ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE Previews- Page 2

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 9:40am

g.d.e.l.g.i. said: "RockyRoad said: "So according to your loic, artists that have sold more music than Buffett all have hit musicals then...right? Yeah, those smash hit shows with music by the Beatles, Sinatra, Elvis, and The Beach Boys were all blockbusters and ran for years and years."

Well,Come Fly Awaywas a reasonable hit (on Broadway and on the road), andBeatlemaniawas a smash for the better part of a decade (if you're referring in your snark toRain/Let It Be, clearly you don't know what precedent those stem from). Elvis and The Beach Boys may not have sold, but two out of your four did better than okay, so your argument's a bit flawed."

I suspect the poster is referring LENNON which was a huge Broadway bomb in 2005

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 9:48am

I read the NY Times article also and enjoyed it.

[raddersons]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 10:30am

After Eight said: "Running time: 2 1/2 hours."

Jesus, that’s way too long for a Jimmy Buffett musical. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 11:24am

One big difference I noticed from Instagram photos, is that there are now two tree house things on the sides of the proscenium, that weren’t there in Chicago.

[Cfried]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 11:39am

Call_me_jorge said: "One big difference I noticed from Instagram photos, is that there are now two tree house things on the sides of the proscenium, that weren’t there in Chicago."

They were there at La Jolla. 

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 3:07pm

The pictures on Instagram look downright tragic. Oh man.

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 6:31pm

parrotheads are a rabid fan base.
i hope they try again to make better musicals based on elvis and beach boys music either biopics or jukebox.

jersey boys
on your feet
mamma mia
beautiful
all big successes

im looking forward to seeing marguaritaville in may

my intuition is it will not be a big hit musical and it will still be a lot of fun

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 2/17/18 at 6:42pm

On Your Feet may have ran over a year, but it wasn’t a success.

[Dolly80]

Posted: 2/18/18 at 4:06am

This has got flop written all over it.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 2/18/18 at 5:33am

mailhandler777 said: "Yes there were a ton of them. The whole mezzanine was filled with them singing along and dancing. I felt like I was at a concert and not a theatre production."

I hope you don't mean they were singing along the whole time. I think that's totally fine for the closing number of a jukebox musical, and usually what that closing number is for. It makes sense for the medley at the end of On Your Feet and I vaguely remember the audience getting involved at the end of Mamma Mia. But even if the show isn't great, I never want to see anything where the audience is singing along the whole time. They don't even do that at the Disney shows.

I like some of the cast but I don't know why they chose to make the set look so... portable.

[Mike66]

Posted: 2/18/18 at 12:09pm

RockyRoad said: "Mik66 says: You don't think there are people who like Buffett and this music? Ever talk to a Parrothead?

The guy has 38 albums and 67 singles out there. 8 gold. 9 platinum. Total sales over 20 million.


So according to your loic, artists that have sold more music than Buffett all have hit musicals then...right? Yeah, those smash hit shows with music by the Beatles, Sinatra, Elvis, and The Beach Boys were all blockbusters and ran for years and years."

NOPE.  The question was whether there is a market for Buffett.  The question was not whether this particular show (which none of us has seen) is any good.  If it stinks, it will sink.

Separate question.  Might be a totally separate answer.

(You know that....)

 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 2/18/18 at 1:23pm

I'll be seeing this on March 12. Interesting looking at ticket availability, most performances have a ton of seats available. Curious if this show will find an audience. BTW, they have $70 orchestra seats available with the discount code.

Updated On: 2/19/18 at 01:23 PM

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 6:48am

Has anyone else attended a preview yet?

[BroadwayBeebe]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 7:11am

I’ll be there tonight!

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 11:15am

VintageSnarker said: "mailhandler777 said: "Yes there were a ton of them. The whole mezzanine was filled with them singing along and dancing. I felt like I was at a concert and not a theatre production."

I hope you don't mean they were singing along the whole time. I think that's totally fine for the closing number of a jukebox musical, and usually what that closing number is for. It makes sense for the medley at the end of On Your Feet and I vaguely remember the audience getting involved at the end of Mamma Mia. But even if the show isn't great, I never want to see anything where the audience is singing along the whole time. They don't even do that at the Disney shows.

I like some of the cast but I don't know why they chose to make the set look so... portable. "

They were indeed singing along the entire show. At one part it's encouraged(Why Don't We Get Drunk) and at the end like On Your Feet was. It might be different in the orchestra but up in the mezz seemed to be the party area. 

 

 

[Miles2Go2]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 12:09pm

This sounds truly horrible.

[Up In One]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 1:01pm

This hits a sweet spot in the Bway audience profile, can easily see the Jersey Boys, Beautiful, crowd adding it to their list. They've kept Bronx Tale going and this one serves Margaritas so they can bring their husbands.  Add to that the brand which is all about vacationers and tourists and I wouldn't count it out. The Donna Summer show hits my demographic and I will probably see that regardless of the reviews - but the tad older crowd of suburbanites and tourists who love that music and era should keep it running. The TV spots though are gawd awful.  

