leap of faith- Page 3

[newintown]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:07am

I have to agree - the best musicals ever written were created relatively quickly, compared to today's decade-plus-long gestation time. Look at Memphis - that simple-minded piece of nonsensical fluff took TEN YEARS to create?!?

Sometimes, you just have to know what you're doing and do it, otherwise, you're just shooting in the dark. You might make a hit, but you've done it accidentally, and where's the pride of accomplishment in that?

If this sloppy show hasn't been made good in 8 years, it's never going to made good, all wild optimism (or even realistic optimism) aside.

[Yero my Hero]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:29am

To Yero: Yes, they did all that - and? Here we are. You basically have the same show with some different songs in act one, a framing device which is as silly as the Agnes de Mille dancing in LA, and, from all I've read, not much different in tone and plot and point. That, to me, is bubble gum and spit. I could write a lot more, but you get the drift.

Like I said, you may not like the show, but they have attempted to make major changes to fix it. If your problem is the plot and the tone, then it sounds like there are no changes they could have made, short of abandoning the project, that would make you happy. When you have a story, particularly when it is an adaptation of an existing story, you are drawn to that story for a reason, and you want to make THAT story. Not another story that might work better onstage. You can ask whether it was a good idea to musicalize this story, but once they chose it, this is the story, for better or worse.

[massofmen]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:31am

it took 7 years for Piazza. it took 1 year for Good Vibrations. whats your point? it took 5 years for urinetown.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:40am

Yes, they did all that - and? Here we are.

Are we once again pretending that somehow there weren't a plethora of flops in the good old days? That back then, every show that had a tryout either succeeded or went through major changes and was a hit or an artistic triumph? Or is it that everything should be produced today as it was then and we should simply ignore that the world (including Broadway, its audiences, technology, society, and communication) has changed drastically?

Sometimes shows work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes new marketing techniques are deployed (just like in the sacred Golden Age). Same as always.

Look at Memphis - that simple-minded piece of nonsensical fluff took TEN YEARS to create?!?

Look at Wise Guys/Gold/Bounce/Road Show. Twelve years since the first workshop, and four productions and God knows how many workshops, readings, etc. later, it still sucks.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:42am

I don't know where you get your info for Piazza, but Guettel and Lucas began collaborating on it in fall of 2001 and it played its first production in June 2003 in more or less the same version that came to Lincoln Center. 7 years is way wrong.

If you feel like identifying any other exceptions, feel free - it's still redundant when you think of the number of great shows that went on into rehearsals unfinished and opened as hits less than a year later.

There's no substitute for just being good at your job.

"Look at Wise Guys/Gold/Bounce/Road Show. Twelve years since the first workshop, and four productions and God knows how many workshops, readings, etc. later, it still sucks."

I agree. SS should have dumped that project long ago.

No writer, producer, or director is infallible; sometimes you have a great project that bombs because of the wrong actor or theatre or timing; sometimes you have what seems a great idea that you just can't whip into shape. But it always helps to hire people who know what they're doing. I liked Side Man, but that doesn't mean I think Warren Leight knows how to write the book to a musical (particularly after seeing Mayor decades ago...). After seeing Leap, and reading about it's earlier incarnation, one can't help feeling there's a sense of desperate shooting in the dark going on.


Updated On: 4/20/12 at 10:42 AM

[bk]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 1:34pm

Yero, I have no problem with any story well told. Leap of Faith was a middling film that did middling business - that, of course, is part of the problem. Con men have been part of what I consider two classic musicals - one original, one an adaptation that got everything right - The Music Man and 110 in the Shade. The latter had a few out-of-town woes to contend with and I am intimately knowledgeable about how those woes were addressed - and what part Mr. Merrick played in addressing them. You, of course, only address the points of my post you think you can address, while ignoring the rest. But, you know, I'm not exactly the only one saying these things. I have watched the reading and workshop process devolve into something that, in fact, has harmed much more than it has helped. What Mr. Bennett began has been so subverted and perverted it is truly mind-boggling.

