Advice For Wildhorn

Write a show score under a different name. Hire a person to be you during all rehearsals & interviews. If the show opens to raves, spring the news on the critics & rest of the world & sit back & smile like the Cheshire cat.

Say Wildhorn to a critic & likes Pavlov's dog you will get a scathing criticque.

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Updated On: 12/2/11 at 10:22 PM

The critics have no idea what they are talking about...the score is freakin' amazing!

Mr Roxy == if you AGREE with the reviews, what is the point of the thread? If you disagree, I don't understand your last post.

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Ah...thanks for the clarification, that makes more sense!

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My advice: Find another profession.

Fight back against some of the more vicious & obviously biased critics. What will they do - give him more bad reviews. He has turned the other cheek once to often.

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I strongly agree with Roxy that Wildhorn should stand up to some of his critics by name and question their integrity. He would suffer greatly both here and abroad but in this particular case, if word of mouth for Bonnie and Clyde continues to be good, he will be heard.

Making it as an artist is tough enough. You need talent and a thick skin simply because your work is based on subjective criteria. The artist is the last person who can afford to be the subject of a vendetta the " experts" who pass judgement.

A direct assault on their integrity is a cut to the bone.

A direct assault on their integrity is a cut to the bone.

Critics almost unanimously trashed the show and they write for completely different publications. I would understand your point if Broadway audiences reacted positively to his shows, but they don't. The fact is that his shows barely work at any level on Broadway - note that I'm not talking about their artistic merit, but their critical and financial success. After almost 7 financial flops in a row, producing his work on Broadway almost seems like an act of stubborness, why open Bonnie and Clyde so soon after Wonderland?

If he finds his work to be a hit somewhere else, that's already a big reward.

And if he was to attack every single reviewer who gave him a negative review the only integrity in question would be his. He would just pass as insane and bitter.

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Updated On: 12/4/11 at 02:02 AM

I understand, dented146. Although word of mouth needs to turn into revenue for him to consider speaking out. Otherwise, he'd have little to back up his point of view.

I think a lot of posters here really think that critics are out to get him, no matter what he does. But we have to consider these reviewers come from all over the spectrum. Thinking of an unspoken crusade of critics determined to bully a composer and his work seems overly dramatic and paranoid to me.

I could see Schwartz giving a few of them the finger after Wicked, but Wildhorn's record is just so bad critically and financially. No other composer in Broadway's history has a record of 7-0. It might not be my place to question these producers, but I really don't understand why they don't try a different approach with his work that is not Broadway.

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No other composer in Broadway's history has a record of 7-0.

You mean critically (0-6) or financially (0-5)?

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Don't forget Frank also worked on Victor/Victoria, which I believe also flopped.

Yes, I counted Victor/Victoria. If Bonnie & Clyde flops, that is a record of 7 flops to no hits.

If he really is using Broadway as a start point to his international success, I don't get the fuzz about the poor reception of his shows this side of the pond.

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I do suspect the musical tastes of the Continent and the US skew in different directions. (Alas, I'm an American with an (apparently) European taste in musicals, haha.)

I'm just as glad Wildhorn continues to put his musicals on Broadway, though how he has the self-esteem to weather the criticism, I will never understand. I wouldn't be able to stand it. Still, it gives me the chance to see them before they vanish overseas. My European friends joke that we break them onto the world, they take them, fix them, and make them successful...

You would be surprised what people will do when the right amount of money is waved in front of them.

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