I apologize if there is a thread on this topic. It seems like there should be but I searched and didn't see one. What shows do you think have been absent from NY long enough to warrant the Encores! treatment? I've been gassing on about Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! and decided she needs to do it here to circumvent her 8 shows a week on Broadway anxiety. I love Kristin but I don't think I'm on board with her playing Dolly. I see her as more of a Mame.
Other Encores! possibilities: Dreamgirls Candide New Girl in Town Redhead Rags Kiss Me, Kate Mack & Mabel Milk & Honey Jerry's Girls Dear World A Day in Hollywood/ A Night in the Ukraine Bring Back Birdie Hallelujah, Baby! 70, Girls, 70 Flora, the Red Menace Kiss of the Spider Woman Zorba The Rink The Act (w/ Gaga!) Woman of the Year Once Upon a Mattress I Can Get It For You Wholesale Subways Are For Sleeping Silk Stockings Irma La Douce High Button Shoes Hazel Flagg Darling of the Day Lorelei (w/ Megan Hilty) Do I Hear a Waltz? Pacific Overtures Assassins Brigadoon I Do! I Do! On The Twentieth Century A Doll's Life City of Angels High Spirits Sugar Bounce Saturday Night Camelot Purlie She Loves Me 1776 Two Gentlemen of Verona Me and my Girl The Rothschilds Barnum Side By Side By Sondheim Ballroom Nine Once On This Island Panama Hattie Sugar Babies Street Scene Falsettos The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
I would die to see a production of Bring Back Birdie. Also Dogfight has not been absent that long but I feel like it deserved a longer run. And maybe Little Shop could be fun. Also would love Seussical and You're A Good Man Charlie Brown.
I'd love to see them take on some Kander and Ebb in the near future. They have such an amazing catalogue that tend to get forgotten over Cabaret and Chicago. I want a full scale revival of Kiss of the Spider Woman but 70, Girls, 70 Flora, the Red Menace, The Rink, or The Act seem very well suited to Encores. I'm not familiar with Woman of the Year at all so that would be on my list for sure.
It's my understanding that a lot of those titles have been proposed, but the authors/estates have turned them down. I know Jerry Herman specifically wants and expects full-scale revivals instead of an Encores! concert.
I know a revival of Spiderwoman has been workshopped. The part was rewritten by Kander specifically for Audra McDonald. I'm sure The Act and The Rink are viable options for Encores! though.
I know it doesn't rule shows out (see: Bye, Bye, Birdie), but I feel like some of these shows have too strong a life in community and regional theater for them to be chosen for an Encores production.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
My vote is for HALLELUJAH, BABY!....a Best Musical that may not ever work when fully staged, but that score is AMAZING! It might be my favorite Jule Styne score.
I'd also love to see REDHEAD and NEW GIRL IN TOWN...mostly because I just do not know them very well.
If they do the Off-Broadway Encores again this summer, I would love to see Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (it started Off-Broadway). Or they could do it in the regular season.
Seems unlikely that they would do Whorehouse as part of the regular season, as part of he series' purpose is to show off the orchestra, and Whorehouse is scored for only seven musicians.