Why do you suppose that a show like Suessical or Sweet Smell of Success comes out of their final workshop phase with the greatest buzz in the history of mankind - two cannot fail shows that opened out of town to scathing reaction from critics and public. How did that happen? Where was the disconnect. Could it have been that they invited all their pals to the workshop, all friendly faces, who then clap people on the back, tell them it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, overreact to everything, and then tell the creators not to change a thing. There is a now famous (to me anyway) moment of Menken tweeting after coming out of the last workshop for this show saying how great it was and how all problems were solved. You see the problem, I'm sure.

The problem is, which of the, what, thirty people above the title on this show, is actually going to speak to the creatives in a strong, meaningful way that will actually cause the creatives to listen. I keep bringing up Merrick because whatever one thought of him, he was a PRODUCER. When something wasn't working he insisted - didn't ask but insisted - something be done about it. Sometimes the something worked, sometimes not, and when it didn't he was one of the most responsible producers who ever lived - he closed the show - sometimes on the road, sometimes in previews, sometimes after one performance.

You can please point out to me where I've ignored the fact that there were always flops. I think I probably know a little bit more about musical theatre flops than you :)

[bk]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 1:36pm

"I don't know where you get your info for Piazza, but Guettel and Lucas began collaborating on it in fall of 2001 and it played its first production in June 2003 in more or less the same version that came to Lincoln Center. 7 years is way wrong."

Sadly, it's the Internet and people just post what they want. Facts don't really enter into it, but I'm glad you, for one, have them at your fingertips and can set the record straight.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 3:01pm

"Finally, if an audience member's comments are silly, of course they are going to be of limited values to the producers; but that doesn't mean that in any audience there aren't people - from all over - who might have something of value to offer."

henrik, as a veteran of too many after-show audience critique sessions, I can promise you that very, VERY few people--whether theater vets or "civilians"--can articulate their view of a show as clearly as you can. And very, VERY few have the experience or training to identify a show's problems in one sitting and offer constructive ways to fix them. (That's probably why the same handful of names (Neil Simon, Jerome Robbins, Hal Prince) keep turning up in stories about Broadway show "doctors".)

That's not to say preview and out-of-town audiences have nothing to offer; but it's usually their behavior as a group during the show that is most helpful: where they laugh, where they don't, where they get restless, etc.

Aside from that, individual comments are sometimes revealing but, in my experience, shouldn't be taken too literally. When egghumor's mother said THE PIANO had "too much mud", she may have thought that she meant it literally. But I suspect she was really saying (whether she knew it or not) that the plot was too grim and gritty for her taste. So even the "silly comments" may have value if one is able to decipher them.

But assembling a focus group of consumers and then taking their suggestions literally is madness. That ballad they thought they hated in Act II may well become a standard when the leading lady gets the right costume.

[massofmen]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 4:59pm

from what i heard Guettal (sp?) was working on before the collaboration began with Lucas. Composers cna work on a show before a book writer comes on board. So i wouldn't say I am that far off. Unless either of us knows either one personally maybe we can both be a little right and a little wrong/ :)

[DaveyG]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 5:42pm

Yes, I believe that Guettel worked separately with Alfred Uhry and Arthur Laurents on "Piazza" before proceeding with Craig Lucas.

[DaveyG]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 5:42pm

Updated On: 4/20/12 at 05:42 PM

[bk]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 6:25pm

"That's not to say preview and out-of-town audiences have nothing to offer; but it's usually their behavior as a group during the show that is most helpful: where they laugh, where they don't, where they get restless, etc."

To paraphrase a currently running bit of fluff - Now. Hear. This.

[massofmen]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 11:57am

finebydesign,
Book of mormon did their show in a vaccum and it worked out pretty well. no out of town, :) maybe some creatives and producers know what they are doing and some don't

[roadmixer]

Posted: 4/21/12 at 1:07pm

Was that a Hoover or one of those new-fangled Dyson vacuums?

[kevin5]

Posted: 4/23/12 at 6:38pm

I saw Jim and Judy at this production, they gave it a standing ovation. they also were seen, I mean heard, opening their soda cans and crinkling their candy when their cell phones were not going off. Oh and Jim's hearing aid caused interfearance with his listening device so I could follow the hummmmmmmmmm sound to see where they were sitting. remember when the theater was considered refined.

