BIG the musical

[maybethistime]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 3:36am

has anyone actually seen the show? it was a big deal before it opened and bigger deal when it flopped. was it any good at all? does ANYONE have anything good to say about it? the music? i have the obcr, but i cant say im a fan...

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 4:11am

I saw it.

It wasn't the worst musical ever. Wasn't that great, either.

In my opinion, the good things were: Strohman's choreography, Daniel Jenkins, "Coffee, Black," "Cross That Line," and Barbara Walsh. The sets were kind of fun too. The transformation moment was nice, and Jenkins' song "I Wanna Go Home" (I think that's the title of it) was really sweet.

The bad things were Crista Moore, and the fact that there were too many obnoxious kids on the stage. (Crista Moore has a break between her chest register and her head voice the size of the Grand Canyon, and it drives me nuts.) Updated On: 12/31/04 at 04:11 AM

[AnothaPartofMe]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 12:11pm

Whatever happened to Crista Moore? I know she did JUMPERS recently but that opened and closed faster than BIG...

[jakebloke]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 12:19pm

I saw it on my very first trip to NY. It was kinda a rough season on B'way if I remember correctly....there wasn't much I wanted to see. I liked it. Not the greatest show, but it was entertaining, and on the whole well done. But then again, I was so excited to be in NYC, I would have enjoyed anything.

[BalletGirl85]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 12:25pm

The only song I really enjoy is "Stop Time" ...I saw a performance of this recently and it was amazing, but I haven't seen a production of the show. I've heard the other music from the OBCR and this is the only song I really thought was good.

[zoran912]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 4:52pm

I have to agree with the prima ballerina here. "Stop Time" is the most well-written song in the show. I was in a production at my school. It went very well and was well-recieved, but I get the idea that it is one of those shows that is more fun for the performer than the audience.

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 12/31/04 at 5:06pm

I never saw it on broadway but we did it at my HS-I was Mrs. Baskin

I really enjoyed it...there are some great songs and it's a lot of fun.

I really like Coffee Black, Stop Time, the Nightmare, Dancing all the time, do you wanna play games? (that's halarious!), and Cross the line is a great number too..

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 1:00am

A lot of people say that "Stop, Time" is the best song in the BIG score.

I think it's one of the biggest problems in the score. The Barbara Walsh character has lost her son, and yet she has time to ruminate in a shopping mall about the vagaries of child rearing insteading of going to a police station to try to figure out where her child is. That moment seems incredibly false to me, and while the song may be good, the placement of it in the show is deadly.

[whimsical]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 4:25am

My favorite song (oddly) is Dancing All the Time. I'm not sure why. Is that odd?

[AnothaPartofMe]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 10:29am

"Dancing All the Time" is a good, poppy song...

Did anyone see the tour of this? Brett Tabisel played Billy on Broadway and the tour (only 2 years older and a little heavier). He was very unbelieveable on the tour. He looked 17. But, I guess that's okay when the casting team couldn't even pay to put actual KIDS in the show for the tour (besides Josh, Billy and Cynthia Benson).

[Broadway_Bound_Star]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 10:40am

"(Crista Moore has a break between her chest register and her head voice the size of the Grand Canyon, and it drives me nuts.) "

I hate that it just drives me crazy when girls overly do that

[Menken Fan]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 11:21am

I saw the Broadway production, which I thought was very entertaining. I don't know why it was such a big flop, other than it cost a zillion dollars. The Stroman choreography was inventive and the cast was great, especially Barbara Walsh. I also saw the tour, which was substantially downsized, with many different songs. I thought the original songs were better than the replacements.

[whimsical]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 11:25am

Broadway_Bound_Star, it's not something someone DOES. It's a problem someone HAS. It's not like she's choosing to have that break. I've been working to smooth out the break in my voice for years. It's just tough for some people.

But anyway, Crista's break is pretty huge. She has a nice voice otherwise, though. Nothing special. Updated On: 1/1/05 at 11:25 AM

[Jon]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 11:28am

It was such a BIG flop because the producers kept it running even though it was losing money every week. They actually thought that good word-of-mouth would help ticket sales, despite the fact that it won no Tonys and wasn't even nominated for Best Musical. If they had closed around Labor Day, they would have lost their entire $8 million investment. By keeping it running through December, in hopes of picking up family business over the holidays, they actually lost another million!

[Menken Fan]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 11:41am

But what I didn't understand was why it didn't do better. Everyone I know enjoyed it and it had good word of mouth (except for the critics). Many other shows have survived, despite bad reviews (Aida). I'd prefer to see Big again over many of the awful musicals on Broadway these days.

[Jwaa]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 11:53am

An ameteur theatre group whom i know the director of put on the U.K debut of BIG, i loved the song 'I Wanna Go Home', a friend of mine did it in auditions for schools, its very cute, but the awful raps in the show made me clasp my head in my hands and i felt soo embarrased for the poor guy having to perform the part! argh truly worrying that theyd even put something like that on broadway! though te crapness reminded me off the state the UK batboy was in, in the previewsm especially with the un-trained Rick....:|...ergh!

[AnothaPartofMe]

Posted: 1/1/05 at 2:41pm

A follow-up to my post from before... BIG will always be one of those shows where people will say "What happened...". I think the version that is released for ametuer production is 10 times worse than the Broadway material (which wasn't that bad...). The tour/MTI material is underdeveloped, long and pointless. It's a shame they couldn't keep "I Wanna Go Home", "This Isn't Me" and "Here We Go Again"...

Speaking of "I Wanna Go Home"- it's actually funny. MTI used to release the song separate from the rights to the show, so you had to pay extra to put it in your production of BIG. Now, you can't even get it in the show... I've contacted MTI and their response was "The song was written for the Broadway production, and MTI does not license that version of the show." I wonder why they pulled it from the show's score. It was in it when I did it three years ago, but no longer.

[lite2shine]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 1:45am

>It's a shame they couldn't keep "I Wanna Go Home", "This Isn't Me"

There was a theatre magazine called "Show Music" a few years ago and one issue was about "Big: national tour." It contained the complete script of national tour version, and discussion of the creative team about the national tour. They said the reason why "I wanna go home" was cut is that Josh wished to become "big" and in the beginning of the show, he immediately regrets before trying to enjoy being "big," and they thought for kids in the audience, it's rather unbelievable or something like that.

I do like "I wanna go home" too. But for some reason Dan Jenkins' voice sounds like Jason Alexander in that song I wish I can get the souvenir program of OBC BIG. I like Coffee, Black too. They changed the lyric in the tour version and it's not as funny.
Light To Shine unofficial fan site for Big River

[Amneris]

Posted: 1/3/05 at 9:38am

I saw it a few times on bway. I was young then hehe and I loved it very much. I had a love affair in my seat with the sets. I thought the way they recreated the store was unreal.

[NYACTOR124]

Posted: 1/13/05 at 2:04pm

In 98-99 I did the second National Tour with NETworks productions based out of NY. The tour lasted a little under a year. And I think that with all of the revisments made from the brodway show and the first national tour, it made this show alot more enjoyable to watch and to be a part of. If you have any other questions please respond.