Holiday Inn Previews

[Keiichi2]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 4:06am

Holiday Inn has its first preview tomorrow night, September 1st.  Looking forward to this production, and hope the word of mouth is good.

 

I'll be seeing this as my first show on my fall theater trip, November 15th. 

 

So, who will be seeing the first preview?

[10086sunset]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 5:58am

Going Thursday night and looking forward to it...

[nolanativeny]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 9:35am

I'll be there Thursday as well. This will be my first first preview!

[freewilma]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 10:26am

Going on Sunday!  

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 10:33am

Any reports from dressed rehearsal?

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 3:19pm

I've been loving Corbin's blog! Which I only found out he even had one yesterday.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 8/31/16 at 7:48pm

Seeing it tomorrow night.

[10086sunset]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:07am

I was told the run time is 2 hours, 30 minutes with the standard 15 minute intermission...

[starcatchers]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:48am

I'll be there tonight! 

[freewilma]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 9:17pm

Looking forward to reports from tonight!

[nolanativeny]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 9:23pm

At intermission now and I think it's in great shape. The jump rope tap dancing sequence is spectacular! Will post complete thoughts later. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 10:42pm

My God, that was glorious. Hands down, it's my favorite show playing on Broadway right now. 

[nolanativeny]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 10:55pm

I thought it was fantastic. The ensemble is such a talented group of people. They sound great, they dance great, anytime with them on was a delight. The jump rope sequence is by and large the highlight of act I and received the most applause. Bryce Pinkham is a delight and this score fits perfectly with the timbre of his voice. I'm not sure if act II dragged or if I was getting antsy in the notorious lack of leg room in the mezzanine. There was a technical bit with pyrotechnics that didn't quite work but I'm sure they'll fix it. There was a video bit that felt a little ham handed and was probably my least favorite part. But overall I thought it was wonderful.

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:33pm

So happy to read the good preview reports, so far. I'm not completely up on this show, but could it be an open-ended run, or is this considered a "seasonal" show. Original motion picture encapsulated many holidays, but today I think "holiday" just screams "Christmas!!"

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:35pm

It's not a Christmas show. There's a big scene that takes place at christmas, but it's not a "holiday show".

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:37pm

Thanks, Jordan. Glad it is sticking more to the source material.

[10086sunset]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:38pm

The show is better than I expected...Just a true pleasure and joy to watch... 

Corbin Bleu is phenomenal. He steals this show. It's a true star making turn...

Updated On: 9/2/16 at 11:38 PM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:44pm

I was at the first preview of White Christmas, err Holiday Inn, as well, and I was considerably less impressed it seems than some of my fellow board members. The book and rehashed story are a near total mess, and the songs, pulled from many Berlin sources, feel like the warmed over hit parades we've heard so many times with the Gershwin jukebox musicals of late.  The book in particular somehow succeeds at being paradoxically the height of cornball hokum and leaden drudgery. The plot follows basically the same story as the White Christmas that graced Broadway twice in the past decade. Farm is in trouble; bills haven't been paid; performers come to the rescue and save the place just in time; (slight) romantic entanglements ensue; girl goes off to make it big (NYC in White Christmas, Hollywood in Holiday Inn).

The songs at least mostly fit the characters in White Christmas, which isn't always the case here. For example, Megan Lawrence, who plays Louise, a weathered New England fix-it farmhand who has lived on the farm for the past 30 years starts singing Shakin' the Blues Away- yes the same one Ann Miller sang Easter Parade- and it's completely ridiculous. "There's an old superstition, way down South," the song begins...what the hell does this character know about old superstitions way down South?? Old revivals way down South, voodoo- all while dancing around in tin pail shoes. This is the very definition of camp. 

Likewise, Lora Lee Gayer, who plays Linda, is introduced to us by earnestly singing a brassy version of Marching Along With Time. But from what we later learn of the character this seems completely out of sync with the rest of her life. Are we to believe she was just putting on brave front when singing this song? Well, it's tough to establish that a character is lying to herself (and others) when we don't know her yet, so the number doesn't really work no matter which way you try to rationalize its existence. 

A third busted use of a number was the (usually) delightful Lovely Day Today from Call Me Madam, a song that is supposed to used to let a couple fall in love, be twisted rather unnaturally into a song about breaking up. This reminded of the Clear Day revival when they tried to make Wait Till We're Sixty-Five a courtship number, rather than the number that helps wake Daisy up. Lovely Day Today should be the song Pinkham and Gayer sing upon first meeting- not Marching Along With Time. The latter should actually be the song Sikora sings when breaking up with Pinkham!

At least Gayer and Bryce Pinkham has outline sketches of characters to work with. Poor Corbin Bleu- an affable performer- is given precious little to work with. Barely a book scene in act one, and some rather perplexing plot developments in act two. The love triangle is so nonexistent that any who will she end up with is completely missing. 

The dancing is mostly good- the Fourth of July sequence had some technical difficulties and I think it threw Bleu off- but honestly the big productions in White Christmas were far more wowing. It makes it especially hard not compare the two when Blue Skies is supposed to be one of the biggest production numbers in both shows. 

