A Daniel Fish Most Happy Fella?

Not everything that starts at Bard has to come to Broadway does it? I mean this could go nowhere?

Interesting that this would happen after Jo Sullilvan Loesser had passed away.....

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Daniel-Fish-to-Direct-THE-MOST-HAPPY-FELLA-at-Bard-SummerScape-20191220

Quote from NYT:

Expect “a nontraditional treatment of the existing material,” a SummerScape spokesman said, “with an emphasis on Loesser’s exquisite score.”

Had I felt that the Fish "Oklahoma" had emphasized R & H's "exquisite score" I would be less alarmed.

I know I know..... no one is forcing me to buy a ticket.

suzycat said: "It is 90 minutes by Amtrak to Rhinecliff, plus a 15-minute cab ride. "

Yep it’s not bad at all. My friend lives in Hudson and hops to the city all the time.

Why would you ever take the Metro North when it stops so far from Bard? Weird. Obviously, you'd take Amtrak.

I love what he does to all of his shows. Looking forward to this!

I was throwing some sass at Google maps because that's just weird as hell.

I was not a great fan of OKLAHOMA!, and maybe because of that, my hope on this production is that he casts singers that can really do justice to this score. It's basically an opera and we don't need poorly sung, folk rendition of it. The last Broadway revival did the piece with two pianos which was for my money unsatisfying musically, though it was one of the first 'stripped down' revivals that critics felt made the musical more accessible.

Surely Mary Testa will be Cleo. Age wise she is more appropriate to play Marie but, unless he is completely changing the music, that's not a role in her usual vocal range.

It also appears to be moving away from the operatic roots of the score.

I'll be interested to see if Fish, like Van Hove, is a "one-trick pony," or if he can create something unique and equally exciting as Oklahoma!. I wouldn't expect to ever see this on Broadway unless it plays like gangbusters at an off-Bway venue (MHF, as beloved as it is for people like us, does NOT have the notoriety of OK!. Also, part of what made OK! interesting/successful is the fact that everyone knows how it's "usually" done).

"This will not be a conventional production of THE MOST HAPPY FELLA and we will not be dividing the cast up into the traditional roles. The cast will be comprised of a small ensemble of seven performers all of whom have the same story and all of whom, at times, have their own story. That story is expressed through the music. Songs are divided between solos and group numbers and the exact configuration will be decided upon during the rehearsal process."

Only a cast of 7.

If it's like Oklahoma then Tony will actually break a leg every night, Joey will have a photo taken and developed in real time, Rosabella will give birth to Joe's child onstage during a gory dream sequence, and they will serve wedding cake at intermission.

Remember how in class people would lower their heads in the hopes that the teacher wouldn't call on them? That is no doubt how our classic musicals must be feeling nowadays, cowering in the corner and praying that it won't be their turn to be led to the chopping block by some hot shot for fun, fame and fortune. Ironically, the flops of yore are now better off, since no one is seeking them out for, ahem, ... “reinventing.” How lucky they are! They rest In peace and remain pristine in memory.

Well, at least until there are no longer any past hits left to destroy!

“As long as the creators or their successors are fine with directors radically reimagining older shows, I’m fine with it too, whether or not I end up liking those versions.”



Are you equally fine with others not being fine with it?

And remember, one person's “radically reimagining” is another person's “destruction.”