They Had No Money In The Budget For A Set

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 1:21pm

Finian's Rainbow. Liked the show but loathed the set. Looks like they got it at a 99 cent store.

Updated On: 12/5/09 at 01:21 PM

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 1:24pm

Ok

[rmusic11322]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 1:54pm

when i frist read the subject title, i thought it was about spider man

[allofmylife]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 2:15pm

I always thought the same thing about the original Shenandoah. High school musical sets.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 2:37pm

None of the revivals of this season have had a great set yet...

Bye Bye Birdie
Finian's Rainbow
Ragtime
A Little Night Music

La Cage will be another cheap Chocolate Factory set. So it looks like it's up to Promises, Promises.

[TheatreFreak05]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 3:35pm

I think the set for Ragtime is spectacular!

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 4:06pm

Yes. So lavish!

It's a minimal set of scaffolding. It works for the production. But it's nothing special. Just like the sets of the other revivals.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 4:18pm

Derek McLane can be quite genius when he sets his mind to it. RAGTIME is no exception. I thought his work for the Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival, with the exception of ALNM, was quite excellent. SUNDAY actually had my favorite design of any production of the show I have seen. SWEENEY, while more controversial, was quite effective and interesting as well. And COMPANY had one of the most unique designs I've seen (love the forced perspective-from-skyscraper-ledge concept).

But, yes, ljay is right, this has been a particularly crappy year for sets on Bway.

I'm sure Tsypin will not disappoint with SPIDERMAN and I am ready to drool all over the LND set if it comes anywhere near the concept and execution of it that I have heard about. That being said, Tsypin did MERMAID and Crowley did TARZAN so I am holding my breath a bit.

P

[Smaxie]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 4:27pm

>La Cage will be another cheap Chocolate Factory set.<

Although it's an intimate La Cage compared to the two Broadway productions, it does have sets that look like sets. It has the apartment, Chez Jacqueline, that promenade where "Song on the Sand" takes place, set pieces for all of the Zaza and Cagelles numbers and the staircase for the finale. I expected much less set than what that production actually gives you.

[singtopher]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 4:47pm

Though it didn't do Ragtime any favors by the sound of things, maybe producers were being more frugal given the economic climate.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 4:52pm

So....we're not talking about the Mendes GYPSY?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 5:20pm

Dare I say it but the original Ragtime should have won over Lion King

Lion King was great & was an event but Ragtime had it beat especially in the score & book department.

I think minimalist sets & smaller orchestras will be the norm now & not the exception. I remember shows that had real sets starting with the Original Follies.

Updated On: 12/5/09 at 05:20 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 7:54pm

I sometimes wonder if any of you have actually seen these shows of just looked at pictures?

I have to admit a bit of bias: Scenery doesn't generally do it for me. Give me a minimalist staging like GRAND HOTEL over needlessly elaborate sets any day.

I may sound like I don't want elaborate scenery, and that isn't really the case. What I resent is producers spending extra $ on scenery and effects to justify jacking up ticket prices, instead of getting the writers to improve the underlying shows.

FINIAN'S RAINBOW - every scene but one in each act take place in "The Meetin' Place in Rainbow Valley." In the original the other scenes would have been played in front of a downstage drop or curtain - a typical conceit of 1940's musicals. The set for the current revival serves the story-telling well and allows the action to move expediently from one scene to the next. It also provides multiple playing levels which are used to great effect in the larger chorus numbers.

RAGTIME - Once again the current set serves the story telling beautifully. It gave the show the epic look it needed, without overpowering us. Again I liked how the different levels were used, and to watch Coalhouse's frantic journey from top to bottom as he rushes to Sarah when she is beaten was a

I should add that I do not feel the original was grossly overstated at all. The sets were very well thought out to communicate information expediently: the series of gates coming down further and further downstage as the immigrants made their way through each level of immigration bureaucracy; The bridge on which Henry Ford appeared slowly lowering and almost crushing his robotic factory workers below. Or Evelyn Nesbit's Vaudeville swing suddenly becoming a regular swing the little boy is on in the backyard of the New Rochelle House. Ok, maybe the fireworks and pinwheels going off in the finale were a bit much, but after all Father owns a fireworks factory.


MEMPHIS - Here's where a designer gets carried away..the radio studio constantly popping up out of the stage becomes a distraction (making a re-design necessary for touring) and it doesn't serve the story at all. (The gimmick of Perry Como popping up out of the stage in the record store was cute, but again needless. There are other ways that bit could be staged for later tours.)

BYE BYE BIRDIE - I keep remembering the 1991 Tommy Tune tour which used variations of the original designs (and re-created Gower Champion's brilliant staging of "The Telephone Hour") and had a look to it that recalled Archie comic books. It served the show the reminding us that this is a comic-book musical. Very little of that comes through in this new staging.

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 7:56pm

"I sometimes wonder if any of you have actually seen these shows of just looked at pictures? "

I've seen Finian's Rainbow, Ragtime, Birdie, Memphis, and Night Music.
Thank you.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:01pm

Finians was a cheapo ugly set

Sorry but they are the facts.

[Q]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:05pm

Just a thought - could Finian's have actually been striving for a harkening back to 'sets of yore', as the piece itself is?

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:06pm

Mr Roxy, I am surprised that YOU cannot differentiate between a FACT and an OPINION.

Again I ask - Have you even seen this production?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:08pm

A set doesn't have to be lavish and extravagant to be great, or even beautiful.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:18pm

could Finian's have actually been striving for a harkening back to 'sets of yore', as the piece itself is?

Indeed it could. There are not a lot of pictures of the full stage set of the 1947 production, but one that was used on the original 78-RPM album of FINIAN's shows one massive tree stage left, with limbs climbing towards the proscenium. This probably explains why most of the scenes take place in the one setting.

Even so, why would anyone go to see a show like this for the scenery alone? The score and the story are the core of FINIAN'S RAINBOW.

[alterego]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:27pm

MR ROXY, I too remember when shows had real sets AND more importantly, full orchestras. Ah, happy days.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:35pm

To a poster above who asked if I saw it

The answer is Yes & I still do not like the set. If you do, great.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:46pm

Fine..you don't like the set. That is your opinion, and it is as valid as anyone's opinion.

But you wrote: >Finians was a cheapo ugly set Sorry but they are the facts."

No, This is not a fact. This is your opinion.

For myself, they could have played the exact same show on a bare stage against a painted backdrop, and it still would have worked for me. The book (sensibly trimmed), the effervescent score, the entire cast and the wonderful orchestra made it an absolute delight. As I wrote above, I do not go to see scenery I go to see shows.

But that is just MY opinion.

[sidneybruhl]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:47pm

Not saying that the set for "Finian's Rainbow" overwhelmed me, but I don't go to shows for the set. The PRODUCTION was awesome, and that's all that matters to me. I left the theater humming the songs and would gladly pony up the money to see this great revival of a forgotten gem a second time!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 8:49pm

I did love the show but IMO the set did not do it for me.

[Gavin Rehfeldt]

Posted: 12/5/09 at 9:01pm

I would love to see FR bad sets or no. It's just such delightful satire. Addam's Family has gorgeous sets, but the thin story is weighed down by them. I would sacrifice those complex set pieces for a more challenging, enriching work of theater.