Profile for EricMontreal22

UWS10023 said: "There have been other Encore shows where leads have carried books and it has not faced as much criticism as this production seems to be getting on this board. So it makes me think that this is more about the production in general. I was thinking of getting a ticket but now I’m not so sure. I have a feeling I might be huffing and sighing through. It."I was gonna say--how quick we forget? Weren't a number of leads basically on book for the recent High Spirits?

darquegk said: "I think the elephant in the room with Chess is that nobody really reckons with the Brechtian element of the piece. The music is intensely passionate, while the lyrics themselves tend towards a sort of cold, analytic detachment. So much of it is about people analyzing and avoiding their feelings, with a weird gallic shrug to the whole thing. Meanwhile, the plot goes round in increasingly tight circles, sturm and drang that signifies very little on the personal or political scal...

I will just add when they made the announcement of the new Peter Jones musical project, I had hoped that it would be a recording of Peyton Place, a teenage obsession of mine and I really liked Blueyellow... And it was strange that they mentioned Mia's connection to the material, but never got her reaction (maybe she didn't give one given that she never talks about that early time in her career.)Speaking of, on social media, I won't say where, someone who is a big Woody Allen AND Sondheim fan,...

joevitus said: "I really appreciate that. But 1) isn't it odd that Milnesdoesn't take into account that when Sondheim says "A litte camp goes a long way" (I'm probably not getting thatquote exaclty right) might be referring to the American concept of camp and explain the discrepancy? Also, Milnescalls Beat the Devil "camp," which is just weird, in terms of either the American or British use of the term."I think the connection too is that obsessively loving Beat the Devil is camp, in and of it...

John Adams said: "TotallyEffed said: "Very harsh, indeed."As harsh as it may seem (or be), my objection to how Jones and Milnes have created this series is that they have inserted themselves into the podcast to a point where Sondheim too often shares lesser focus than the podcast's creators/narrators.."As I have said, I found that all interesting. I don't think we've ever disagreed on something so much, so I'm curious, how you would have preferred a podcast on Sondheim be formatted. They made...

I've been asked to interview Martin about the series, so I won't get to my main criticism... OK, I was never really comfortable with the re-enactments. In theory they make great sense and obviously a lot of work went into them--even some clever casting--but... (Especially when we heard a young Sondheim calling everything swell--admittedly a word his friends said he used an awful lot.) But like Someone in a Tree said: " Just listened to episode 12. Yes there's too much of Martin and Peter, yes...

And that was Rent Remixed which doesn't count at all. (I am a big Kylie Minogue fan, and loved the concerts William Baker conceived/directed for her with Steve Anderson doing the concert mixes of her songs. But how on Earth they were then able to do their first musical theatre piece--and it was a completely reworked Rent is beyond me. I do remember Luke Evans being pretty good--the cast in general wasn't the issue.)I saw Rent for the first time when I was 18 on a trip to London when I was liv...

g.d.e.l.g.i. said: "(Not that I'm arguing in favor of the plot. I'm unpopular in the Steinman fan community for being very vocal about not thinking it ever made sense, be it in 1969, 1977, 1994, or now, and that this particular version made the least sense even before they took a hatchet to it. But I do feel for the poor bastard, wherever he is now, to see what they've done to it.)"As a Steinman fan I of course too have listened to the bootlegs, and read the scripts of the earlier versions of...

bjh2114 said: "toetapper2 said: "Jasmin would be batter fit for Hallelujah Baby? Also she's not latin enough so that would disqualify her from Spider Woman."Ah yes... Vanessa Williams... famously Latin enough..."I mean the original production (over 30 years ago) in London and Broadway/tour also cast Bebe Neuwirth (who sold no tickets in London which caused the production to close earlier than expected soon after the main cast--including much of the chorus boys--moved to Broadway) and Carol La...

