BEACHES Previews — Page 8

Kad said: "George in DC said: "

Kad is wrong, I saw "Beaches" at Signature Theatre in Feb of 2014 and "Wind .... " was in the show.
"

Yes, I was indeed wrong- I misread an article about Iris Rainer Dart from before the debut. My apologies."



It's funny, that's the only thing I remember about the show except I was totally blown away by Alysha Umphress. Otherwise , the show was completely forgettable.

Updated On: 4/8/26 at 06:05 PM

Ensemble17701165943 said: "Wasn't this show only meant for a limited run and then to go out on tour?"

It is a "limited run" of 6 months and it will allegedly tour after that.

free advice: If you want to play the scarcity game, start with 12 weeks on sale and announce an extension mid-previews if there is actual demand and great word of mouth!

Groovy.

pmensky said:

You’ve championed Almost Famous as a “perfect musical,” praised Getting the Band Back Together,



almost famous was far from perfect but it was good

unfortunately these days good is not good enough

costs are too high and when a show fails to catch on in the first month

the show is already bleeding money profusely

in a previous decade almost famous might have had a respectable run

but getting the band back together doesnt even belong in the same category

gtbbt was nothing more than a ken davenport vanity project

the show was produced as a broadway show because he could

not that it had any crumb of artistic value

the plot was paper-thin trite

the score was lame and the orchestrations were anemic

if u want to talk about a 'bomb' as is being discussed in another thread

getting the band back together never even cracked $300k and ran for a pathetic 5 weeks

making the heart of rock and roll look like a smash hit by comparison

but yes beaches looks headed to be another 'glory day' 18 years later



MezzoDiva47 has spoken

u know what to do

Wasn’t New York New York “going to be a smash hit and run for years and years?”

Updated On: 4/9/26 at 07:09 AM

pmensky said: "Jordan Catalano said: "We know by now that the people who can make changes and should make changes in so many of these shows, are aware that message boards exist and people who actually know what they're talking about provide instantaneous feedback on the products they put out but - and someone please give me specific instances because I'm still working on my first cup of coffee - I can't think of a time they've actually used the feedback to their advantage. Of course there's financial logistics to take into account but if you make, let's just say, a new brand ofcookie and give it out and people say "Oh, I don't like this there's glass in it" and you have millions of dollars invested to make sure that cookie is profitable, you'd do what you needed toremove the glass and make people enjoy your cookie. Not double down and pretend that your cookie is glass-free and just go "Oh, well. Nothing we can do about it now." and then goes on like a lot of productions have done, to blame the public for not wanting to spend money on glass shard cookies.

This message board has been around for longer than a lot of users have been alive. It has it's good and it has it's bad but the GOOD has always been there to provide the feedback and it amazes me that after DECADES, it (and now countless other social media outlets) isstill not viewed by most to be a productive tool for them. It's a free, real time focus group for every single performance, people.

Again, I'm not talking about "Beaches" specifically for some of this stuff because (I guess?) there have been changes made since the earlypreview I went to and I will go back to see the final result but folks I know who were there just last night had the same reaction or worse, than I did."

I appreciate your enthusiasm as an audience member, truly. But I think it’s worth acknowledging the irony here. You’re arguing that professional artists should treat message board opinions as a “real time focus group,” yet your own history on this board shows why that’s not a reliable or productive idea.

You’ve championed Almost Famous as a “perfect musical,” praised Getting the Band Back Together, and wrote such glowing mid intermission praise for Beanie Feldstein and Jane Lynch at the first Funny Girl preview that anyone reading would’ve assumed they had Tony Awards incoming. None of those assessments aligned with the artistic or commercial outcomes that followed.

There’s nothing wrong with loving what you love, that’s the joy of being an audience member. But that’s exactly the point: you’re an audience member, notan artistic advisor. And your taste, historically, has not been a useful predictor of what works on a professional level.