Megan Sikora essentially disappears for all of act two after playing a fairly prominent role in act one. It's a weird part- she's supposed to be talented, but she's dumb? A gold digger and fame whore, but someone Pinkham's character originally proposes to and thinks would like to settle down on a farm in Connecticut? How could Pinkham know the woman he's worked with for years and claims he loves so little? Are we to believe he's that much for a clueless moron? Or has she been stringing him along, waiting for her big break to ditch him? Very problematic. 

The most disheartening thing about the evening is wondering why Roundabout is even putting this on in the first place. Since they rely on grants and donations more than ticket sales to keep running should they be taking bigger risks than staging an obvious holiday cash grab? And by taking risk I'm not talking about transferring some esoteric off-Broadway show that played at The Flea, but mounting things like Drood and 20th Century that wouldn't have a shot at a commercial run otherwise. Roundabout excels at these things, as we've seen the past few seasons. Holiday Inn would have done just fine as the Christmas show this year in a commercial Broadway house. A real wasted opportunity to do something great. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:50pm

Well, I disagree with basically every word of that lol

[10086sunset]

Posted: 9/1/16 at 11:50pm

Whizzer, 

Did you feel like there was too much Louise? 

While I largely enjoyed the show, I did feel like they went to the well too many times with the character...

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/2/16 at 12:00am

I didn't feel like there was necessarily too much Louise, but sometimes she was improperly used and many of her bits fell flat. Stuff like going to grab the fruit cake barely got a laugh and ended up being more awkward than funny. Maybe something like that will be tightened, but really you could just cut that fruit cake bit. Instead of her interrupting the kiss, just have Linda pull away and say, "It's getting late; I need to go." 

The movie, which this production only very loosely follows, is only 1 hour and 40 minutes. The show ended at 10:30 tonight, so they've obviously padded the rather thin plot to begin with a lot. 

Jordan, 

Did you really think Bleu had a well-defined character to work with? You don't think they should have given him and Lila a book scene in act one while they were on the road? Were we supposed to believe that they were lovers? They both claimed they were single at the radio broadcast. Why did he show up drunk at the Holiday Inn, disrupting everything at the end of act one? What happened to their successful Vegas act? Why wouldn't he want to try out Hollywood with Lila, who was clearly a superior dancer and already becoming famous? Were we supposed to believe he had actually fallen in love with Linda? I never did for a second. Convention tells us he should end up (romantically) with Lila, but their relationship was never really established  None of this stuff bugged you? 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/2/16 at 12:05am

You know, none of that bothered me. And I think it's because I gave myself over to watching a 1940's style show and just fell in love with all the cheesy-ness and "problems" that a modern audience would have with that. 

[wolfwriter2]

Posted: 9/2/16 at 12:12am

I saw this tonight, as well, and would have left at intermission if I had been alone (numerous empty seats near us after intermission). This is a long mess of a production that left me wondering why Roundabout was mounting this, in the first place.

I can only echo much of what Whizzer has said. The cast is game and tries hard to breathe life into this, but when I thought 90 minutes of the first act had passed, it was only 30.

I knew I was in trouble, when halfway through the first act, I started to think about the previous tenant of the rundown and increasingly decrepit Studio54. She Loves Me was such pure delight that it only made Holiday Inn's shortcomings, that much more noticeable. 

The songs, which, of course, do nothing to advance the plot, are great Irving Berlin classics, but, as Whizzer said, many of them are wasted or given to the wrong character. I have never been a Bryce Pinkham fan and this did nothing to change that. He was fine, but nothing more. I felt bad for Corbin Bleu. He's a talented guy, but he had nothing to work with. His re-appearance in the second act seemed so odd, to me, that I thought I had momentarily dozed (I didn't). By the end, the "who gets whom" and "ends up where" didn't really matter, wasn't earned and pretty much makes no sense.

I was really looking forward to this and am very disappointed that this misfire is all Roundabout could produce.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 9/2/16 at 12:18am

I know what you're saying, but I think a show can still be "cheesy," romantic, silly and frothy and yet still be well-crafted. They don't need to go into Tom Stoppard level of character detail, but there should at least be something for the audience to hold onto. A simple question like did Ted (Bleu) and Lila have a romantic relationship while on the road in act one should be an easy one to answer and it's not. Jim blames Ted for stealing Lila away, but in reality he did nothing of the kind. She wanted fame and not a life on the farm- Ted had nothing to do with it. Jim's anger would actually make more sense if at the radio broadcast Ted and Lila announced they were engaged. Then Ted could stumble in drunk at the end of act one, angry that Lila dumped him in hopes of making it as a solo star in Hollywood and he could earnestly fall for Linda, thus creating a love triangle in act two. 

I mean these are simple, easy fixes that will elevate the narrative to a level of making a modicum of sense!

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 9/2/16 at 12:26am

From what people are saying it sounds like it didn't change much from the run at Goodspeed. I loved it there. Will have to see it here.