42nd Street Tour

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 1:20am

I just saw the 42nd Street tour tonight, and I was slightly disappointed. Everyone in the show is an amazing dancer and great singers, I just felt a little underwhelmed by this production. Is this tour non-equity? It struck me as def. non-equity because not a single person on the tour had a Broadway credit to their name. Also, how much of this tour was scaled down from the Broadway version? The sets were extremely simple, which kind of ticked me off. I felt like i was seeing a high school production at some points. one of the backdrops flew out too early (so they lowered it back down half way through the scene) --- people kept dropping props and I could see people standing in the wings waiting to go on. It just didnt seem very professional. There's nothing wrong with the actors, they were all doing amazing jobs. Shout outs to Kyle Dean Massey and Melody Davi, they were great in their lead roles. The only person who got on my last nerve, was - I guess the lead, since he had the last bow - David Grant who played Julian Marsh. He could sing, but his acting was horrible. Every scene he was in, he just played the "pissed director" there weren't any layers to his charcter, which i found to be a flaw of a lot of the actors in the show, though they didnt bother me as much. Anyways, didnt mean to drag this thing on, what do yall think of the tour?

[elsie]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 2:06am

it's coming to my school next wednesday... but I might not be able to see it at least now i know i'm not missing that much. But I wasn't expecting too much, the types of tours that come through here (Ball State University in fabuous Muncie, Indiana) usually aren't top-notch anyways... and you can't really expect them to be. It's not like I'm in a major city or something (unfortunately). But hey, I get a free ticket, and the shows are still very enjoyable, so I'm not going to complain

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 2:28am

Oh no, def. not discouraging seeing the show. Some of the performances are great. I'm just not a big fan of the "old Broadway" style of musical comedy. All of the acting seems so "fake" to me, I dunno. I just was disappointed by the technical elements of the show. Here in Birmingham we just had Lion King and next we're getting Hairspray, so I expected 42nd Street to be up there on par with those shows, but it wasn't. Although the big "42nd Street" number was pretty cool if you like dance / tap.

[Unmasked05]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 9:48am

You know I was getting ready to truck on over to the BJCC to go see it this Weekend but I'm not sure if I wanna go see it. Plus College Night is coming up here so I don't know if I'll even be able to go.

PlUG: COLLEGE NIGHT
University of Montevallo
Feb.8-11 more info later.

[erikaamato]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 11:13am

Yes, it is a non-union tour.

I haven't seen it myself, but I've heard it's really quite good. (I know a few of the actors in the production...)

Then again, I just did an Equity production of the show this past summer (a three month run), and the feedback I got from people who saw both productions tended to be that ours had more heart and was more affecting overall, even though our sets - believe it or not, from your comments - were more simple than those on the tour and our theater was very small. But again, no-one I spoke to was disappointed in the tour. Just my two cents.
Updated On: 1/13/06 at 11:13 AM

[metoog]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 12:04pm

Wow! It may have been an off night. I saw this tour back in September (actually the 2nd show of the tour) and it was incredible! The acting was very good and the vocals were beautiful. The cast had a lot of chemistry. I know depending on theater size, they have to scale back the sets and some of the cast I saw have departed the show. I think the show would still be enjoyable.

Updated On: 1/13/06 at 12:04 PM

[Bdwy24]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 12:18pm

I recently saw the tour and enjoyed it very much. They do have to scale down the sets to fit in the different theatres. Unfortunatley, the theatre I saw it in wasn't able to fit the big staircase in for the finale. However, they did a very nice job adjusting to not having it. I believe the tour mostly plays smaller cities (and Natalie Buster, who plays Dorothy Brock, can correct me if Im wrong), but you can't have the big extreme sets that you had on Broadway if you're bringing these musicals to the smaller cities. Having seen the equity tour of this production the sets really arent that much different. I reccomend seeing the show. The talent is EXCELLENT.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 2:19pm

