If you are able, make sure to see "Significant Other" before its closing-date of April 23. It contains two performances worthy of Tony WINS -- Gideon Glick and Lindsay Mendez -- and a third, Barbara Barrie, worthy of the nomination. Yet unfortunately its closing a week from tomorrow. When looking at the box office numbers, it is by all means a "flop." Opening March 2 and closing April 23 isn't good for any show, unless it's a very limited engagement. However, money and "business" aside, it will remain one of the best plays I saw this season.
It makes me wonder what other shows have flopped commercially yet were high-quality productions that just unfortunately went overlooked. I didn't see either, but both "American Psycho" and "Bright Star" seemed to be the "Significant Other"-casualties of last season. What other productions would you add to the list?
Numbers-wise, "A Doll's House, Part 2" has me very nervous. I plan to see it in May if it survives that long. The reviews in its thread are some of the most unanimously enthusiastic and glowing comments I've ever seen on BroadwayWorld.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
There are many shows I've loved over the years that I don't think got their due on Broadway. The Scottsboro Boys is one. Amour is another. Of course, so many of these shows probably would have been better served back in the days when commercial Off Broadway productions were still viable. But alas.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
You can drive yourself nuts playing "if only" when you think about how careers turned because a show closed early. Example: Jay Armstrong Johnson was scheduled to take over as Jack Kelly when Newsies went to Broadway, but Bonnie and Clyde closed early and Jeremy Jordan became available. And if Johnson had been in Newsies, it's unlikely that he would have left as early as Jordan did, and the opportunity would not have opened up for Corey Cott. All talented folks, who no doubt would have (or did) find success elsewhere, but their careers would have been quite different.
One issue with Significant Other is that Isherwood was its champion Off-Broadway; he was no longer around once it transferred, and Brantley didn't like it as much.
But does anybody else feel that Significant Other would have had a better chance had it re-opened Off-Broadway rather than transferred to Broadway?
I thought about mentioning that one. It is, after all, a quality show that should have stayed on way past its closing-date. But I don't feel everything was done efficiently behind the scenes. Yes, Audra McDonald became pregnant but replacements were in place. And then it just seemed to get canned out of nowhere.
There's a lot we don't know re the insurance, etc. However, I think Shuffle Along -- in addition to Waitress -- could have also survived the Hamilton season, with or without Audra. Furthermore, in no way should this show have ended without an OBC Recording -- You don't cast Audra McDonald in a musical and not have a recording; it just doesn't make sense. This shall remain a show that had a great final product but a clustered behind-the-scenes.
Didn't mean to turn it into yet another Shuffle Along discussion. The shows I'm thinking of are ones that did everything right -- script, casting, accessible, etc -- and remain a production for which producers, authors, etc. should remain proud.
All shows that I think were very well done but just simply couldn't find an audience or came at the wrong timing. Parade I think would do great in this year. Bridges could have had some changes to the book but I think would have been better had it opened several years prior. And Psycho I believe was ahead of its time.
Did you actually see it? I did, and it was awful, agonizing to sit through. The audience hated the show from the beginning, barely applauded at the curtain call. Sonddheim's score was eventually vindicated, but the book was flawed and it was the worst direction in Harold Prince's resume.
I went with five other people...every single one hated it...that is why a Sondheim / Princeshow only ran for 16 performances...other than the score, there was NO quality, and people hated it so much, they didn't even 'hear' the score.
MrPeach said: "It makes me wonder what other shows have flopped commercially yet were high-quality productions that just unfortunately went overlooked. I didn't see either, but both "American Psycho" and "Bright Star" seemed to be the "Significant Other"-casualties of last season. What other productions would you add to the list?"
I saw them both. If we're talking high-quality compared to the best of the musicals on Broadway? No. If you mean about on par with Significant Other? Sure. By that metric, In Transit is high quality. That's not a knock on it. It's got a talented cast, relatively professional direction, and decent material. But by that metric only things like On Your Feet, etc. aren't high-quality.
I saw BRIDGES in LA and even without O'Hara and Pasquale it was an extraordinarily moving evening in the theater. I have no idea why it didn't run, given the star wattage of the original, unless the public was just tired of the story.
But I think SCOTTSBORO BOYS has quite a bit in common with MERRILY: both prove the old adage that while people may come out whistling the tunes, a musical rises or falls because of its book. Both scores are exquisite, but the books don't really work (for different reasons).
The Student Gypsy, Darling of the Day, and Georgy were delightful musicals with wonderful scores that closed far too quickly. They were twenty-eight zillion and ten times better than the drab, insufferable, tuneless mega-bores that receive critical praise, tons of undeserved awards, and cause untold misery to theatregoers everywhere.