So Long, SOMETHING ROTTEN!

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 1:22pm

Something Rotten! plays its final performance on Broadway tomorrow, January 1, and in the veins of the Farewell Matilda and Fiddler threads, I think this show deserves a lovely sendoff, too.

I absolutely adored this show. It provided so many necessary deep belly laughs over the past year and a half. It opened during a season of tremendously important theatre, but this show sought to do nothing more than provide killer entertainment and tons of laughs—and it triumphed. I think its score is actually quite underrated, too, and I'll never forget the first time I saw "A Musical" in the St. James...and that standing ovation that immediately followed. Happy trails to everybody on the Rotten! team, and so very happy that the tour starts very soon!

[A Canadian in NYC]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 1:52pm

A very favourite of mine. It's a joy to go see a show that just makes you laugh from start to finish and you leave the theatre with a big grin on your face that lasts for days..  I very much look forward to seeing it on the road. Most eggcellent!

[ebontoyan]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 2:25pm

Loved this show! This was my best show of the 2014-15 season!!! Glad to have seen 2x with the original cast and the current cast and can't wait to see on tour. 

 

Updated On: 12/31/16 at 02:25 PM

[Jarethan]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 3:01pm

I loved the first act and enjoyed much of the second act, and I will always wonder whether they would have been better off not rushing it to Broadway like they did.  If they did not rush it, would they have been able to improve the second act, which just wasn't as good as the first.  Will never be answered, but I really think this should have run much more than 700ish performances.  I think it ran the most of any show that season, but it would have been a smash hit if the second act had been almost as good as the first.

Does anyone know whether it made back its investment?  I would assume that it will be successful on the road and in local productions for years to come.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 3:11pm

I do think they hurt themselves by cancelling the Seattle tryout. The show was very funny, but had some poor book scenes that were dreadful. The show could have been much better, almost up there with the Producers & Book of Mormon if the book got tweaked before arriving on Broadway.

[BroadwayMan5]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 3:46pm

I loved Something Rotten. Got to see it twice in NY, once with the original cast, and hope to catch it on tour. It's nice to have musicals that are just plain fun and this one was - funny script, clever concept, and show-stopping production numbers. "Welcome to the Renaissance" has become one of my regular songs I listen to. It will be missed but it had a nice run and was the longest lasting of the 2014-15 season!

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 4:36pm

The longest-running musical production from the 2014-15 season, the longest overall was actually The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 5:17pm

I'm glad this show employed so many and entertained other people (who were not me)!

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 5:22pm

While I am glad this show employed and entertained so many people, this was,  without a doubt, one of my least favorite shows of the last few years. I will see just about anything twice, but once was enough for this show. I do wish it well on tour, though.

[CassandraReads]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 5:46pm

I absolutely loved this show! I saw it 4 times, twice with the original cast and then twice with Adam as Shakespeare. It's smart, funny and entertaining. An English teacher/Broadway fan's dream! :) I loved it every single time and wish it the best of luck on tour!! 

[SarahNYC2]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 6:12pm

The week of Thanksgiving 2015 I was coming to the city. I lived all my life in NYC until 2013, and went to Broadway shows on a regular basis. My mom got us tickets to the show-she got some good deal and thought it sounded interesting. I am so glad she got tickets to the show-I just loved it!

[Skip23]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 7:11pm

This was a show that changed so much for the better in NYC. 

I saw the first preview and left scratching my head. Apart from "Welcome To The Renaissance" and "A Musical", none of the songs landed and the performances were competent, but charmless. And the second Act lost all the fizzle. 

I returned last week and what a difference!  

First of all, the show was tightened, including songs cut that didnt work.  But the biggest improvement was the new cast. You need comedians for these roles - not actors who deliver comic lines. Rob McClure and Josh Grisetti take the show to a whole new level. Dare I say - they landed their jokes like previous residents of the St James (The Producers). They were doing a cookin Borscht Belt show and that's exactly what was needed. Leslie Kritzer and Catherine Brunnel matched their energy and skill. The show now worked. 

Adam Pascal didnt quite fit in to this mayhem, but he wasnt fatal. His codpiece worked wonders on the audience's attention!

So - I'm SO glad I returned. ROTTEN was fresh as a daisy!  Best of luck on the road!

 

 

[10086sunset]

Posted: 12/31/16 at 9:38pm

LizzieCurry said: "I'm glad this show employed so many and entertained other people (who were not me)!"

 

I'm with Lizzie on this...

That said, did enjoy Josh Grisetti when seeing it recently...

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 1:03am

After seeing the Tony awards and watching "A Musical," I decided I HAD to see the show when I went to New York. I laughed my head off. My favorite piece of silliness (other than "A Musical" and Shakespeare's song about how difficult it is to be him) was Shylock's comment about how Shakespeare already promised to use his name in a play, and would make his character a "nice Jew." I hope to write a musical version of "The Merchant of Venice" from Shylock's point of view (a la "Wicked", and found this line hilarious.

Happy New Year everyone!