It's definitely overproduced, but it was a Ross Hunter production so... (The only other two musicals from him that I can think of are Thoroughly Modern Millie, a film I have a lot of affections for, and... Lost Horizon. At any rate, both overproduced of course.) And I do think it somehow emphasizes stereotypes that aren't in the original stage book. (There was that book that came out 15 or so years back about Flower Drum Song, Flower Drum Songs: The Story of Two Musicals by David Lewis that d...

There were more than just tweaks made to Hallelujah Baby in 2004--it was a much bigger revision than, say, the one Laurents and Sondheim had done to Do I Hear a Waltz a few years earlier (which WAS the version that Encores based their production on in that case.) Would Amanda Green need to get a credit for the revised version?

Also, after a quick glance through the video -- wow this is badly filmed.

Scarywarhol said: "I'm so thrilled about Kiss. I was kind of worried the film was gonna kill the show for the foreseeable future, now I get to actually move on instead."The current small UK tour of Kiss is getting good press (although I did find one positive review odd--they had a problem with the song My First Woman because it implied underage "sexual coercion..." Have we come to this??)

Well I was just going to reply to John Adams' longer reply to my earlier post, where I will kinda get to that ;) Although, wasn't Love Look Away a radio hit for... someone? Certainly my mom grew up not knowing the show, cast album, or movie (in Edmonton, Alberta) but the song had made a big impression on her from the radio and I remember when I was a teen she was happy when I found out what it was from, but of course that would have probably been the early 1960s (the website secondhandsongs, ...

EvanstonDad said: "Add me to the list of people who don't have a strong appetite for a revised version of "Flower Drum Song." I will say that I really like the cast recording of the revival though. However, what I really want is a complete recording of the original score like we've recently gotten for "Oklahoma!", "Carousel," and "My Fair Lady.""Yes please! I've only heard the "dream ballet" music for FDS one time and would love it to be recorded (the movie has a completely different "dream b...

With Flower Drum Song, Hammerstein's goal overall seemed to be to show that Chinese-Americans largely "are just like every American" and deal with the same desires and issues. (I guess this is clear in I Enjoy Being a Girl, which is hard to perform unless you play it as satire--and even the original did do this a *bit*--but really was about "look, she's just like every other American "girl".) And I think it's important to point out that the movie version actually adds back in some jokes and o...

DottieD'Luscia said: "Personally I liked its placement better in the first act (OBC). It's very anti-climatic in its present form. I've never liked Svetlana singing it. I forgot that it was in act 2 of the 1st national tour (which is probably my favorite production out of all the iterations of Chess that I've seen)."I don't think I've encountered anyone who would disagree with this.

Jordan Catalano said: "I forgot about that “Picnic” - a production I enjoyed.And yeah, Skipper was always around on that bare Almeida stage. It was AWFUL."Was just looking at reviews--instead of a large bed dominating the stage they had a... piano? Oy! (And apparently a jumbled script mixing together various different drafts and revisions. I admit, while nearly every revival now uses the 1974 final Williams script, I have been curious to see a production go back to the 1955 Kazan script--but ...

Jordan Catalano said: "I can’t imagine Gold would agree to do this play unless he has a “vision” for it and that terrifies me. After Rebecca Frecknall’s ridiculous production at the Almeida in 2024, the most radical thing a director could do is to just give us a good version of the play - no gimmicks in casting or set design. Just give us a good Tennessee Williams revival."Gold did do a production of Picnic (which now seems mostly remembered for Seb Stan's abs) that, though I didn't see it, s...

BrodyFosse123 said: "Again, though it’ll be almost 15 years between CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF revivals, it truly feels like it’s only been 5 years since the last one. Like GYPSY, this needs to be shelved for another 20-30 years and let it simmer before doing it again."As a huge Tennessee Williams fan, and a defender of some of his less popular work, I wish we would get a major revival of something besides his Big Three plays... In 2012 (it doesn't feel that long ago) I was lucky enough to be in C...