BE MORE CHILL (Broadway) Previews

[Klubby]

I was thinking about swinging by to see if there were any rush tickets available this late in the day...on a Friday. Am I crazy? Anyone else grab tickets for tonight this late in the day?

[Impossible2]

ACL2006 said: "Surprised this isn't selling better. Lots of available seats this weekend. It's up at TKTS for tonight and tomorrow's matinee at 50% off. Did all of its fans see it Off-Broadway?"

It's the new Torch Song.

[bk]

"On one side of me there was a fan dressed in one of the character’s costumes who screamed, hooted, hollered and sobbed through the whole thing (it seemed to be about making it all about herself than anything else)"

And there you have the reason I dread going to see certain types of shows, these people who make it all about themselves, these screaming, whooping people - I mean it's awful.  I saw the tour of Hello, Dolly the other night.  The audience reaction was so refreshing, much like audiences of my formative theatergoing years - big applause when it was earned, great laughs, but aside from the usual cheer for the title song, no whooping and hollering and oversized reactions - having seen the videos of Ms. Midler and THOSE audiences, I am so happy I saw this tour with this particular audience.  

And I'm sure this particular show really brings out the people who identify with every single second of it, i.e. screaming, whooping and hollering, sobbing mid-teens.

[Impossible2]

bk said: ""having seen the videos of Ms. Midler and THOSE audiences, I am so happy I saw this tour with this particular audience.

"

I literally wanted to jump out of my seat and start punching people when I saw it.

The fake over reactions were as nauseating as Midler 'performance'...

[RWPrincess]

I’m seeing Alice By Heart matinee tomorrow and it’s supposed to be decent weather. I may just try to rush this when I get to the city early afternoon.

For those who have seen this, is Michael In The Bathroom done center stage? If I get a partial view seat, I’d like to know I can at least see this song in full view.

[getupngo]

RWPrincess said: "I’m seeing Alice By Heart matinee tomorrow and it’s supposed to be decent weather. I may just try to rush this when I get to the city early afternoon.

For those who have seen this, is Michael In The Bathroom done center stage? If I get a partial view seat, I’d like to know I can at least see this song in full view."

yes. him and the bathtub are front and center for 95% of the song. theres a few bits when he walks up stage, but for a few moments only. the only thing you might miss if you're far house left is the people knocking on the bathroom "door"

[dearalanaaaa]

Ah, the power of fandom. Time for a youth perspective. Mostly a ramble, but covers some key things about the fanbase, why kids are into the show, history with it, and why I personally will not see it on Broadway. Skip if that sounds boring, but bold stuff might be worth a skim.

So I got into this show in January 2017. Back then, it was just a cast recording and a script. Alright. There was a community built around fanart, fan pages, lots of stuff to support the show. A lot of the cast would interact, everybody was very sweet, and all in all, nobody did much harm. Come May 2017, the community around the show had grown massive, they would be on Tumblr fandometrics and everything else. Shipping was rampant. Many fans (including myself) would travel to see shows the cast was in. The rights for the show were also released around this era (??) if I'm not mistaken.

I fell out with this show in September 2017. The fandom was awful, I'd been bullied on several occasions surrounding the show, and I'd listened to some other amazing shows that this one could never live up to. I deleted most of my connections to the show or renamed them, and that was that. The soundtrack sounded worse and worse the more it was replayed. Seeing myself reflected wasn't enough anymore.

March 2018, the off-broadway revival was announced. It had been a while, but I gave it a shot off-Broadway by buying a ticket in April 2018 for the first off-Broadway preview, and on 7/26/18 I saw it off-Broadway. It was nice seeing it on stage (especially with Salazar, Roland, and Hsu, all of which I'd seen in their other shows before seeing this one, and Roland remembered me) but at the same time probably one of my worst theatre experiences. Outside of the cast, I didn't enjoy the show or the content. The songs were atrocious, especially the new ones. 

