13 Set For Broadway Run

[Craig]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 9:37am

https://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=18673

[jaystarr]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 9:45am

Thanks Craig for the update.

It's nice to know that Jason Robert Brown will be back on Broadway. I love his "Parade" at the Beaumont back in 1999. Can't wait.-j*

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 9:47am

I'm surprised. It didn't do that well in L.A.

Maybe they're changing the title to "Midsummer Awakening."

Updated On: 5/25/07 at 09:47 AM

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 9:49am

One of my friends saw 13 and said it was the next Wicked. Lord help us all.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 9:55am

Shows do get rewritten after they leave Los Angeles, you know.

[lite2shine]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 10:01am

No, 13 won't be next Wicked. If anything, Legally Blonde would be.

I do hope they will revise the book. If remained as is, it would be a hard sell for the adult audience without any kids. I paid only $20 and for that price it was fine but I wouldn't pay $55 (TKTS price) nor $110 for this show, no way. But the casting will make a lot difference. In LA they hired mostly local young actors, so for the Broadway run lots of young actors who have more Broadway experience may be cast.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 10:27am

Not as much as you'd like to think so, Smaxie.

[shesamarshmallow]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 10:30am

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW EXCITED I AM.
Actually, I guess you do.
Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 10:31am

I can't help but wonder how much of a mistake this'll be....unless they cast the cast of High School Musical.

[winston89]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 10:40am

Yankeefan, look at it this way. I would rather they mount this then high school musical on the great white way.

[D2]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 10:58am

I saw it when I was in LA in January. Yech. But I am interested in how it will be received. Common sense tells me the transfer is a mistake and that it will be ripped to shreds, but who knows? It might just hit if it is marketed properly and gets a big buzz going.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 11:29am

>Not as much as you'd like to think so, Smaxie.<

That's a terribly glib response. I can't imagine that the 13 creative team is going to sit around and do nothing to improve their show's material and production, following the LA reception.

[mallardo]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 11:35am

I enjoyed it and I'm not the target audience. The problems it had at the Mark Taper in LA were due to the fact that they were playing to an audience of season subscribers, many of whom were, shall we say, elderly. They had complaints because of that.

The matinee I attended was a full house and the crowd loved it. As to casting, they had a bunch of talented kids, virtually all of them genuine teenagers, most with TV credits. What kind of Broadway star power can they come up with in that age category? We shall see. Good luck to them.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 11:52am

I still think the name of this show is all wrong. Appropriate and accurate, but BORING.

I look forward to all the interviews with JRB where he talks about how wonderful and underappreciated he is.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 11:55am

Considering most of the audience in LA had the show thrust upon them as season ticket holders, the sales themself were not all that great. The reviews were mediocre.


I smell a stinker.

[shesamarshmallow]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 12:12pm

Party poopers!

[D2]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 12:21pm

Oh please. It's an afterschool special set to music. Great for a TheatreworksUSA tour and Junior HS Drama Club, but Broadway?

[lite2shine]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 12:22pm

I am not a subscriber but an adult who is out of the target audience range. The show is full of cliché and unlike Spring Awakening, it won't draw a crowd older than mid HS to HS ages. If they are going to do it, start the preview in June and capture the summer tourists/family audience. The timing of the run is very crucial to this show. If they are going to do fall/late fall, they'll shut down by New Year.

shesamarshmallow, I'm glad you liked it, I really do. But would you have seen it more than once if you had to pay $55 (TKTS price)? If I remember right, it was about 90-100 minutes show without intermission.

[shesamarshmallow]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 12:55pm

I wouldn't see ANY show more than once if I had to pay $55. I couldn't afford it.

But I'd just like to say that I've taken my straight male college-aged friend to a ton of musicals and plays against his will, and he's said repeatedly that the one he liked best was 13.

[singingbackup]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 1:12pm

I saw it out here as well. Music was good, the kids were talented, but the book needs some serious work. The ending as I recall was rushed and forced and frankly insulting to many's intellegence. I do adore Jason Robert Brown, so anytime his work gets produced it is cause for celebration. Fix the book for starters.

Time will tell.

[shesamarshmallow]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 1:20pm

Actually, the rushed ending was a result of the preview process - the first preview had a good fifteen minutes of wrapping up with no songs that people felt dragged. The second time I saw it they'd fleshed out a storyline about one of the kid's eating disorder. When I saw it on Jan 10th, they'd cut almost all of it and replaced it with a few lines of exposition. The end is definitely something they need to work on.
But they got rid of one of my favorit lines in that process: "Gotta go, about to have a slap fight!"

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 2:07pm

I saw it in LA, it was cute at best.



But it does have all the makings of a floperoo.

[Nick Plasia]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 2:10pm

I doubt we'll be seeing this show in New York...

[wickedfiyeroofoz]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 2:15pm

As long as there's a casty recording I'll be happy...JRB is god....any time his music is put out there I'm happy....

and by the way...Spring Awakening is the next Wicked...not Legally Blonde..

[Sondheim Geek]

Posted: 5/25/07 at 5:11pm

The worst idea I could think of. This would do badly off-broadway... to give it a broadway run is almost hilarious.

(I LOVE 99% of JRB's work, but I couldn't stand this show)