Bartlett Sher's production of MY FAIR LADY will play London Coliseum beginning May 7, 2022 — Page 4

Vanessa apparently is still out of the show.

I would LOVE for this to get filmed

Okereke was wonderful. So much genuineness in all of her performance. Her chemistry with Hadden-Paton was spot-on.

However, my big issue with this production is in the sound. The only musicians I could listen clearly at the Coliseum were the brass and percussion sections of the orchestra. I could almost never hear the strings. I noticed the same issue, though not as bad, in the 2018 cast recording, which makes me think this was intentional. Did the same issue happen at the Beaumont, or was the orchestra properly amplified there?

Updated On: 6/18/22 at 04:08 PM

SuttonPeron said: "Okereke was wonderful. So much genuineness in all of her performance. Her chemistry with Hadden-Paton was spot-on.

However, my big issue with this production is in the sound. The only musicians I could listen clearly at the Coliseum were the brass and percussion sections of the orchestra. I could almost never hear the strings. I noticed the same issue, though not as bad, in the 2018 cast recording, which makes me think this was intentional. Did the same issue happen at the Beaumont, or was the orchestra properly amplified there?"

The orchestrations at the Beaumont were definitely CLEAR, but I wouldn't say they were LOUD. Bartlett Sher has never been a director who likes to amplify sound design in general. All of his musical productions I have seen tend to have big orchestras, but they never sound extremely powerful if that makes sense?

binau said: "Vanessa might have dropped out of the production. For those of us that saw in the role, I wonder if we just saw her final stage performance."

Has there been any official word from the production now that she's been out more than a month? She's still on the website.

Is there any validity to this getting filmed or are people just being wishful? Remember, KING & I and ANYTHING GOES were produced by Howard Panter & Rosemary Squire, who own Trafalgar Releasing. They have no association with MY FAIR LADY. And I doubt Andrews, who has no doubt had countless offers to play Mrs. Higgins (including in the production she directed), would ever consider doing this.

Just stumbled upon the touring cast: it will star Michael Xavier (Joe in the Glenn Close SUNSET on Bway) as Higgins, Charlotte Kennedy as Eliza, with Lesley Garrett CBE as Mrs. Pearce. Of note, the principal cast is all white, whereas it was quite diverse when it played the Palladium.

https://myfairladymusical.co.uk/uk-tour/uk-tour-cast-and-creative/

Broadway kills me in that it does not record and save its greatest achievements for a release to the world even if it’s many years after the show had its run. This My Fair Lady production is about the only show I can remember where I enjoyed the second act dialogue more than the music, and there was nothing wrong with the music either.

So what if Bernard Shaw considered Stalin a friend, and was a houseguest of Hitler. He knew his craft, how to write engaging dialogue, and that is why his plays are still studied and performed 100 years later.

On an expensive whim, I grabbed a prime ticket the night before Lauren’s last performance. I thought I would impress the woman next to me by telling her that this was the fourth time I had seen Lauren. She came back, and remarked that it was her 11th. I didn’t quite know what to make of this.

It was not until the curtain call that she could not hold it in any longer. She admitted to being Lauren’s mother. We chatted a bit, and then she was off with the family. The next day I read Lauren‘s exit interview with the New York Times, in which she revealed that during her run her father had been dying in a hospital in Connecticut. Adding to the pressure of running back-and-forth between her children in Connecticut and the theater, she also regularly visited her father. Her father died while she still had about three weeks left to perform. That must’ve been a tough time.

But I thought of her mother and the complex emotions she must have been feeling on that last day. Grief for her husband and pride in her daughter. That’s life.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Just stumbled upon the touring cast: it will star Michael Xavier (Joe in the Glenn Close SUNSET on Bway) as Higgins, Charlotte Kennedy as Eliza, with Lesley Garrett CBE as Mrs. Pearce. Of note, the principal cast is all white, whereas it was quite diverse when it played the Palladium.

https://myfairladymusical.co.uk/uk-tour/uk-tour-cast-and-creative/"

This tour has been out since august, I believe. I also noticed the lack of diversity.

Barlett was pleased with her as well:

The casting of Ambrose, a 40-year-old mother of two, as the twentysomething Eliza bewildered some theater folk, but Sher says that “to get someone who can do all of this, it’s always a surprise. And every single time I’ve ever worked with her, she came in and gave the best audition I’ve ever seen, until the next time she came in for something else.”

But I won't even be able to see the pale reproduction of the show. Lauren won the Outer Critics Circle Award.

I know her performance was polarizing but I thought she was perfection as Eliza. She is a very underrated next level actress. I can't wait for her next big break out role. I think she's just amazing!

Jordan Catalano said: "I’m just sad we never got her “Funny Girl”."

This is one that I’m ok with not getting. Sher has never been a master of comedy, and I don’t know that we need a Fanny who is so obviously a Shiksa.

Would it have been somewhat better than the current revival? Almost definitely. Could she have been wonderful in the role? Yeah! But would it have been received on the level of Sher’s other work? Probably not.