Broadway Grosses are up and...- Page 2

[spence]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:10pm

Did you read New York Magazine and Associated Press?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:20pm

If you'd like, I'd be more than happy to provide excerpts from the Hartford Courant's review (an excellent paper with an experienced theatre critic) or from Peter Marks' review from The Washington Post (which happens to be located outside of New York if you haven't noticed) or the Newark Star-Ledger (also not New York) or USA Today (which is based outside of DC) or Newsday (based on Long Island). Would that make you happy? Trust me, what they had to say about the show that you're so busy shilling wouldn't.

[joeyjoe]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:22pm

attendance is up with half price tickets... average ticket price is what? $51?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:25pm

John Simon HATED the show in New York Magazine or do you need to take a reading comprehension course? He said that he was "bemused" by "Brooklyn" -- why don't you go look that word up and come back and tell me how much he liked it.....

As for the AP, just be VERY happy Michael Kuchwara, the regular critic didn't review the show (Peter Santilli was a novice reviewer and it showed).

Updated On: 11/2/04 at 06:25 PM

[spence]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:28pm

Margo,
First, I'm not shilling. Most of the people on this message board still get allowance from their parents and go to shows for their birthday. I'm just tired of people constantly trying to say that a show can't be enjoyed because of bad reviews or of someone else's opinion. I have seen Bklyn a few times and the audiences have always been extremely positive. Doesn't that validate their opinions.

[Testing1232]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:32pm

Spence,

I can understand what you are saying, but you had stated in an earlier post that the "recent reviews have been great". That simply is not true. After a comment like that, you are going to be considered a shill.

[shlamdiddly]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:34pm

"I'm just tired of people constantly trying to say that a show can't be enjoyed because of bad reviews or of someone else's opinion"

I saw Dracula a week or two after it opened...Even though it didn't have great reviews I still went and I still enjoyed it very much.

[spence]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:37pm

2004-10-31
'Brooklyn' is energetic sidewalk fairy tale
By Chesley Plemmons
NEWS-TIMES THEATER CRITIC


Brooklyn (Eden Espinosa), right, tries to wow the judges in a contest of divas in "Brooklyn The Musical," which opened last week on Broadway. From left, Ramona Keller, Kevin Anderson, Karen Olivo and Cleavant Derricks complete the cast.
Fashion styles are regularly recycled without a dissenting voice from the critics of chic, so why did the majority of New York papers come down so heavily on the new show "Brooklyn The Musical"?
True, it borrows — but wisely — from several successful concepts, but then takes off on its own with energy — megawatt-high energy — and hilariously eccentric staging.

Add to that five bravura performances and you have an entertainment that will charm and excite anyone except those who keep treading water in the hope Sondheim will come out of his moss-covered cave with a lively new "intellectual" concoction.

In "Brooklyn," there's a touch of "Hair"; the roles are modeled on anything but Ivy Leaguers. There's a reflection of ""Rent"; the characters call themselves "city weeds."

There's the disarming simplicity of a fairy tale similar to that in "The Fantasticks," where, as here, the small cast also becomes scene changers.

Each of the performers is an ace. Cleavant Derricks, who hasn't been seen on a Broadway stage since "Dreamgirls," plays the Streetsinger, who is the storyteller for the evening.

Billed as a "sidewalk" fairy tale, the plot is about a young girl, Brooklyn (Eden Espinosa), who searches for fame and the father she never knew.

Born in Paris and named for the place he was raised, Brooklyn was left on her own when dad Taylor (Kevin Anderson) was called to duty in Vietnam and her mother, Faith (Karen Olivo), an exotic dancer, died in a freak accident.

After becoming a cabaret star in Paris and Brooklyn returns to New York to search for Taylor. There she finds herself competing for the title of "Diva of the City" with an established star named Paradice (Ramona Keller). No, that's not a misspelling; Paradice was abandoned by a father who left her only a pair of dice.