Well, while I was watching it, I thought maybe the designer was trying to go with the feel of the show and have an "old broadway feel" with lots of backdrops and not many 3d type set pieces. If that's the case, then it worked. I guess I just didn't realize how much dancing there was in the show. It just got to the point where I was like "please stop dancing and sing something already." But I guess I should have expected that. Oh, another thing is I didn't much like the book of the show either. It just felt weird to have like all these different characters and I didn't feel like any of them ever got developed. Peggy and Julian have a couple kisses, someone sees them and nobody finds it to be strange? Then Billy spends the entire show trying to get a date with her from the moment she comes in, don't really understand that part either. Or the fact that the wrtiers of the show are also acting and singing in the show? I was just kinda confused on all the characters. Like, for instance, they have a "doctor" character that has a british accent in the begining of the Second Act, is that all he does the entire show? Obviously he's not in the ensemble. That would suck to only spend 2mins on stage every night and have to sing from off stage. Or maybe he popped up throughout and I just didnt notice him?

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 2:30pm

42nd Street never has had the strongest book in the world.

But you don't go to see "42nd Street" to see a work of dramatic perfection and intensity, rather, to see tons of ginormus, sparkling, tap-dancing production numbers!!!!!!!

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 2:39pm

Hence where I lost out inlovewithjerryherman. I dunno, just expected a bunch of good songs, but nope, it was just dancing. The whole time I was just trying to imagine this show on Broadway and couldn't see it anywhere. I'm guessing the Broadway revival had a couple things different about it. But it still was a good experience to see a non-equity type tour. I mean the big song "we're in the money" had like 4 lines to it, then they danced for 5mins. I was like "sing some more!"

[misto625]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 3:11pm

The actor who plays the doctor also plays the stage manager Mac and one of the thugs looking for Pat Denning. So he has three roles and understudies others. I saw B'way production and this tour and thought they did the best that they could with the sets although I missed the dressing rooms for "Sunny Side to every situation" and as mentioned before, the show's plot is not really that important. The dancing is the main attraction. In the original production, the book writers were given credit for "Cross-overs and Lead Ins" showing that they didn't even consider it a book, just a way to get from song to song. Hope this helps.

[Natalie 2]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 3:20pm

Sorry you didn't enjoy yourself Rentboy. But thank you for not being an idiot about your complaints. You have no idea how mean some people can be. I enjoy being in this show very much and even though we are a non-equity tour, we got the same direction, choreography as the Broadway Revival. We even worked with the co-writer Mark Bramble on characterizations. The plot is basically a backstage musical about the goings-on behind the scenes...so that's why the setpieces look exactly like you said. We've received very good press here, so I dare to say that you may not like this kind of musical. It certainly is different than the sardonic musicals out today like Spamalot, Spelling Bee and Avenue Q. But thanks for your comments!

[Natalie 2]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 3:20pm

Sorry you didn't enjoy yourself Rentboy. But thank you for not being an idiot about your complaints. You have no idea how mean some people can be. I enjoy being in this show very much and even though we are a non-equity tour, we got the same direction, choreography as the Broadway Revival. We even worked with the co-writer Mark Bramble on characterizations. The plot is basically a backstage musical about the goings-on behind the scenes...so that's why the setpieces look exactly like you said. We've received very good press here, so I dare to say that you may not like this kind of musical. It certainly is different than the sardonic musicals out today like Spamalot, Spelling Bee and Avenue Q. But thanks for your comments!

[Natalie 2]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 3:21pm

Sorry you didn't enjoy yourself Rentboy. But thank you for not being an idiot about your complaints. You have no idea how mean some people can be. I enjoy being in this show very much and even though we are a non-equity tour, we got the same direction, choreography as the Broadway Revival. We even worked with the co-writer Mark Bramble on characterizations. The plot is basically a backstage musical about the goings-on behind the scenes...so that's why the setpieces look exactly like you said. We've received very good press here, so I dare to say that you may not like this kind of musical. It certainly is different than the sardonic musicals out today like Spamalot, Spelling Bee and Avenue Q. But thanks for your comments!