Profile for DeNada

I'll most likely never see this show, but having enjoyed pretty much everything I'd heard from the score previously Superpower feels sonically out of a different show entirely - like a cut song from The Wedding Singer. Not a fan.

jimmycurry01 said: "Your average audience member won't recognize Levy as having any star power. We aren't average audience members; she may be an amazing star to us, but to the average audience member,her star poweris no different than that of the 13th replacement for Elphaba in Wicked, whom the average audience member is just as impressed with."Which is another reason why I don't think Levy would get cast in Paddington, to be honest. She's just won a Tony and has led several major Broadway (...

Jordan Catalano said: "The character of Mrs. Brown needs to completely exude warmth, love and kindness. It’s a tough role to cast and there’s something about Levy that just makes me think she could be perfect for it."While I agree that Levy would probably do a good job in the role, I also think it would be a bit of a waste of Levy's talents and star power. Your average audience member isn't walking out of Paddington thinking about Zap Bam Pow and its slightly forced lyrics, or basically anyth...

Having only watched the (in my opinion, pretty terrible) film recently, there's only one bit of "flying" in what I presume is the second act of the stage show anyway, isn't there - when the vampires attack the family home at the end (and even then in the film they just use crane shots to do it). I can see why, if they're beholden to that story structure, there isn't much else to see.

Timon3 said: "Some of Harry PotterThe Woman in White"Did SFP produce Woman in White on Broadway? I thought that would be have been a Really Useful Group joint, but more fool me. Given that the production starred her sister and two American actresses from back in the days when the Equity exchange system still operated, that was canny (Michael Ball wasn't the original Fosco, of course).Potter is a better example, I think, and fair enough.

Well, Sonia Friedman most likely holds affection for her husband, even if frankly no-one cares who plays Mr Brown... where have you got the idea that she transfers casts from, though? Oedipus's leads played Broadway but otherwise the cast was pretty different, and Kenrex is entirely built around its star, the Merrily revival was not only ten years after its London run but with an understandably totally different cast... I'm really struggling to think of examples of this, even going back a dec...

inlovewithjerryherman said: "I loved Paddington and I loved this cast. But I doubt we’ll see many of the cast transfer, outside of Hameed and Shah."Why on earth would they transfer? Finding a sweet-voiced tenor who can do the accent shouldn't be too hard, and denying American performers who could play Paddington the opportunity would be a terrible PR move IMO. If anyone transfers, it'll be Edden (Tony nominee and an expert at what he does) and Adrian der Gregorian because he's married to the ...

Interesting - Jamie Wilson, not Cameron Mackintosh, co-producing this time.Not sure this is a sound idea. The original London run went for four years, true, but made very little money during that time, and lots of the tickets sold were £25 or so which would be almost unthinkable now. It's also done the rounds on tour and had quite a few amateur productions. Good luck to them, I guess? It's a fun show.

Kuhn doesn't sing them "in legit soprano" either, despite being able to, because this is not a legit soprano role. Of the many, many people I've heard sing Florence's songs in various different languages, other than Kuhn I'm not sure any of the actresses I've heard COULD sing soprano.I suppose Kuhn barely ever sings in straight tone, while Michele certainly does - but then so do most of the women who have played Florence.Don't get me wrong - I don't think Michele is as good at conveying actin...

Interesting that the only original cast member not mentioned here is Hunter Foster, who's presumably off directing something in December given how busy he seems to be. Wonder who will be playing Bud? Foster's performance in the original production was fine but not exactly striking.To hear O'Hara and Pasquale soar through their songs in this again live is an unmissable opportunity, even though the rest of the show is almost entirely superfluous. I've only been to Broadway once in my life (sham...

Oh dear. Not the orchestration I was hoping for. Why are the lovely woodwind lines for "and if that girl I knew should ask my advice..." buried behind the awful twangy electric piano? They could at least have resurrected the 80s synths. Maybe it'll be better in the theatre.Not a fan of the interpretation; feels like a pop song being sung rather than with any feeling. The two great interpreters of this song - Judy Kuhn and Helen Sjoholm - give performances that I feel have greater emotional tr...

GirlFromOz68 said: "when I worked that out i was shocked given its been given to Svetlana in so many productions since the Broadway production where it was written for Judy Kuhn, which makes me wonder what if any solo Svetlana will have."The last production of Chess I saw was at the ENO, and they gave Svetlana BOTH Someone Else's Story and He Is A Man, He Is A Child, which was a song added to the show for the Swedish production in the early 00s (it's only an "okay" song, really). Maybe that's...

spicemonkey said: "Producers would have to hire more u/s or standbys just for her as she’s always having legitimate reasons to miss shows."Is this still the case? Obviously when she really badly damaged her neck in Into The Woods it massively affected Wedding Singer, but I don't recall her having widely reported attendance issues in Women On The Verge, She Loves Me, My Fair Lady, Gypsy, her straight play performances etc.

I believe the Equity arrangement still stands about exchanging casts unless there's a particular skillset or celebrity level (i.e. one man show/star vehicle) that precludes it - hence why Rachel Zegler and two unknown Americans play the leads in EVITA (Aaron Lee Lambert is also American but has been in the UK for years), presumably balancing out the three Brits without international standing in principal roles in SUNSET (Scherzinger I think has international star status in a way Zegler doesn'...

Jordan Catalano said: "I’m going to write this here (in all seriousness)in hopes that someone involved with the show sees it.Hi, “Evita” team (Jamie Lloyd). If you do end up taking the St. James, please understand the sightlines in that theater are probably the worst of any Broadway theater. I know in “Evita”, your set extends out and several key moments take place with an actor sitting on or laying near the foot of the stage. This will be 100% blocked for the majority of people in the mezz a...

The West End board was never popular here; the Whatsonstage forums (which then became Theatreboard) were always more active, and although these are basically 15 year old memories at this point there was at least one relatively toxic poster here on BWW who dominated West End discussion to an irritating degree. Theatreboard is really very active and the quality of posting is generally very high.

mrshowbiz90210 said: "Thanks Carlos!! What a gift for linguistics. I am the not miserable , I guess I would be if I was a BOOP investor or someone invested in a studio recording of a flop."Investing in a cast recording might be a bit of a long term game here. Lots of not that great shows have lives in licensing for secondary and amateur markets; many of the things that detract from BOOP as a whole (most of the subplots) might be quite a nice selling point to amateur casts wanting to cast broa...

The only thing really specifically British about it is/are the accents and some of the quaintness of the small town characters (who only really appear as "characters" in two songs and probably aren't even that big of a deal). You could probably just do it without the accents if you were worried about people penetrating the Cornish/West Country voices.I saw this on Tuesday night. It was fine, and moving in that it's a show where some people die so unless it's Gatsby comically flopping onto a c...

Georgeanddot2 said: "It's interesting and pretty sad that Corden was at one time considered a pretty major upcoming talent. He used to be pretty great before he crossed the pond and got chewed up and spit out by Hollywood."Corden blotted his copybook long before any form of US "stardom"; there was a period in the late 2000s where he was massively overexposed on British television/film in a series of terrible projects, he gave a number of graceless interviews, and had a very well-publicised bu...

GirlFromOz68 said: "Them there is Benny's beautiful orchestrations I don't think Benny has ever orchestrated Chess; I think Anders Eljas has orchestrated basically every major production of the show ever. Fun fact - Anders Eljas also was one of the orchestrators for Carrie (I'd love to know which bits - did he do the incredible bombastic orchestrations for Eve Was Weak, or was that Michael Starobin?). Every time he re-orchestrates the show he does something newly horrific to Someone Else's St...