So when you suggest that producers and creative teams should be mining this board for actionable notes, it ignores the reality that this board is a mix of informed perspectives, personal biases, and wildly inconsistent taste, yours included. That’s why professionals don’t treat anonymous message boards as development tools. Enthusiasm is great, butenthusiasm is not expertise."

How is Jordan or any other poster's enjoyment of a variety of shows, including some the masses disliked, any different than any human being, including those with "expertise" like other artists or professional reviewers? Producers and audiences listen to critics, but they're just people, and they have opinions a lot of folks wouldn't agree with. They champion things that the masses don't always enjoy, and deride things that become massive hits. I don't really understand the point of this post.

Updated On: 4/9/26 at 08:00 AM

tomwsjr said: "Wasn’t New York New York “going to be a smash hit and runfor years and years?”"

I think the general consensus here was that it wasn't all that great. There were a few contrarian defenders, some shills, some trolls, who liked to claim otherwise, but if memory serves most here were betting against it.

In fact, now that I've gone back and read through the thread, the outlook was quite poor poor.

A few people seem to be interpreting my post as an attack on anyone’s right to enjoy what they enjoy. What I was pointing out is that the opinions on this board often conflict with box office results and professional critics’ reviews. That inconsistency is why it would be unwise to treat this place as a real time focus group for theatre professionals. The irony is that this suggestion came from someone whose reactions are frequently out of step with broader audience response. People seem to be jumping over that point to defend the idea of having opinions when the point I made was about reliability, not permission.

pmensky said: "A few people seem to be interpreting my post as an attack on anyone’s right to enjoy what they enjoy. What I was pointing out is that the opinions on this board often conflict with box office results and professional critics’ reviews. That inconsistency is why it would be unwise to treat this place as a real time focus group for theatre professionals. The irony is that this suggestion came from someone whose reactions are frequently out of step with broader audience response. People seem to be jumping over that point to defend the idea of having opinions when the point I made was about reliability, not permission."

Because the crux of your point is still "why should anybody take opinions here seriously when some people here liked a flop like Getting the Band Back Together, or when many on the board thought Great Gatsby would quickly close." Productions spend lavishly on expertise from seasoned marketers, publicists, consultants, and others to get shows up and try to get tickets sold and still usually fail. Jordan was hardly saying that opinions here should be the sole source of input into a production- just that there is a wealth of informed opinion here as a resource.

Updated On: 4/9/26 at 04:55 PM

would you two like a bowl of meow mix?



MezzoDiva47 has spoken

you know what to do

pmensky said: "Kad said: "pmensky said: "A few people seem to be interpreting my post as an attack on anyone’s right to enjoy what they enjoy. What I was pointing out is that the opinions on this board often conflict with box office results and professional critics’ reviews. That inconsistency is why it would be unwise to treat this place as a real time focus group for theatre professionals. The irony is that this suggestion came from someone whose reactions are frequently out of step with broader audience response. People seem to be jumping over that point to defend the idea of having opinions when the point I made was about reliability, not permission."

Because the crux of your point is still "why should anybody take opinions here seriously when some people here liked a flop like Getting the Band Back Together, or when many on the board thought Great Gatsby would quickly close." Productions spend lavishly on expertise from seasoned marketers, publicists, consultants, and others to get shows up and try to get tickets sold and still usually fail.Jordan was hardly saying that opinions here should be the sole source of input into a production- just that there is a wealth of informed opinion here as a resource.

At this point the responses say more about people wanting to scold me than about anything I actually wrote. The point was straightforward and it keeps getting rewritten into something else entirely. Either people are determined to feel self‑important or they’re not reading. The inconsistency of opinions here is exactly why this board isn’t a reliable focus group, and the way this thread keeps misinterpreting a simple argument only reinforces that."

What are you talking about? I've been in several focus groups, and the literal whole point is to get a range of opinions, not consistent ones. If you know what to expect or what you want out of a focus group, there's no reason to have the focus group.

You are taking an idle comment about the board being like a focus group extremely seriously.