Pippin Tour?

[Jakeevan942]

The casting call went up last week-Pippin contracts run January-December of 2017, including sit-downs at both Prather dinner theaters, and the summer season touring in China.

They seem to have pulled the info from the audition about the Bridges Tour. Not sure if this means the tour was cancelled in the past week, or if they are doing auditions later.

[DAME]

So it is almost like they just bought the sets and costumes are are just doing their own thing?

[Jakeevan942]

It depends-If they are actually buying the tour set and costumes from the equity tour, I would assume that associates are going to be re-staging Paulus's direction. The casting call doesn't indicate director/choreographer, so it's going to be a bit of a waiting game.

[ACL2006]

the non-equity tour has been running for a month now, has anyone seen it?

[wicked4l]

The tour is COMPLETELY different from the scary trailer we saw a few months ago. They have the complete set from the Equity tour, all the costumes, Dianne Paulus' associate directed the tour and original choreographer Chett Walker choreographed the show. Should be very close to what we saw in 2013 and on the road.

[ACL2006]

thank you. looking to see this when it stops on New Brunswick, NJ in March.

[TheatreFan4]

Here's a video from the actual tour

 

The only thing that is bothering me is that Berthe is literally 25-30 years old



which just zaps... all of the magic of her trapeze act right out of the situation when you can tell the actress is absolutely not 60-70 like she's supposed to be. 

But besides that I'm looking forward to seeing it on the 28th.

[Call_me_jorge]

Here's a link: https://youtu.be/RStRcR9e2BY

[phan24]

Thanks for the link, this looks really good actually, aside from the young actor playing the King (I think Berthe passes fine for a young grandma). They're making justice to the original cast, would love to catch it around.

[PatrickDC]

Geezus...this has to be the most insane tour schedule ever, or certainly the most draining. Not just for the cast but for the crew who needs to strike, drive, install, test all the rigging, strike etc. Several one night performances in a row. 

Tours with crazy (to me) schedules like this fascinate me. I can't believe they'd pick a city that couldn't support at least 2 or 3 nights in the same town. Moving a show like Pippin (again, thinking of the rigging, it's not THE most intense show set-wise) every day for months on end seems like it would cost more hiring the crew so often. I don't understand the business of show. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Is it shocking to see a non-eq with that kind of schedule? Isn't this the norm?

[barbraboy19902]

I saw this in Columbus, GA a few weeks ago. It was incredible!! The guy who played Pippin (I believe his name was Naysh Fox) was perfect! 

[RippedMan]

For a non-eq tour that looks pretty darn close to the original. 

I did a 1 nighter type tour and it is rough. But most of the cast is fairly young and excited and in the grand scheme you're only working for 3 hours a day. The tech crew has it worst, but they usually get sleeper buses and then when the show is actually playing 1-3 nights they get some time off. 

[Jakeevan942]

PatrickDC said: "Geezus...this has to be the most insane tour schedule ever, or certainly the most draining. Not just for the cast but for the crew who needs to strike, drive, install, test all the rigging, strike etc. Several one night performances in a row. 

Tours with crazy (to me) schedules like this fascinate me. I can't believe they'd pick a city that couldn't support at least 2 or 3 nights in the same town. Moving a show like Pippin (again, thinking of the rigging, it's not THE most intense show set-wise) every day for months on end seems like it would cost more hiring the crew so often. I don't understand the business of show. 

This is totally the norm with non-equity bus and truck tours. They are designed to roll up to the venue for 8am, do the show at 8pm, tear down and be back on the road by 2am to arrive in the next city for 8am. The techs have a really difficult job, specially since half of the venues these tours get booked to can't fit the whole tour, and the crew need to decide what to keep and what to cut everyday.

The Pippin schedule isn't too terrible-There are only a few bad stretches of one-nighters-I've had friends on tours who have had to do 500 mile drives overnight, 13 one-nighters in a row with 7 time zone changes, and a week of venues where the stage manager had to call the show from the truck in the loading dock. I know the Annie Tour one week last season traveled 3000 miles in a week.

Prather actually seems to have done a really good job with this tour-I'll see it in a few weeks in New Jersey to know for certain.

 

"

 

[sbflyfan]

Saw this tour last night in Erie, PA, having previously seen its Equity counterpart in Pittsburgh and Cleveland.  The production is in great shape, although not as perfectly 'polished' as the Equity version was (but I think that works, in a way, considering what this traveling troupe of performers is supposed to be). 

Very strong cast. Housso Semon is the Leading Player with a commanding presence and solid voice. I didn't find myself distracted and worrying if the she'd be able to hit her notes, as I did when seeing Sasha Allen.  Naysh Fox plays up Pippin's awkwardness well and has a clear voice.  Savannah Sprinkle is quite a talent and working some magic as Catherine.  Her quite layered performance made the largest impression on me.  Really unfortunate that a cell phone went off during the silence before "I Guess I'll Miss The Man."

Since it was a one-nighter, they cut all aerial work, which was a huge disappointment since it was featured on the preview video a few posts up in this thread, and made me decide to attend.  Berthe's partner for the trapeze act just held her in his arms and flipped her around a bit with a lot of hamming.  This earned cheers and applause from the audience who for the most part probably didn't know what they were missing, but I thought the scene fell absolutely flat. I was concerned about the same thing happening to the staging of The Finale, but Pippin climbed up onto the railing of the on-stage balcony set piece instead of a trapeze, and that was effective enough.

Overall a nice way to experience this staging of the piece one more time.

[PatrickDC]

Well, that helps me understand the tour schedule that I posted about earlier. One-show stops don't give them enough time to carefully and safely install the rigging needed for a duplicate of the Broadway and Equity tour shows. And no time for the performers to rehearse and test them to ensure a degree of confidence when it's curtain up.