[kevin5]

Posted: 4/23/12 at 6:40pm

thats because broadway puts money ahead of artistic merit. do shows really need to bring in 1 million dollars a week

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 4/23/12 at 7:49pm

Will the show change the landscape of musical theatre? No way, but given the utter crap on Broadway, this show is thoroughly enjoyable. And the fact that people here are treating those who liked it (and gave it standing ovations) like rude tourists who know nothing about theatre, is disgusting. In the words of the bitchy diva herself-- "Who do you think you are?!?!?!"

[ChildrenwillListen]

Posted: 4/23/12 at 8:33pm

Gee I was wondering if I wanted to see it or not for my birthday. Now I'm not so sure. I'm trying to decide what I would like to see. I do want to see something new.

[egghumor]

Posted: 4/23/12 at 8:38pm

ChildrenWillListen, somewhere in some thread (I truly can't remember) aposter stated that they talked to Tommy Tune recently and that he had urged them to see ONCE. Director-choreographer-performer Tommy Tune gave me some of the greatest theater-going experiences of my life (I saw lots of his shows). Any show he would personally recommend would be the one I would definitely see.

[ChildrenwillListen]

Posted: 4/23/12 at 9:21pm

Yeah ONCE was my other option. I'm considering it. My birthday isn't until August but I always see a show and I am usually one to plan ahead.

[jwsel]

Posted: 4/24/12 at 2:47am

They replaced the director, recast the lead actress, cut a major character, added another one, brought in a new book writer, rewrote a bunch of new songs, and added a brand new framing device. How is that bubble gum and spit? You may not like the changes they made, but how can you deny that they did, in fact, make major changes based on what didn't work in California?

What's interesting to me is that, after seeing LoF in Los Angeles, the changes I've heard described are mostly not ones that I think were needed. Frankly, I don't think the LA production was nearly as big a disaster as people think and the changes were a huge overreaction. The show didn't need a framing device, a complete overhaul to the book, rewriting the characters, and tons of new songs. They needed to cut the ballet choreography for the townspeople, which just seemed pretentious and out-of-place. The book needed to be revised to make the final act less obvious. And they probably needed to add a song or two to make the music a little less repetitive (though I loved the gospel-inspired numbers). Recasting Brook Shields' role was necessary, but combining that character with the sheriff was a big mistake, imo. Without the male sheriff, Kendra Kassenbaum's character has little to do and I suspect the female sheriff falling for Jonas seems pretty inexplicable considering she is supposed to know that he is a fraud.

I get the sense that the producers panicked after the response in LA, but the changes actually make the show sound a lot worse than what I saw.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/24/12 at 2:59am

Of course it's probably not true, but so often when shows get pretty major overhauls it seems like they end up fixing what doesn't need fixing...

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/24/12 at 5:56am

Auggh...why do all these post show up center aligned? Very hard to read!

[Tom5]

Posted: 4/24/12 at 8:16am

"Leap..." had three great things going for it: Raul Esparza, the music (check out his performance of "Step Into The Light") and Brooke Shields who is a bona fide star and really lit up the stage with her presence. Yes, her singing wasn't the best, but neither was the singing of Rex Harrison. If the producers want to save the show they will need to get her back.

[Hest882]

Posted: 4/24/12 at 6:40pm

Jwsel, actually, speaking as someone who saw the show in LA and just saw it last week...I think you'll find that most of the changes you thought they needed to make were made. I was surprised at how light the framing device actually was after everything I read here. The opening frame works fine and I'm not sure how much was cut by the time I saw it, but there were a few bits during the show (that, because they were so short and light mostly kept them from being too cloying) and no closing frame at the end.

As for the Jessica sheriff character, in the context of the show it actually makes sense. She's definitely a savvier character than the LA Brooke waitress, and---without revealing too many spoilers---her relationship with Raul makes more sense because it starts out more directly.

And as someone who definitely has a problem with the cloying, the ending is now stripped of what you'd complained about.

I still don't think it's a life-changing show, by any means, but I was pleasantly surprised by how entertained I was this time around compared to how annoying I found a number of parts in the LA show. It's a tighter and more believable book in many ways. If someone is just going to have a good time, without deeper expectations, I think he or she will find it quite enjoyable. My husband, who doesn't have the Raul bias I do and really hated the LA show, said this one was exponentially better.