[broadwaysfguy]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 4:51pm

any one seen this?

if the parrot heads are singing along to every song, they have to do announcements and put a stop to it

why would i want to pay good money to hear top broadway talent get drowned out by a drunken idiot next to me....

seriously?????

[Dollypop]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 5:03pm

broadwaysfguy said: "any one seen this?

if the parrot heads are singing along to every song, they have to do announcements and put a stop to it

why would i want to pay good money to hear top broadway talent get drowned out by a drunken idiot next to me....

seriously?????"

 

Really? People sing along with the overture in HELLO, DOLLY!as well as during the encore of the title number and finale and no one seems to mind. Or does this only happen at performances I attend?

 

 

 

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 6:27pm

Dollypop said: "
Really? People sing along with the overture in HELLO, DOLLY! as well as during the encore of the title number and finale and no one seems to mind. Or does this only happen at performances I attend?"

This is every song and the whole song they are singing along to and not just a few. The ladies aside of me were like this is a dead crowd. More people need to get up and sing along. I kept quiet but just kept glaring at her. 

 

 

[Miles2Go2]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 6:33pm

This may play well with tourists and the bridge and tunnel crowd, but this still sounds horrid. I’m also not sure how many NYC tourists and bridge-and-tunnel folks are Buffet Parrotheads. I guess we’ll see.

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 8:30pm

This will make for light hearted entertainment in the evening, after dinner cruising somewhere nice in the Caribbean or Bermuda say.

[blaxx]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 8:45pm

But really, has anyone here post a review? Or is everyone skipping by default?

[BroadwayBeebe]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 11:05pm

Quick thoughts thrown together on my bus ride home, but I think the out of town thread says about the same thing....

I truly don’t know how to accurately describe what I saw this evening. This truly was one of the most scattered and strange things I have seen. The book is a collection of bad puns and jokes and a plot that should resolve about 5 times before it actually does. A never ending series of bad jokes to justify another Buffett tune rarely draws the laughs that are intended and a collection of actors that I really love playing characters with nothing to really work with. There are jaw droppingly bad moments of bad staging, but I feel spoiling them would take away the pure laughter that will help anyone who attends power through. Knowing that this is the team that delivered us Come From Away made it even worse as they proved they can do simple and effective storytelling and this was the direct opposite. No one has taken the scissors to this one in an attempt to try and shape it into something worth sitting through. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a few moments where I really enjoyed the evening, but overall I can’t see myself going back unless Buffett joins the cast as J.D. just to catch him deliver some of his tunes. I don’t think trying to do a Buffett Jukebox Musical was a bad idea, I just think it could have been so much better than what it is.
And the audience was terrible. Singing along the entire show as well as so much talking and a few phones going off.
At least I got a free beachball out of it and enjoyed the drinks.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 2/19/18 at 11:16pm

I was there tonight. Whenever they revive Next to Normal, instead of giving Diana electroshock therapy the doctor should send her to the Lincoln Center Library (this bomb surely won’t be running) to watch the tape and I guarantee she’ll be cured!

Every once and a while a show comes along that’s so inept, and this is the Mt. Vesuvius of ineptitude, that you have to seriously wonder how it got put on stage. Like The Room needed The Disaster Artist, Escape to Margaritaville needs a book to explain how the %#!* this got made.

Let’s start with some sample lines, shall we:

I think I look pretty good. Whenever I get naked in the bathroom the shower gets turned on.

I once bought some sneakers from a drug dealer. I don’t know what he laced them with, but I was tripping.

(Upon opening some treasure) What’s in there? Gold? Diamonds? Bitcoins- whatever the hell those are?!?!

There’s even a lyric change to they can sing about not wanting to go to Mar-a-Lago.

Act one is overly long and a colossal bore. Nothing happens. Act two luckily has a few campy moments and the plot goes into warp speed literally zooming years into the feature. It’s an unholy mess, but there are a few unintentional laughs.

As for the actors, Lisa Howard probably never thought she’d be in worse than It Shoulda Been You, but that clunker feels like Hamlet compared to this stinker.

Poor Paul Alexander Nolan. He suffered through the JCS revival and Dr. Z, only to come out safely on the other side to do Bright Star. Sure, that flopped too, but it was more than respectable and he was very good in it. Had nice chemistry with Cusack. Unfortunately Margaritaville sends him back in the Dr. Z direction. Hope he makes it out of this one alive to see another day...

It doesn’t help that he and Alison Luff, saddled with the blandest of bland character, have the romantic sizzle of cold oatmeal.

Yes, there is an old man who walks around looking for his lost shaker of salt.

Every line of dialogue is a set-up for some song lyric. Nothing is organic.

I usually go back to see shows again in previews, even bad ones; I saw Wonderland in this same theater three times and it was better. That’s how bad this was! But I will not be making a return visit to the Marquis. You would think that Home for the Holidays was enough pain for one season, but then fate throws this in our path. My God be with us all.