BROADWAY SECRETS: Wherein we confess our controversial opinions- Page 5

[all that jazz]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:07am

"cell phones should not be allowed in the theater or at least be jammed or something. if you end up using it then you get kicked out. if you're an on call doctor then go to the theater when you're not on call. stop living your lives like you're going to expect an emergency and you have to answer your phone. someone else's emergency is not your own. turn off your damn phone for one hour (check during intermission) or just don't bring it. people in the 50s didn't have cells phone in the theater and things went fine.


bootleg videos on youtube should be allowed to stay up. i hate when they removed. i don't live in NY and I can't fly out to see almost every show or ever cast replacement that comes up. sometimes Youtube is my only way to see them."

Interesting! So you don't want people to take their phones to the theater, but you still expect them to film the shows...

[Kad]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:09am

"I want to see John Gallagher Jr. try something that isn't a rock musical, although I believe he should have been nominated for Best Leading Actor in American Idiot. "

He did Rabbit Hole and Farragut North, both to acclaim.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:11am

unless stated, musicals aren't singalongs... i get to punch you if you singalong

And unless my singing along is bothering someone else, I get to press charges for assault in a public place. As the kids say, "U mad, bro?"

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:19am

I'm pretty sure your singing along at a broadway show will ALWAYS bother someone.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:23am

I love how most of these aren't controversial opinions at all. They're just OPINIONS.

Haha, yeah. "I think that ALW sucks." What a new and different thought that no one on this board has ever expressed!

[phantomcrazy14]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:38am

I love Cats, Wicked, and Phantom of the Opera
I think all playbill covers should always be color (unless the actual show artwork is black and white. I hate seeing all the beautiful and colorful artwork all bland)
I dislike Newsies.
I really don't want projections to be used as much an I'm waiting for an original show to come along from new composers that has beautiful and lush music.
I want either Aaron Tveit, Josh Buscher or various others to marry me. I know it may not seem controversial, but I live in PA so it still is here!

[RENT_is_Wicked2]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 11:53am

How Elena Roger screams "Star quality" at the end of Buenos Aires still makes me cringe.

Wicked not winning best musical over Avenue Q.

I loved Spider- Man, but the original cast is still the best.

Kinky Boots could've picked a better song to perform at the Tony's. possibly Sex Is In The Heal.

The 2000 revival of Rocky Horror was amazing.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 12:11pm

"Interesting! So you don't want people to take their phones to the theater, but you still expect them to film the shows..."

i don't expect anyone to film shows... if you film a show and you're not disturbing anyone around you and no one can tell you're doing it... then do it... but if you're texting with a big ass bright light and it's disruptive then yeah... don't bring your phone in

i had a friend once audio a show... the recorder just sat in her lap... no one knew what she was doing only me because she told me... it was small and inconspicuous... no lights or anything were showing....

"And unless my singing along is bothering someone else, I get to press charges for assault in a public place. As the kids say, "U mad, bro?""

and if it's bothering someone else then you don't get to press charges??





Updated On: 6/15/13 at 12:11 PM

[WickedRENTAwakening]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 12:16pm

Non-traditional casting main characters whether it be physical or genetic makes me furious in Broadway or in OFFICIAL touring companies. Last weekend I traveled 7 hours to 118 degree heat to see LES MISERABLES in Sacramento only to be welcomed by a 400-pound Jean Valjean, a flamboyant Asian Marius and an Asian Gavroche.

That is community theatre **** with out the $20 community theatre price. It's like having a white Celie in THE COLOR PURPLE (I'm sure the audience would not have had any of that.) Having Elizabeth Judd as Windela on the second SPRING AWAKENING tour was the difference between me seeing twice (already had the tickets for 3 performances passed on the last one) and seeing it 8 times. She was great in Bare but Wendla? No.

Updated On: 6/15/13 at 12:16 PM

[ClumsyDude15]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 12:20pm

First of all, it's WENDLA.

