Profile for EricMontreal22

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "

Movie adaptations like THE BODYGUARD and FLASHDANCE went straight to touring. LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE also toured but didn't go to Broadway. A show premiering in Canada vs a U.S. regional vs London doesn'treallymatter."

Right--both Six and Hadestown played in not Calgary but Edmonton, Alberta, on the way to Broadway.

 

fashionguru_23 said: "

To be honest, I loved "One Song" for the Prince. Does he sing in the film?"

One Song is so underrated I think--just simply gorgeous, although it's also the biggest throwback to the hit Romberg/Hammerstein operettas (Desert Song, New Moon) from a decade before--of course while Broadway had moved away from operetta, Disney was smart and there was a big flux of interest in it in Hollywood at this time.

 

Reading about this makes me think about the 1957 minor Broadway hit Say, Darling, which was a play with music, based on Richard Bissell's semi-fictional memoir about his experiences having his book 7 1/2 Cents adapted into a musical--The Pajama Game. 

From Wiki:

" While the play featured nine original songs with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne, all the songs are presented as either rehearsal or audition material."

Obscure reference, and likely not one anyone involved was thinking of, but...

I think I joined the first time in 2006, though this account stems from 2011 (but by then I had already left Montreal though used basically my old screen name.)

Menken Fan said:

Spoiler…

darquegk said: "Part of me wonders if this is an intentional coyote. A film made at great expense, with the intent to can it and ultimately profit from the write-offs."

I mean is that common with indie films like this that seem to be passion projects for all involved?

That linked post mostly just seems MAD that a musical premiered at Sundance (and they even admit they have no real source for the 60m price tag)

 

Lower tier K&E for me would be like, Woman of the Year or something...  I really put this--well at least in their top five.

But yeah, that Hal Prince production was truly incredible--though I saw the tour back when I was 13, images from it have really stayed with me.  Jerome Sirlin's designs too, including his projections which was an element I had never seen at that point (he doesn't seem to have a ton of credits in commercial theatre though he did do the projections for the original James Lapine directed Berlin Hunchback of Notre Dame which was known for its projections.)  And for all his awfulness, thank God Garth Drabinsky saw the ridiculously wrong headed Purchase production and, despite everyone else thinking it was completely DOA, and the foresight to tell them he wanted them to take an entirely different approach.

Speaking of that 1990 production, there's an interesting A&E Arts segment about it with some clips.  I love how Prince wants to point out how it will still have pretty showgirls, etc, and for all they talk about the project they seem to avoid using the word "gay" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqyV_WTKt20

Ah so now we know two of the songs taken from the Purchase version...  Never You and Everyday Man (which is a perfectly fine but pretty unexceptional pastiche number.)  Curious if there is actually a third...

For anyone interested, I found the interview I was talking about--part of the series Elliot Norton Reviews (he's an...interesting interviewer but man he got a LOT of great theatre people on his show.)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oQB5iBcvGg

For the Purchase production Never You was actually sung by the character Valentin plays in the movie within the musical to Aurora in Act II, so I guess it was slightly repurposed from the demo, but it absolutely has been performed (by Kevin Gray) and was written for Spider Woman, though at least at the performance that a live audio was taken from, it's cut short.

ljay889 said: "“ “I thought they had written this specifically for Kiss of the Spider Woman, but what he did was a deep dive into all the Kander and Ebb songs that they wrote that had never been heard and never been used. He found ‘Never You’ and put it in [the film], which was my favorite song. Oh my God — it’s such a beautiful song.” Being the first performer to sing it on screen came with a “huge responsibility,” said Lopez, who revealed that Kander joined her in the studio when she recorded it. “It was amazing because he was sitting there — he is 97 years old — and I didn’t think he would come to the pre-records or any of the filming. He was just in tears listening to me sing, and it was just amazing. I couldn’t believe my life at that moment. It was a dream.” “

Thanks for this!  Funny enough, just last weekend I was listening to the 2 disc Harbinger release John Kander Hidden Treasures, which is brilliant--as long as you're ok with listening to almost entirely demos sung by the composers (there are a handful of tracks sung by different recognizable performers, including most interestingly, five from The Skin of Our Teeth.)  Anyway, Never You is one of two Kiss of the Spider Woman demos on it (the other is the campy Man Overboard which I am pretty sure is on my audio of the Purchase version.)  In the notes it's said that it was written for when Valentin starts to become suspicious of Molina, and in reply Molina sings the song, so I'm 99.9% that it was indeed written for Spider Woman, but I can't really fault JLo for thinking otherwise.

*edit* OH and I double checked and Never You IS in Act II of my audio of the Purchase version (John Rubinstein, who was Molina sings it) so there's at least one of our Purchase songs.

Here's the Harbinger CD of Kander Hidden Treasures disc https://castalbums.org/r30251




 

thinton said: "I spoke with the music producer, MattSullivan, at the premiere carpet on Sunday, and he said that three songs were "resurrected" from Purchase. More info is in my story here: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Jennifer-Lopez-Bill-Condon-More-Talk-KISS-OF-THE-SPIDER-WOMAN-at-Sundance-World-Premiere-20250128."

Thanks for pointing me towards your piece--great read!

OK, I know the Purchase score and changes relatively well, so now I'm curious, especially since no one has mentioned this.  Of course it doesn't mean three complete numbers have been used from Purchase, but...

 

Also, one of the reviews, I can't remember which since they're all now a blur to me, claimed that a couple of songs in the film were songs that were cut before opening of the musical.  I mean there's a lot of material (especially from the movie within the musical) that was cut between the Purchase original and the eventual Livent version of the show, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess this was just the reviewer being wrong?