a HELL of a lot better than the lazy, uncreative, and frankly amateurish schlock that was written in it's place.
According to Wiki, Eric Kunze who plays Eric is 42/43- isn’t that a little old to be playing a young prince. I mean, no offense, and I know MANY actors play younger on stage, but still….
Can you please explain the problems with The Little Mermaid in detail? Because I personally liked the stage adaptation, and I'm curious to hear what all the problems that people had with it were.
Look at this (from Tuacahn) the show OPENS with The World Above! and they added deleted words for Eric in Fathoms Below! But please, Vanessa should be in the show!
This show can't be "fixed." The film wasn't mean't for the stage and the musical version of it was fairly painful to watch. Disney has some interesting properties that might make good stage adaptions but it didn't work here. Even if Vanessa was in it. Vanessa is a very good plot device in the movie but that's it. Her screen time and romance with Eric is seconds if I recall. She has one song which is used to remind the kids she's Ursula.
"not to mention the officials at AEA at the idea of making an actress on a Broadway stage lipsync almost an entire a t AND to the voice of another actress AND the ridiculous feedback and crazinesss should such a lengthy sequence fail in performance, grinding an entire act to a hailt."
I'm certain there are several fantastic theatrical tricks that could be employed here. Firstly, Vanessa only needs her "singing voice" which can be done off-stage by Ariel*. There have to be instances where doubles stood in while a performer worked off-stage. For some reason I'm thinking Shrek but I might be mistaken.
When Sherie Renee Scott was cast, I assumed they were going to have her play Vanessa..
Anyway the show is pretty much crap and brutal to watch regionally, it's a hit in Russia though I believe.
*or she can just repeat the same Part of Your World melody Ariel uses. For some odd reason all those girls in the "The Contest" know all know Ariel's song.
Updated On: 2/15/14 at 07:21 PM
"For some odd reason all those girls in the "The Contest" know all know Ariel's song. " What do you mean? They know the tune, but each of their lines are different.
I saw this last night, as well. I hadn't seen it on stage before and have only seen the movie once years ago.
Not surprisingly, this show was aimed squarely at the children. However, family shows usually try to include something to keep the adults interested as well, but this wasn't evident to me last night. It really came across to me as noisy and flashy.
As I don't have kids I had the luxury of leaving at intermission. I hit the men's room at intermission before leaving the theater and it was almost hysterical listening to all the father's there wishing the could leave as well.
The kids seemed to be enjoying it but as I left several were complaining that it was too long. I'm glad others seemed to enjoy it but it wasn't for me.
It sill annoyed me how the maids in Prince Eric's castle looked like half-people/half-chicken. The "feathers" were not as big as the Broadway ones and it get that they gossip during "Beyond My Wildest Dreams", but I still don't like it. Scuttle and Flounder's costumes were improvements from the Broadway show, but at times Scuttle's hair and make-up made him strangely look like Beetlejuice. Ariel also interestingly wears the same pink dress from her first night as a human when she dances at the contest for Prince Eric.