[ethan231h]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 1:13am

I enjoyed the show as a whole, with that said it was not funny. at all. all the jokes were corny and honestly it was really frustrating because there was so much they could've done with A Musical but they stuck to the usual Annie, Wicked jokes. My favorite one was with Ave Q, and that I was surprised they did! On another note, We See The Light is still one of my favorite musical theater songs in recent years! 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 11:34am

Jeffrey Karasarides said: "The longest-running musical production from the 2014-15 season, the longest overall was actually The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

 

Good catch...it is so rare for a drama to achieve that status that I never even focused on it.  Another distinction for that incredible production.

 

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 11:38am

Does anyone know if amateur rights are on the horizon? I can see the show being really popular with community theatres.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 11:41am

Probably not while there's a tour.

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 9:05pm

Would love to hear from anybody at the final show tonight!

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/1/17 at 11:17pm

Curtain call video: https://twitter.com/Jordan_Roth/status/815773547394203648

[HSky]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 12:29am

It felt fitting to see the closing performance after attending the first preview and multiple times in between. 

The audience greeted most entrances with applause and "A Musical" and "Something Rotten" had partial standing ovations (at least on the mezzanine level). 

There weren't any crazy ad-libs like when Brian d'Arcy James left, but the cast was being generous deflecting applause to each other at the end of songs. This was my first time seeing Leslie Kritzer as Bea, but I suspect she added on a riff or two.

My train is almost at its station but I'll add more when I get home.

Edited to add: 

The kisses seemed to be drawn out a bit longer, especially Josh Grisetti and Catherine Brunell after "We See the Light." They shared a kiss that was starting to get a tiny bit of applause because it felt longer than usual, and still got a second one in before Brother Jeremiah's entrance.

When Nigel and Portia first meet and Nick points to the old woman as the one Nigel is going to marry, it was one of the moments that milked the most applause. Rather than just do the reveal of the old woman and a slight twerk walking upstage, the twerk was prolonged then she started grabbing stuff off the produce cart and offering it to Portia.

During the tap battle just before Nick's final "Yes," Rob McClure put his right foot in the air, mimed having a string holding it up that was tied into a bow, then "cut" the string to drop his foot for the corresponding tap. It was my second time seeing him in the role and I admired how effortless his dancing looked throughout the show.

The curtain speeches were given by Brad Oscar and Karey Kirkpatrick, and apparently Brian d'Arcy James and Brooks Ashmanskas were among those in the orchestra audience. There was a nice surprise when Kirkpatrick indicated he thought John Cariani wasn't there because of The Band's Visit, then most of the cast gestured to the stage left side and he came onstage with Kate Reinders. The company members who were there for the entire run were highlighted, and they also brought the stage managers and many backstage crew onstage.

Besides the cast, John O'Farrell and the Kirkpatrick brothers, plus Cariani and Reinders, also made stage door appearances. 

 

 

Updated On: 1/2/17 at 12:29 AM

[JustAnotherNewYorker]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 12:39am

We were there tonight as well as at the Matilda final performance (a bit exhausting to the little one since we didn't really have time for dinner between the end of signing at Matilda and the opening at Something Rotten (at least there wasn't far to walk).

Both had speeches afterward. For Matilda it was a representative of RSC. For Something Rotten it was Brad Oscar followed by the authors. For SR, there's another 5 minutes of talking after the twitter video from Jordan Roth (posted above), including the comment immediately after it ended - something like "He seems to have a lot of time on his hands. Shouldn't he be getting ready to run the country""

Matilda, as far as I can tell (having seen it only once) followed the script, and while there was some applause as each new actor entered, the show didn't seem to stop. 

I may be off on this, and it may also be because we had much better seats for SR and because I know SR a bit better, but SR was a totally different experience. There was a bunch of [small] ad-lib, mugging for the audience, drawn out moments, and there was a couple times after numbers where the audience stopped the show with a standing ovation. The audience at SR seemed to be filled with devotees [as well as some of the creative talent]. Really special experience.

SR even had a group of...well groupies called the "Rotten Squad" that had t-shift made. When we passed the theater at 11:30 (after dinner) they were still there signing each other's "yearbooks" (snapshots books some had printed) and hanging out. If you are out there members of Rotten Squad, it was wonderful talking to you.

-edited to remove smiley faces it adds for every closing parenthesis

Updated On: 1/2/17 at 12:39 AM

[StephieElise]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 7:55am

This was actually the first show that I wanted to see on my recent New York trip and I'm so so glad I got to see it! I thought it was absolutely brilliant and a show that I think basically anyone could enjoy - funny and witty but not too crass and reliant on shock value. I can't wait for it to come Down Under - I can see our audiences loving it!

[Nycat63]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 10:38am

Alex Kulak2 said: "Does anyone know if amateur rights are on the horizon? I can see the show being really popular with community theatres.

 

"Actually I was surprised by this because of the tour but at stage door in November I believe Leslie Kritzer said the rights were being released shortly so "look for. It at a high school near you"!

 

[A1st]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 11:33am

Full Curtain call video!

http://www.facebook.com/vivalavida11/posts/1680870235271719