Profile for speedjeans

Can anyone recall a sequel to a sung-through (or for that matter any sung-through show) that didn't have major book problems?

Tony, I remember a piece of incidental music from the staging at St. Anne'e for "Brief Encounter, suing by a tenor, I think, called "Johnny Go Slowly". I haven't been able to track it down anywhere. Do you recall the song or know anything about it. Regards, John

Good point. My belief is people are starting to get that newspapers have agendas (even concerning the arts) and the people have caught on. Sondheim, good; LLoyd-Webber, bad. Just look what's going on at the Met right now: "The Revelation" of the season is a dissonant Kafka-like nightmare called "The Nose". Check out the reviews:They're boffo. Then check out the plot. My guess is a lot of people will read them, think "This is just a little to out there for me" and go--because it has struck a c...

The paradox, Neal1lb" is that the reviews are quite clearly mixed--almost schizophrenically so--and yet, reading some of the posts here, with their Cherrypicked, "And Variety panned it also", you would think the consensus was it is a bad show. One would think the diverse opinions would make the show seem more compelling to see so the theatergoer could decide the matter for his or herself. Not surprisingly, there are some here who will let Brantley make that call for them. I wonder how many pe...

1995 was 15 years ago--which for all practical purposes might as well have been in the 16th century. The fact that people do go to a show or not go to a show based on the comments of individuals who squat on "yelp" does not in any way mitigate my curiosity as to why one would. Then, of course, perhaps I put more stock in my own affinities or aversions than concensus. Something interests me or it doesn't. It's immediate and visceral. I saw 30 seconds of Jeff Bridges in a trailer long before th...

"The Times review is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time." Maybe you need to read more.

So, Holbee, the reviews of some of the world's toughest critics are in, they're mixed, and like almost every show, some major pub, swings a few standard deviations from the mean, and one is to take YOUR singular opinion as spot on? As far as Brantley goes, the Times Theater reviews have become as irrelevant as their op-eds. In the end, audiences decide. The great era of "poison pens" like Frank Rich and John Simon is dead. Hits and flops are created in cyberpace by millions of anonymous entit...

Best12, if the history of film, literature, music, and theater has taught us nothing else it's that there are rarely works insulated from the most harsh, generally subjective, and not infrequently, passive-aggressive assaults of the critic. Oliver Sacks, the prolific neurologist in the current issue of "Brain" has a fascinating piece on music. One observation stands out: "The emotional response to music can be unbelievably complex and mysterious and deep. You can be sort of agonized, sort of ...

Shad, Eventually people not particularly keen on the concert are going to have to come to terms with a simple fact: Benny and Bjorn have transcended the limits of being what many consider peddlers of tripe pop to international cultural icons. The last numbers I saw put the Mamma Mia! DVD as Amazon U.K's biggest selling product surpassing heavyweights such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Dark Knight. Let that soak in for a second. A movie considered by a large assortment of critics ...

Not knowing you at all, I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you pointing me in the direction of a favorite blog of yours--or might this be some sort of trip to the woodshed? It wouldn't seem that it is any way associated with that comprehensively obscure quote you find somehow compelling from Winston 89 or have I stumbled on an embarrassing irony: you find the quotes of others superfluous but your own pithy. Of course, now I see it: you are one of those people who curl up with the ...

If this is your first time seeing it the seats don't really matter. The show has so much energy when it kicks in that you could be knocked on your butt if you had a seat in Bryant Park.

Shad, I'm not entirely a stranger to you. I saw your vid of Guldet Blev Till Sand and asked you about your Equity card. There's a magical church here in the city on 42nd street where young actors and actresses with hearts full of hope and dreams go for comfort when the call backs don't come--or they do come. You told me of your dream in an email. The next time I pass by, I'll stop in and light a candle for you and for all those other incredibly gifted men and women who give us the gift of the...

Shad, This is a tough room to play for people who understand the concert was only a shadow of the actual musical, the intent of which was to gauge audience response but most importantly to get it to Decca. I've heard people say "Great musicals are great in concert." One guy mentioned "South Pacific" as an example but failed to acknowledge that S.P included the dialogue. "Kristina" is a traditional book musical with powerful dialogue taken from Moberg's source. People who saw the show in Malmo...

Triple Bravo Whiskey, you entered this discussion loaded for bear: "Holy Crap.. That must have been the most boring self important piece of crap I ever sat through. I went cause I had friends in the cast and got a comp, but it was pure torture to sit through." That, to me is incendiary, and while it may have escaped you, contains an ad-hominem attack, no less so than mine. You are tacitly alleging that "Kristina" was written by Benny for his own self-aggrandizement, rather than to express an ...

Re: ThankstoPhantom. Broadway has always been as much about entertainment as it has been about accounting. It's a numbers game. Now, with respect to the suggestion that a fair percentage of the audience found "Kristina" a bust, keep in mind that forums and message boards are NOT representative of the general public. As an example, there are tens of millions of Dallas Cowboy fans who compulsively watch or listen to every game of the season on Dallas' schedule. Only a minute number weigh in on ...

Let's see if I have the ground rules down: You are free to express your opinions strongly, using descriptors such as "crap", but are justified in crying "foul" when someone with equal arrogance asks for the credentials you possess that would suggest you have had some sort of unimpeachable epiphany that this production will never make it to Broadway. Is that pretty much the gist of it? Perhaps had you said, "I was not at all impressed. I found it tedious lacking any compelling dramatic ark. I ...

BBBW, to satisfy my curiosity what shows lately have moved you? I'm assuming that you had no interest in it from the start given that you sound completely surprised by what you experienced and that your motivation was to get out of the house on somebody else's dime. Also, what are the demographics, here? When you say it's the most boring self-important piece of crap you ever sat through are we hearing the words whose life on the periphery of the theater goes back to opening night of "Rent" or...

The TaljkinBroadway.com may be the most-schizophrenic review I've ever read. Exhibit A: "It?s when faced with something like this that you see what so many of the other (sung-through) entries lacked: an intimacy of character, of situation, that draws you in and lets you experience the world through other eyes, much the way the most significant plays and musicals of the past always have." Exhibit B: "Here (in 'Kristina') you're never given the chance." Exhibit C: "All the performances are just...

Pianolin: In 1990 (?) Steppenwolf brought John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" to New York starring Gary Sinese. This is a pretty shrewd company and they proved that by prying the rights to the work from the author's widow. I was sitting next to an out-of-towner and while the first act had its moments, there were no real fireworks. She turned to the elderly women to her right and said, "I am sooooooo sorry I've wasted your time for THIS." I smiled and shook my head as if to say, "Oh, brothe...