THE GREAT COMET Announces September Broadway Closing; Final Performers for Role of 'Pierre'- Page 22

[JustAnotherNewYorker]

Posted: 8/27/17 at 6:46pm

mufish said: "Decided to plan a quick trip to the city to catch Groundhog Day before it closes, as I hadn't seen it yet.  I saw Great Comet back in February and thought it was a neat spectacle but I was generally indifferent.  Since then I've listened to the cast recording a number of times and have come around a bit.  Now that it's closing I wanted to revisit it once more, so I'm going to catch the matinee on Wednesday as part of my trip, despite the fact that a ticket showed up on Telecharge for Dear Evan Hansen as the same time - that'll have to come another time!  The first time I was in the last row of the rear mezz which was a pretty good vantage point.  This time I'm in Row A of the front mezz."

Front Mezz is a good spot for CG. Enjoy

[Graymerchant]

Posted: 8/27/17 at 9:28pm

Off topic a tad bit, but, what is the life after the show's closing looking like? Does anyone have any info on that? Could we expect a National tour? Or would it just go straight to licensing?

[hmph]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 9:23am

willep said: "Fight call is done for every performance (so on a two show day it is done twice), and it is a requirement to run any fight choreography in the show.

"

Thanks for the clarification. Was looking back at some of the Great Comet ones and found this gem (union rules, had no idea!): https://www.instagram.com/p/BMO2Icig3ph/

I also found this additional response to Rafael Casal from Joey Cassata, the Great Comet drummer, which really makes me want an all out exposé done on the situation where, you know, the actual Great Comet cast gets to chime in: https://twitter.com/JoeyCassata/status/901876321772601344

Speaking of, Kennedy Caughell has a cool series of Instagram posts where she provides the view from different sections, including the drummer's view. You also get to see some of what the ensemble gets up to.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX_ItKEBlaR/ (strobe lights!)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX_LfWbhapi/ (more strobe lights)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYCXo96BbzM/ (Balaga)

She also did a 35 minute livestream where you can hear the show, including Luca's "Petersburg" at around the 31:35 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOB4CyqMA74

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 9:54am

Is it frightening to anyone else how Rafael went from virtually a nobody and now has crazed hamilton fans singing his praises even though he was actually wrong?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 10:10am

willep said: "Fight call is done for every performance (so on a two show day it is done twice), and it is a requirement to run any fight choreography in the show.

 

"

Hm. My understanding was that it only needed to happen 1x a day,  unless there was a different actor involved. 

Heck,  I have my own students do fight call once it's choreographed. Even more important with non professionals.

[Eliza2]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 10:51am

dramamama611 said: "willep said: "Fight call is done for every performance (so on a two show day it is done twice), and it is a requirement to run any fight choreography in the show.

 

"

Hm. My understanding was that it only needed to happen 1x a day,  unless there was a different actor involved. 

Heck,  I have my own students do fight call once it's choreographed. Even more important with non professionals.

"

That's my understanding as well. In one of the other Comet instagram live stories recently, they were showing some of fight call on a two show day, before the evening show, and they said the only reason they were doing it before the evening show was that one of the actors had been out for the matinee

 

[theater_tech]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 11:06am

hmph said: "willep said: "Fight call is done for every performance (so on a two show day it is done twice), and it is a requirement to run any fight choreography in the show.

"


I also found this additional response to Rafael Casal from Joey Cassata, the Great Comet drummer, which really makes me want an all out exposé done on the situation where, you know, the actual Great Comet cast gets to chime in: https://twitter.com/JoeyCassata/status/901876321772601344

 

"

Oh snap, did not know Nick Choksi also responded to this.

[willep]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 11:14am

Eliza2 said: "dramamama611 said: That's my understanding as well. In one of the other Comet instagram live stories recently, they were showing some of fight call on a two show day, before the evening show, and they said the only reason they were doing it before the evening show was that one of the actors had been out for the matinee"

 

My bad, I could be mistaken on the two show day but.

[raddersons]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 11:35am

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQGXa-TlP6J/ Another fight call video, between Andrey and a member of the ensemble? I wonder if this is during the madness of the abduction.

theater_tech said: "Oh snap, did not know Nick Choksi also responded to this."

Dolokhov is fierce, but not too important.

[Eliza2]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 11:48am

raddersons said: "https://www.instagram.com/p/BQGXa-TlP6J/ Another fight call video, between Andrey and a member of the ensemble? I wonder if this is during the madness of the abduction.

theater_tech said: "Oh snap, did not know Nick Choksi also responded to this."

Dolokhov is fierce, but not too important."

You are correct - it's during the abduction. It happened right in front of me when I was sitting at table TR. Nicholas Belton handed me his guitar to hold for him while they fought.

 

[schubox]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 12:24pm

hmph said: "willep said: "Fight call is done for every performance (so on a two show day it is done twice), and it is a requirement to run any fight choreography in the show.

