broadwayboy223 said: "Translation: "I'm a horrible director and didnt know how to stage the last scene""
You can disagree with the choice, and you can even say he should not have ben allowed to make the choice. but declaring Jack O'Brien a "horrible director" seems patently silly and uncalled for. He's had a distinguished 40 year career directing everything from Stoppard to Shakespeare to Hairspray, and often (Inventi
The Beaumont could well be right. The August Wilson is very deep because it was originally built by The Theatre Guild to hang multiple plays in repertory.
Many years ago the house manager of the Shubert in Los Angeles told me that a couple had sought him out at intermission, and, after identifying him, fell to their knees and prayed for his soul that he would present anything as sinful and morally deficient as A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. Nice to know nothing's changed.
About 600 performances for Sarafina. I don't believe The Cort makes flops, though a lot of flops have played there. And I don't believe that The Prom would be playing there if they had better options. But in the end, if the show works, the audience will find it. No theater, including The Cort was any more snakebit than The Nederlander until the night Rent opened there. And in the '60s the Winter Garden had a string of flops I'll never forget -- All American, Sophie, Nowhere to
No mention at all of SMOKEY JOE'S CAFE which, in some ways, started the trend with old rock after AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' kind set the tone for high quality with early jazz. I'm a fan of both, and neither has a spoken word. Well, that's not strictly true, the latter has one short speech before the finale.
Not in the sense that something like The Lion King is. It's a very homemade (or seems very homemade) spectacle, but with set pieces that are truly amazing -- especially one involving sheets of newspapers. Nothing mechanical or Broadway-like, but unique and dazzling in a more European way.
It's a great big phantasmagoria of all the troubles in the world, not, in my opinion, one of Mnouchkine's greater works, and very long indeed, but with four or five amazing passages. If you've not seen her work, it's definitely worth becoming familiar with her, but you have to know what you're in for -- a long, crazy, discursive piece, with as much that is unique and amazing as there is that is didactic and disappointing. Still...it's Mnouchkine, and she's on
TheaterMe said: "They added reprises of all the songs at the end of the 2nd Act. I loved that. If only to hear Kelli O'Hara and Patrick Wilson's voices just a bit more than expected."
Those reprises are in the original script, not added for this production. And they can be glorious fun.
henrikegerman said: "The problem with FOLLIES for me has always been that when the characters sing they are vivid, individuated, and fascinating but when they talk they are almost always blandly pretentious.
Interesting. The problem with FOLLIES for me is that I don't get to see the original production of it every damn day of my life. It was crushing, and one of the most profound experiences I've ever had in the theatre, which includes a long list, f
Daly definitely came back. She closed the show at the St. James, as I recall, and moved with it to the Marquis where it ran about three months. Whether this made the difference between profit and loss I don't know, but the production toured quite extensively before it opened, and recouped a lot of its investment prior to the Broadway run. Daly was devastating in that show.
No production can fully do justice to the text -- that's one of the things that make it so great to see many, many productions as you go through a theatergoing life. Each company and director sets out to scale an impossible mountain. Those that come close are world champions, but I don't believe anyone has ever gotten it all -- probably not even in Shakespeare's time. The greatest Hamlet I ever saw was Nicol Williamson. Or at least I believe that to be true, but its all in me
Having watched Dorothy Collins play Sally about a dozen times both during the Boston tryout and on Broadway, I have to say I have never seen anyone else come close -- and certainly not Bernadette Peters, who is terrific in the right role. But Collins may not have even completely understood the subtext of what she was singing completely -- she was just so naturally tragic that it tore your heart out. Someone -- some critic -- described the casting as "cruel" and that seems right to m
Margo319 said: I'm surprised they just let him out of something he already committed to to do that play. His voice is wasted on a play, but that is beside the point.
I seriously doubt they "just let him out" of Brigadoon. I imagine his agent called City Center and said that he got cast in a play at a Tony-eligible theater for a higher salary and a longer run and he's pulling out. Not much City Center can do about that -- it happens from time to t