Hearing it had gotten transferred to Broadway wasn't surprising. Obviously, the Tumblr fans boosted it there. The plethora of Instagram fan pages in my explore exploded. So many people wanted to see it but were too far from NYC. Those who could see it saw it multiple times. They experienced the same feeling I had in 2017; except now en masse. There are pages that have been running since 2017 solely off of Salazar or BMC content with thousands of followers. Pages are created every day as well.

It's seen now with many teens like myself are posing that exact issue with the show. It's already on TKTs, they don't want it to close since they're too far, and even if it sold out off-Broadway, the house is 3x bigger on Broadway. It might have sold out off-Broadway, but even if EVERYBODY who saw it off-broadway saw it twice on Broadway, it couldn't last more than 6-7 months. Of course not everybody is, and new people will see it, but this still stands in general.

The fans will keep it running is my prediction. As long as they can see it, it'll stay open. They will bleed money for the fans. And Tumblr will get them on Fandometrics again this year. But lots of fans will leave. Its peak was May to September of 2018, and it's already losing fans due to the fanbase. Quite ironic.

People on Tumblr make guides on how to be an audience member  for people seeing this show. And the audience was awful off-Broadway with only 300 people, so I couldn't imagine how bad it will be with 950 people. Not that you shouldn't see it because of the audience, but I certainly am not. Maybe it's better? Maybe it's worse. Either way, Be More Chill has been built off of fans since day one. No wonder it's on broadway, but it never would've gotten there based off the content of the show alone.

I don't know where I was going with this, but if you read this all, I hope you're a bit more educated on BMC. And If not? At least you read it.

Also quick question about the show on Broadway: Is it true there's lots of fanfare to the Chloe/Jenna and Rich/Michael shippers? Because if so, that just furthers my point of how the rise of this show will become its fall.

[Scarlet Leigh]

ACL2006 said: "Surprised this isn't selling better. Lots of available seats this weekend. It's up at TKTS for tonight and tomorrow's matinee at 50% off. Did all of its fans see it Off-Broadway?"

I'm not. I had said from the start on this one that they have made the show inaccessible to their loyal fans and target demo due to the significantly higher Broadway price tag. This will be a discount ticket darling as the only way the teens that have gotten them here and they are catering to can afford to attend it. I will not be shocked to see high capacity numbers in grosses but low profit numbers as most their seats at this point are going to be sold via TKTS.

I have come into this with a pretty negative opinion of it, but I was willing to hear what Whizzer thought of if. If by some SMALL chance they gave it praise, I was gonna attempt to sit through it but as I thought, looks like a hard pass. Thanks as always for being a super voice of the people Whizzer. You saved me from spending money on this one.

[WhizzerMarvin]

A friend who is at the show tonight just sent me a photo of the call board and George Salazar is out. That’s got to be scary for the understudy to go on so early in previews!

[herewegoabc]

Wow, I wonder what happened to make him call out already. Hope he gets better quickly. Luckily, they have the same (plus some new) understudies from off-Broadway, so that's probably easier.

[CedricOates]

The person covering George is Troy Iwata. He covered Michael off broadway. So I’m sure he knows the role at least 80% thought he might need to use a script at times.

[CedricOates]

Duplicate 

[Lifesmellsweird]

CedricOates said: "The person covering George is Troy Iwata. He covered Michael off broadway. So I’m sure he knows the role at least 80% thought he might need to use a script at times. "

Troy is excellent in the role. He’ll nail it. Gorgeous voice and he knows the part. He went on for George many times at the Signature.

[herewegoabc]

From his Instagram, it looks like George will be out a few days on vocal rest.

I enjoyed this show off-Broadway, and I'm looking forward to seeing it in a couple of months. I'm happy for this cast and the rest of their team because the amount of love they have for this show is off the charts. I'm sure this feels like a dream come true for them, so I hope they do well.

[supersam1026]

Was there last night and Salazar's voice was in ROUGH shape. He definitely had quite a bit of trouble getting through "Michael in the Bathroom", but he still made it through the whole show. 

[Kad]

While not sold out, the show is decently sold through at least the end of March (the latest I looked on Telecharge). But from the get-go, I had qualms about how this was going to parlay a very young internet fandom into consistent ticketbuyers.