And second of all - There's so much wrong with what you just said, I don't even know where to begin.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 12:54pm

The best show I saw this past season was Fanny and Alexander in Swedish at the Kenendy Center and while watching the Tonys, it made me sad something like that could never have a place on Broadway.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 1:05pm

"She did not have the dignity, nor the vocal prowess for the role, and I have wondered why people keep suggesting her for things. You have to realize that because of her untrained singing, her vocal abilities have deteriorated to the point where she can no longer sing high, or without a crackly overtone (see her Oscar performance singing, and I use that term lightly, "All That Jazz"). However, Bernadette was much more suited to the role"

You're kidding right? Bernadette's voice is shot. The only thing that saved her on Smash was the computer enhancements. She ruined her voice on Song & Dance and she's been raspy ever since.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 1:40pm

All musicals sound the same nowadays.

[sally1112]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 1:46pm

I don't like any Broadway shows that were written before 2005! None of them.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 2:04pm

Non-traditional casting main characters whether it be physical or genetic makes me furious in Broadway or in OFFICIAL touring companies. Last weekend I traveled 7 hours to 118 degree heat to see LES MISERABLES in Sacramento only to be welcomed by a 400-pound Jean Valjean, a flamboyant Asian Marius and an Asian Gavroche.

That is community theatre **** with out the $20 community theatre price. It's like having a white Celie in THE COLOR PURPLE (I'm sure the audience would not have had any of that.)

Really now? Comparing color blind casting in Les Miz to The Color Purple. Les Miz is not about race... at all. Should everybody in it just be lily white? If you want to claim France was mostly white then, well France didn't have many Canadian (Colm Wilkinson), American (Patti), or English people either. Why aren't they singing in French? Why do most of them have English accents!?

The idea of traditional casting in Les Miz is just idiotic.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 2:15pm

Oh, theatrefan4, I don't think we're meant to take seriously something that includes this:

"Last weekend I traveled 7 hours to 118 degree heat to see LES MISERABLES in Sacramento..."

Are we?

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 2:19pm

Elena Roger sounds like a boy soprano on "Rainbow High," specifically Gustave from the cast recording of "Love Never Dies." I'm not just being snarky to be snarky, her vocals reminded me of little Gustave.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 2:35pm

I thought Smile was a far better musical than Les Miserables, and I saw both original Broadway productions less than two months apart.

Cats is one of those shows that "defied gravity" for me. Nothing about that show should have worked, but for me everything did. Seeing the OBC is still one of the most inspiriting, thought provoking, and moving nights of theatre I've ever had. And it's hard for me to articulate why. But that show resonated WAY beyond seeing a bunch of dancers in cat costumes singing poetry.

Speaking of "defying gravity," I absolutely love Wicked (the musical and the novel).

I don't much care for Betty Buckley or Idina Menzel's voices on recordings, but live in the theatre, they are electrifying.

Dreamgirls fizzles out completely in the second act. Nine deserved to win the Tony that year.

Broadway is mostly a machine now with very few exceptions. Everybody talks about "tracks" like the little dolls that scoot around on metal rails in "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. Robots with prerecorded entertainment. The ones who work the most are the ones who are easily replaceable and interchangeable enough to easily replace others. They all fit the same costume. That's why they're hired. I do think Broadway should be a "well oiled machine" as far as the running of a production, but I shouldn't see the "machine" from the audience. And I do.

John Lloyd Young didn't deserve a Tony over Bob Martin in Drowsy Chaperone.

Mary Poppins sucked. I don't just mean it was a disappointment, I mean it was terrible.

Evita really isn't a great show. It's a terrific "star vehicle" for whomever plays "Eva," if she's up to the challenge, but that's pretty much it. It's boring aside from the "star vehicle."

I absolutely love Phantom of the Opera the first two times I saw it with Michael Crawford. Everything about it, including and especially the music. But also the staging, costumes, sets, and choreography. The show has never, ever been as good since.

The Drowsy Chaperone should still be running on Broadway. So should Grey Gardens. So should the original (not revival) production of Ragtime.

The Los Angeles "original premiere" cast of Ragtime was far superior to the original Broadway/Toronto cast.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a pretty good show.

The film version of Chicago is a vast improvement over the stage show.