O.K., so maybe there is nothing particularly new here, but director Jeff Calhoun, who staged the imaginatively sensitive Deaf West Theatre production of "Big River" last season, makes the most of it.


With the help of set designer Ray Klausen and costumer Tobin Ost, who both must have been smoking something funny when they hatched their ideas, Calhoun delivers a funny, lively show.

The premise follows the obvious. The Streetsinger tells the story and the four other actors play all the parts, changing scenes by creating settings out of the junk that litters the New York street corner they inhabit.

Ost outdoes himself with outfits made of discarded trash, especially those for Paradice. At one point she arrives, diva-like, dressed in black trash bags and festoons of yellow police tape that says "Caution" and "Crime Scene."

Her designer, she says, is "Salvation Armani!" She also gets to sport a headdress made of pressed Doritos and Cheetos bags!

The music by Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson is a combination of rock, pop and soul that is lively, energetic and only occasionally maudlin. This is the pair's Broadway debut as composers.

If I have a complaint, it's a common one – overmiking. Oh, wail is me! All of the singers have powerful voices, but Calhoun and musical director John McDaniel, faultless otherwise, insist on having each song end with loud and long notes guaranteed to ignite an ovation.

Though I admired all the singers, I fell immediately under the spell of Keller. She has the comic style of Whoopi Goldberg and the vocal intensity of Tina Turner. And wait till you see Paradice's saucy entrance sporting a stole made entirely of stuffed animals!

In keeping with the reality of the times, "Brooklyn" doesn't end with a fairy tale rainbow. It's too savvy for that — savvy enough for theatergoers to spread the word this is a show that should not be dismissed.

[spence]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:40pm

I considered this to be an honest intelligent article that reflected how I felt and the way that I think the audiences have perceived the show.

[Amy Archer]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:42pm

You can like it to your heart's content, and post about your experience seeing the show, enjoying the songs, performances, design, what have you. No one has the right to tell you not to enjoy what you like. It's trying to spin the reviews to be something they're not, or overstating how the show is doing at the box office that I find irritating. And after months of breathless build-up here about the show, you can't blame people if the end result has left a lot of viewers feeling disappointed.

[spence]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 6:54pm

I understand what you are saying, I just don't understand why some people on this board are harping on the negativism and are hoping that the show will fail. What is that about? Is it about being right? How immature. Time will tell.

[Testing1232]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 7:05pm

Spence,

For the umpteenth time..... no one wants the show to fail. (at least I dont... I dont WANT any show to fail) I think you must now be the 50th person that has said the same thing. The problem is that people that spend their hard earned money to go to the theater deserve a lot better than what "Bklyn" has to offer.

[timote316]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 7:10pm

Anyhoo, back to the initial post, Forever Tango is a limited engagement, so does that mean its all paid off or something? Other than the length of time part, what is the difference between a show with an open-ended engagement and one with a limited one? Somewhat OT, I know, sorry.

And I agree, Rent won't be closing anytime soon (thankfully!)

[joeyjoe]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 7:41pm

David Cote writing for TimeOut New York

"Property values on Broadway must be plummeting - the Main Stem is starting to look like one big slum. First there was that mangy bunch of cats prowling around their garbage heap; we got rid of them finally. But now were plagued by squatter dives (Rent), Indian shanties (Bombay Dreams), puppet ghettoes (Avenue Q) and a rickety shtetl (Fiddler On The Roof). The latest example of urban blight is 'Brooklyn: The Musical', by far the biggest eyesore, earsore, and brainsore on the Great White Way. An infantile urban fable periodically pierced by American Idol-style bellowing, Brooklyn wallows in trash of every kind.