[Scarlet Leigh]

Salazar is the new Broadway.com Vlogger so I'm sure we will hear more about his vocal rest when the next episode drops. I gotta say this though, as wild and crazy as the stans of this one are, I dared to go to the #bemorechill hashtag on twitter and like 99% of the fans are SUPER happy for Troy and are super supportive. Many are even lamenting that they can't be there to see him in the role. I give the over zealous fans of this one thing.... they are supportive of the show as a whole and that includes every last cast member including the understudies and the swings. You would not see this kind of support for most other shows these days when and understudy goes on for likely the single most beloved actor and character in the show.

[Jakeevan942]

I know that Troy went on for George off Broadway at least once, so he should have a decent grasp on the material, even this early in the run.

[YvanEhtNioj]

I’m going to see it tonight and I’m pretty excited.

I got a rush to get this morning. Arrived at the theater at like 10:05 and there were about 20 people in line. My seat is orchestra row F, obstructed view. There was one lady saying that her seat was in the balcony somewhere..

I thought it was kind of odd that there was not a long line or anything when I arrived since it’s a Saturday and I was expecting a ton of kids Waiting to get cheap tickets

[boonanas]

I saw it last night with no prior knowledge and I found it to be a bit... much. There are some scenes that there's just a lot happening which I found hard to follow. There are two mean girl characters that look similar but the ability to tell them apart is a crucial part of the story. However, I enjoyed the songs and the overall concept is pretty interesting. I would love to see a movie made with this concept.

[YvanEhtNioj]

Just left the show. Based on things I read here, I expected to see nothing but kids and their parents but the crowd was a really good mix. I sat next to a stan who wouldn't stfu, though. She knew every word, every dance move, etc..

Act 1 is way too long. They should cut that "Sync Up" song. Looking around the audience, I could tell most people had the same reaction (checking watches, looking bored, etc..).

To my surprise I actually really enjoyed it. Yeah, it was cheesy and a little much at points but some of the songs are really well written. Obviously "Michael in The Bathroom" but "a guy that id kinda be into" are "do you wanna ride" stuck in my head. "Smartphone hour" got a LONG applause.

George was out, but Troy was really good. Finally, Tiffany Mann..oh my damn. I have a feeling she could be the shows breakout star. I can't remember what part of the show, but she hit belt after belt and the audience lost it.

Fun night out.

[RWPrincess]

How bad was your obstructed view in Row F?

[YvanEhtNioj]

RWPrincess said: "How bad was your obstructed view in Row F?"

When I walked in, this woman saw I was alone and asked me to switch with her friend so they could be together. It was a rush ticket for row B, and it was "obstructed" but totally fine. Didn't miss anything. Same with F. Even though I didn't see the show from that seat, I could tell I wouldn't have missed anything  

[RWPrincess]

YvanEhtNioj said: "RWPrincess said: "How bad was your obstructed view in Row F?"

When I walked in, this woman saw I was alone and asked me to switch with her friend so they could be together. It was a rush ticket for row B, and it was "obstructed" but totally fine. Didn't miss anything. Same with F. Even though I didn't see the show from that seat, I could tell I wouldn't have missed anything"

Thanks for the info! I was hoping to rush today but was feeling tired after my matinee so I didn't try. But I will try next month.

 

[swingmode]

I think it's interesting to see how "fandom" or "stan culture" is beginning to play a role in broadway (or, arguably, less of a role than people assume it would). 

For example, you have shows like HP where a large part of the young, internet fanbase kind of rejected the script when it first came out. But the show itself is thriving and has no end in sight.

Or situations like Cody Simpson replacing Zach Adkins from Anastasia, where stan twitter was literally trying to hold boycotts. But yet he's drawing in a large chunk of the audience every night. 

Then you have shows like BMC that have a huge internet fanbase but are struggling. 

Stan twitter and tumblr's opinions don't seem to be nearly as significant as they think they are. 

That said, I do plan to give the show a chance and this isn't hate toward the show itself. I've listened to the cast recording and most of it's pretty meh, but there are definitely a few numbers that I think would be worth it to see live alone. But I do think this shows fanbase is actually hurting it more than helping it.