"

Thanks for the clarification. Was looking back at some of the Great Comet ones and found this gem (union rules, had no idea!): https://www.instagram.com/p/BMO2Icig3ph/

I also found this additional response to Rafael Casal from Joey Cassata, the Great Comet drummer, which really makes me want an all out exposé done on the situation where, you know, the actual Great Comet cast gets to chime in: https://twitter.com/JoeyCassata/status/901876321772601344

Speaking of, Kennedy Caughell has a cool series of Instagram posts where she provides the view from different sections, including the drummer's view. You also get to see some of what the ensemble gets up to.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX_ItKEBlaR/ (strobe lights!)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX_LfWbhapi/ (more strobe lights)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYCXo96BbzM/ (Balaga)

She also did a 35 minute livestream where you can hear the show, including Luca's "Petersburg" at around the 31:35 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOB4CyqMA74

 

"

These were great

[mikem]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 7:06pm

I just wanted to report back on my Sunday on stage at Great Comet!  Thank you all for your help.  It was a pretty amazing experience.  I was hoping to see Dave Malloy, but Scott Strangland was great, and the rest of the principals were in.  There were two ensemble members listed as being out, but at least one of them (Kennedy) was actually there doing off-stage singing, so I'm not sure if they all just rotate out every so often.

In case anyone was wondering, there were no onstage warnings at all from the ushers except to move all our bags out of the way.  Someone else mentioned that they were in the splash zone -- where is that?  I felt like I was in the splash zone a little bit because I was sitting directly under one of the big places where people sing, and I got spit on while two different cast members were singing!  It was more funny than anything else.

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/28/17 at 7:32pm

A handful of $199 rear orchestra seats were just released for the final show... if you need'm.

[hmph]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 1:30am

broadwayboy223 said: "Is it frightening to anyone else how Rafael went from virtually a nobody and now has crazed hamilton fans singing his praises even though he was actually wrong?

"

Some of those Hamilton fans seem misguided and so young, and some of them are probably latching onto his defense because they bought into and actively participated in all his nonsense. I'm still so confused as to how he can start so much nastiness on Twitter and even manage to land an interview by the NYT, only to have it all come out that he had no idea what he was talking about, and then get almost complete radio silence from him on the subject. Not a public apology to the people he libeled or to the people whose livelihoods he helped take away (let's be real, GC likely wouldn't have closed 9/3, the last scheduled Mandy performance, if all this drama weren't stirred up by know-nothings). And then to have such a pithy, dismissive response to a person who is losing his job in less than a week, a person who belongs to a minority population on whose behalf he seemed to think he could speak? I think he's an insufferable prick.

The saddest part to me is that, as has been stated several times over, the actual cast did not get a say in the discussion. I think that's what led to that beautiful video posted above from Lucas Steele's Instagram (reposted by the GC instagram) demonstrating how truly beautiful and diverse the cast is. That wasn't lip service. That was a company actually putting its money where its mouth is and following through on so much that people purport to support. Such a shame their voices were ignored completely.

But anyway, moving on from my rant! I do love how positive and fun the GC people have been on social media. Shoba will apparently be doing the Instagram Stories takeover tomorrow. Wondering whether they're going to do them daily for the rest of the week/run.

Been kind of on a Great Comet video binge and liked this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvm_k0KxNg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymYUkOdxUUE

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 1:42am

hmph said: "(let's be real, GC likely wouldn't have closed 9/3, the last scheduled Mandy performance, if all this drama weren't stirred up by know-nothings)"

Still not sure there ever was a post 9/3 plan. It was Oak's last day. It was Mandy's last day. And now it's Dave's last day. There was still enough time after Mandy pulled out for someone to realize they were no longer stepping into a controversy but saving a show. I just don't see any evidence this phantom Pierre ever existed.

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 2:53am

My theory has always been that they had someone tentatively lined up for September and then he, whoever he was, backed out after everything hit the fan.

[bear88]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 4:07am

That's possible, but it never entirely made sense to me. They announced Onaodowan's two-month run, from early July to early September, way back in February. It felt like a band-aid, a hope that Hamilton fans would provide a temporary boost while they lined up someone who could get the show through the fall.

But they were going to face other issues, with cast departures upcoming when contracts were up. When I saw the show in April, Josh Groban mentioned those upcoming departures - not just his own, and not by name. Those were going to create some major losses, but also opportunities for stunt casting. 

Pierre spends a lot of time watching, but the actor who plays the role still has to learn two instruments, one of which is an accordian, and have the voice and acting chops for the part. The producers had set up a situation where audiences expected a name. That was the problem with hiring Groban in the first place, even though I thought he was wonderful in the role.

I know Kagan seems to have problems with planning things out, but why would he wait until the last minute to announce the next Pierre, or some name to draw the non-fans? The only rationale I can think of is that they didn't want to announce a big name for September and then lose a bunch of July and August sales because people were waiting. If that was the case, they had some reasonably big name for Pierre, and that actor bailed when the whole Onaodowan thing happened. (If so, that actor has a lot of accordian training that's gone to waste.)