While obvious, the Idol comparison is unavoidable. The tattered plot - framed as a tale told by a troupe of song-and-dance-inclined homeless people - leads to a pop showdown between an ingenue named Brooklyn (Eden Espinosa) and Paradice (Ramona Keller), an embittered diva. Brooklyn has travelled to New York from Paris in search of her drug-addled Vietnam-vet father (Kevin Anderson). Espinosa's vocal styling - a soulless melismatic shriek - is to real singing what Steak-Ummm is to sirloin. Keller (recently of Caroline, or Change) fares much better, although she is hobbled by the undistinguished R&B score's lack of lyrical progression, which leds to repeating the same emotional banality over and over. 'Brooklyn' strives to appeal to Disney fans while retaing a shred of street cred. What it deserves from any self-respecting inhabitant of the five boroughs is a lud Bronx cheer."

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/2/04 at 8:30pm

Amy Archer expressed my thoughts perfectly. If you say "I loved the show and had a wonderful time and thought it was great" -- I would have absolutely nothing to say in response other than maybe "I'm glad you enjoyed it." You have a complete right to your opinion and if you had a great time with the show, well good for you.

The problem comes when you want to go beyond your own personal opinion of the show and get so carried away with your enthusiasm for it that you end up mischaracterizing the nearly unanimous negative critical reception of the show (and sorry, I have nothing against Danbury -- I have relatives there -- but citing reviews from a paper that has absolutely no track record regarding professional theatre -- unlike the Hartford Courant -- is impossible to take seriously). And trumpeting box office numbers that, while they show an improvement (they frankly couldn't have gotten much worse than they were), still reveal that despite an appalling low average ticket price of $51.85 (the second lowest for any musical on Broadway after the long-running 42nd Street -- considering Brooklyn is a new show with a top price of $96.25, that means that they're pretty much giving away seats at half-price and you can't run very long that way), they still only got to 77.6% attendance. At that ticket price, that's a mediocre attendance figure (for chrissakes, there are two character plays in small Off-Broadway houses that have an average ticket price of $65).

Love the show, if you want to. Encourage people to see it, if you want to. Lament the fact that the rest of us are just old out-of-touch fools who just don't comprehend the beauty and genius of BROOKLYN and how it can change the world. That's all fine -- I won't argue with you (much). But, please, just don't missstate the facts concerning the reality of how well the show has actually been received (including its critical reception from the mainline press and the box office numbers, both of which have been decidedly mediocre) -- that's what causes problems.

Updated On: 11/2/04 at 08:30 PM

[Testing1232]

Posted: 11/3/04 at 6:38pm

Oh, btw.... (2) "Bklyn" ticket discounts popped into my e-mail today. One from SVM that I get from work, and the other from "Bklyn's" own fansite, so I am sure that the attendence is
shooting to the moon.

[spence]

Posted: 11/3/04 at 7:33pm

Margo,
I don't recall making any claims about box office numbers. Most shows start out by offering discounts so I don't see the surprise there either. I saw Wicked with a discounted orchestra seat for $65 and I saw Hairspray on a TDF offering when they were new shows. Brooklyn has to offer discounts because of the bad initial reviews. All I have testified to is the audience reaction when I have seen the shows so I don't know why you are putting words in my mouth. The reviews that are positive may not be from your "respected" sources but I respect their opinion because I felt the same way. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything so stop accusing me. Thanks.

[NStar21]

Posted: 11/4/04 at 7:30am

Spence, did you see these shows in previews or afterwards because they RARELY give out discount codes because they know people will buy the tickets. So Brooklyn doing the discounts during previews is one thing but for them to still to be doing it in their run isn't a good sign. It means they can't sell the tickets. You can compare this show's box office results to other LONG RUNNING SHOWS but that's exactly the point, they are long running shows and by this time, they need to do discounts to keep on bringing people in. Some don't need to, others do.

And people on this board had no problem respecting "non critic" reviews but it was the fans of Brooklyn who rejected those opinions, saying they weren't good enough because they weren't from "criics." But now that the reviews are in and the critics hate the show, I guess now it's okay to accept all people's reviews, huh?