Same thing with Oliver!, The Sound of Music, and while it wasn't a "vast" improvement, the movie West Side Story is still an improvement over the stage show.

I actually like the movie Nine if you cut the first scene off completely (with Guido and the reporters) and just start the movie with the Overture Delle Donne. It's a good film.

I like the film version of Rent.

Mame is inferior to Auntie Mame, both on stage and on film (obviously).

Broadway is now the most expensive children's theatre district in the world.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 2:42pm

Broadway is mostly a machine now with very few exceptions. Everybody talks about "tracks" like the little dolls that scoot around on metal rails in "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. Robots with prerecorded entertainment. The ones who work the most are the ones who are easily replaceable and interchangeable enough to easily replace others. They all fit the same costume....


It's the Johnny Bravo-ization of the stage!

Updated On: 6/15/13 at 02:42 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 2:47pm

Sad, but true!

"Clowns never laughed before ... "

EDIT: Adding a few more ...

I don't care if I ever see Gypsy again on any stage. 328 productions is enough.

I think Follies is a bad show with some great songs in it.

It's strange to see "monumental event' shows start to fade away within my lifetime. Sweeney Todd and A Chorus Line come to mind. They were (and still are to me) unequivocal masterpieces. But they are starting to fade now through the eyes of younger generations. Just like The Music Man, Show Boat, and Carousel all have (to some degree).

I think food and drink of any kind should be banned inside Broadway theatres.

Updated On: 6/15/13 at 02:47 PM

[gossipguy215]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 3:42pm

"You're kidding right? Bernadette's voice is shot. The only thing that saved her on Smash was the computer enhancements. She ruined her voice on Song & Dance and she's been raspy ever since."
I don't think it is. I saw her in NIGHT MUSIC three times, moved every time. Her "Send In the Clowns" was gorgeous. I saw her in FOLLIES 5 times, and each time she was different, yet consistently terrific. She almost equaled the late great Dorothy Collins in her portrayal of Sally. I loved her "Don't Look at Me" and "In Buddy's Eyes". One night, she completely lost it during "Losing My Mind" and had tears streaming down her face, but her voice remained steady and strong. I love her voice and I think it's much better than some of the other people famous now.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 3:45pm

Some more potentially controversial opinions:

Shows and Talent
* The book for Man of La Mancha would be much improved by including more material from the original teleplay, I, Don Quixote, on which it was based.
* The 1999 Royal National Theatre version of Candide is the best script in terms of faithfulness to the Voltaire original that the show will ever have. Combined with the environmental production concept it received in 1973, and the ornate orchestrations of the 1950s versions, it would be a work of art.
* Jesus Christ Superstar is easily one of the best musicals ever written.
* I do not get the appeal of Jonathan Groff. At all.

Production Practices
* I am not at all against stunt casting, so long as the choice made is appropriate for the role in terms of talent and not just in terms of potential box office.
* If someone is clearly attempting to bilk others in the entertainment industry, or anything they are doing raises cause for alarm, others should feel free to open their mouth about their suspicions without fear of reprisals, regardless of their age. Background and experience are far more important.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 3:58pm

Some idiots make me roll my eyes so far back I'm afraid they'll never come back around.

[Kad]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 4:00pm

^ in re: Candide. I think the National Theatre version is still too jam-packed and its lyrical changes unnecessary and clunky. The 2004 concert is probably the best in terms of score selection. The show is just not destined to work as a great adaptation of the Voltaire novella, which is so insanely quick-paced and brisk (not to mention ridiculous with its deliberate skewering of plot contrivances, wide scope, and other tenants of picaresque stories) that a mock-operetta format cannot easily match it. The novella is barely 100 pages; its adaptation should not be three plus hours with 30+ musical pieces.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 6:29pm

On stage the '99 RNT production as easily one of the best things I've ever seen. I really think the revised libretto I absolutely perfect and manages to balance the tone of Voltaire with the score fantastically. I felt it did manage to mix the operetta element with the comedy of the novel, partly due to the insanely quick thrust stage setting. It's too bad the plan to film it (though the idea of using all green screen backgrounds sounded dodgy) never came to happen.