Applause revival next season

#1

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 1:28pm

Just listening to Elaine Paige's interview with Charles Strouse who says "Applause" is being revived next season and couldn't say who will play Margo...

anyone know anything?!

#2

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 1:38pm

Let's start casting.

#3

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 1:54pm

Are they going to keep it in the 70's? I always thought taking it out of it's original period (All About Eve came out in '50) was merely an attempt to distance itself form the iconic film. There are a few beauties in the score but they're gonna need a big name to sell this. Lucky for them she doesn't have to be a bang up singer.

I've always wanted to see Dee Hoty do this regionally somewhere. Alas, she'd never be allowed to headline it on Broadway.

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"Broadway...I'll lick you yet!"

#4

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 1:55pm

I would imagine it would be very hard to take out of the 70s, considering the music is so much of that period.

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"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

#5

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 2:14pm

When Encores! revived it not that long ago with Christine Ebersole, the general critical reaction was that APPLAUSE is a big, wet plop that doesn't deserve revival. I just can't see this happening.

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"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

#6

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 2:15pm

Can we just start over and do a new musical based on the film All About Eve? Maybe a more faithful adaptation with a Sondheim score starring Patti LuPone as Margo? Hey, a kid can dream...

#7

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 2:25pm

Vanessa Williams as Margo, Beyonce as Eve.

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"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

#8

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 3:36pm

Here is the real bottom line: What composer doesn't say that one of his shows is coming in as a revival? 98% of them are living only in the composer's imagination.

#9

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 3:40pm

When Encores! revived it not that long ago with Christine Ebersole, the general critical reaction was that APPLAUSE is a big, wet plop that doesn't deserve revival. I just can't see this happening.

I was going to say that Applause was the first (and possibly only) time I've seen a show at Encores where I didn't really like the show. The production was fun and I'm glad I saw it, but the show itself really didn't do anything for me.

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When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain. -Kad

#10

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 3:49pm

Can we start the "why bother?" thread?

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"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

#11

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 3:58pm

Stephanie Powers! Oh, wait...

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"Broadway...I'll lick you yet!"

#12

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 4:14pm

I place all the blame of the Encores! failure on the mis-casting of Christine Ebersole. You need someone with star quality, something she is just lacking.

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http://www.youtube.com/huskcharmer

#13

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 4:23pm

Which Hollywood actress could make her Broadway musical debut as Margo?

#14

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 4:42pm

Jen Cody for Margo and Hunter Foster for Eve!

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"Broadway...I'll lick you yet!"

#15

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 4:51pm

A Hollywood actress for Margo and Jen and Hunter alternating as Eve.

#16

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 5:11pm

I don't necessarily believe the show isn't coming in, but I think that the attraction wouldn't be doing the show.


For example, unlike Night Music, where the desire would have been there to bring the production back with or without Jones and Lansbury, they probably have a very specific Margo in mind.

I think the show has its cute points.

#17

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 5:26pm

I know all composers say their shows are coming back. But listen to the interview, it sounded a dead cert. Especially when he said he knows who is going to star in it...

We'll see!

#18

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 5:30pm

Well I'm sure we'll see Sutton Foster as Eve.

And Eve was weak...

#19

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 5:41pm

Yes, Ebersole was completely miscast, she never came off as diva-esque enough or larger-than-life enough to be Margo Channing. Donna Murphy or Bebe Neuwirth would have fit the bill better.
Still, you were always aware that this is just not a good show. It's not bad but it's mediocre at best; the songs are pretty generic (save for a couple) and at no point does it ever reach even remotely the brilliance of the ALL ABOUT EVE screenplay. There's no sense in reviving this, really.
I do wonder who they could get to star in this.

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"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

#20

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 6:25pm

Susan Lucci

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"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)

#21

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 6:29pm

God, I'd love to see Charles Busch do this.

#22

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 6:31pm

"I would imagine it would be very hard to take out of the 70s, considering the music is so much of that period."

Not that I'm comparing the greatness of COMPANY to APPLAUSE, but the 2005 revival had new orchestrations that clearly took that show's sound out of the 1970s. Can it be done with APPLAUSE, sure it can. Should it? Not so sure.

#23

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 8:27pm

I agree with those who say that the show itself just isn't all that strong, but Glenn Close would be inspired as Margo Channing.

Put her opposite someone like Anne Hathaway (who I believe Encores! really wanted for Eve Harrington several years ago) and I'd be there in a second.

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Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.

#24

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 8:29pm

^^Perfect casting.

#25

Applause revival next season

Posted: 8/15/10 at 8:55pm

Not that I saw it, but could part of the reason that Ebersole wasn't good be that she was sick? It was at Encores! early when I started into the community, and I remember watching a video where she talked about being sick. Once again, I didn't see it so I wouldn't know all the problems she had, but it certainly wouldn't have helped that she was sick.