But my real guess is that they never had anyone. The producers were counting on the show being a breakout hit, a Tony winner for Best Musical, even a must-see cultural phenomenon, and then it wouldn't matter who played Pierre. But that didn't happen, and there was a lot of mad scrambling to prop up the show (Brittain Ashford's "vacation" so a minor pop star could take her place, the desperate Mandy Patinkin ploy that ended badly).

I suppose Great Comet will be one of those shows that never had a money-losing week on Broadway, filled the seats, won a lot of praise, but never came close to recouping. People will play what-might-have-been for years, although I'm honestly not sure if anything Kagan could have done would have done anything more than keep the show running until January. Could the show have opened on Broadway without Groban bringing in his own audience? He certainly could have recognized the the show was an unlikely Tony winner, pretty much from the moment Dear Evan Hansen opened. Kagan needed a Plan B, and it either didn't exist or was such a shaky scheme that it easily exploded without anyone learning the name of the actor who pulled out.

[hmph]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 8:58am

haterobics said: "hmph said: "(let's be real, GC likely wouldn't have closed 9/3, the last scheduled Mandy performance, if all this drama weren't stirred up by know-nothings)"

Still not sure there ever was a post 9/3 plan. It was Oak's last day. It was Mandy's last day. And now it's Dave's last day. There was still enough time after Mandy pulled out for someone to realize they were no longer stepping into a controversy but saving a show. I just don't see any evidence this phantom Pierre ever existed.

"

But you can't really believe that the 9/3 performance would have been the last one if Mandy had stepped in, can you? That wouldn't make any sense because there's the final weeks bump to consider. So worst case scenario, they have no one big to step in after 9/3, but get Scott and Dave to step in for the last few weeks before closing. So I really do think it closed earlier than it would have otherwise partially because of rando Rafael Casal ****posting without knowing anything, and the Hamilton fans that inexplicably care about anything he says/does picking up on that. 

No One Else is far superior in my mind, but this cut song is kind of interesting when you think about Natasha's mindset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suuGTRvhwH8

And here's a nice, long Dave Malloy/Rachel Chavkin interview I'm working on at the moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0NrL840iyg

[MVintheheartland]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 9:06am

Like MikeM, I was at the Sunday matinee performance. So glad I decided to keep my ticket, no matter who was playing Pierre. Scott S. was a wonderful Pierre. I had a seat in the center mezzanine on the aisle, so the performers did warn us to keep our stuff and legs out of the aisle. 

These cast members worked so hard, and put on such a memorable performance, I am so sad the show is closing. The audience on Sunday was TOTALLY amped up, and all the numbers got lots of applause and bravos. Best of luck to all of them. 

 

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 10:03am

hmph said: "But you can't really believe that the 9/3 performance would have been the last one if Mandy had stepped in, can you? That wouldn't make any sense because there's the final weeks bump to consider."

Depends if the goal were to finish strong or limp along for a few more weeks. 

[poisonivy2]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 10:07am

I'll be there tonight, third time in three weeks. Since it will be my last time I think I'll need some tissues handy.

[JustAnotherNewYorker]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 11:53am

poisonivy2 said: "I'll be there tonight, third time in three weeks. Since it will be my last time I think I'll need some tissues handy."

 

wheni I bought my banquete for the final performance (weeks ago) the spot next to me was empty. I'm sorry I didn't grab it to be able to share the final performance with a friend

 

[schubox]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 12:44pm

mikem said: "I just wanted to report back on my Sunday on stage at Great Comet!  Thank you all for your help.  It was a pretty amazing experience.  I was hoping to see Dave Malloy, but Scott Strangland was great, and the rest of the principals were in.  There were two ensemble members listed as being out, but at least one of them (Kennedy) was actually there doing off-stage singing, so I'm not sure if they all just rotate out every so often.

In case anyone was wondering, there were no onstage warnings at all from the ushers except to move all our bags out of the way.  Someone else mentioned that they were in the splash zone -- where is that?  I felt like I was in the splash zone a little bit because I was sitting directly under one of the big places where people sing, and I got spit on while two different cast members were singing!  It was more funny than anything else.

 

"

That was me who mentioned the splash zone. In two of my visits I sat in the sunken tavern, right against the donut. Sat on each side and the splash zone thing was said both times. I always took it as more being right in the middle of things, but Nick Choksi does spit  a lot 

[Rainah]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 3:43pm

BA on stage right are also very 'splash zone'. I was in The Seat, but every time Nicki was over there the whole BA row was getting spit on. Felt bad for 'em (but not that much)

[Sunny11]

Posted: 8/29/17 at 4:26pm

Do you think that Josh Groban will have trouble getting another Broadway headline job? I read elsewhere that a star of his statue is expected to lead a show to recoupment during their run and since he didn't he "failed". That seems ridiculous to me given how high the grosses where while he was there and how significantly they fell after he left.