Broadway Producers Putting Together Fall Reading of CARRIE: THE MUSICAL- Page 4

[Famebroadway2]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 1:12pm

YES!!!! I need to get on this production.. Any way possible!!! ;o)

[broadwaypink]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 1:16pm

This can be soo good!

I love the destruction!

[Dantes]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 1:21pm

The Destruction was horrid in the original. It looked so 80s. I liked the music though

[desiree armfeldt]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 1:33pm

I am so incredibly excited for this!! This has been way too long time a coming....and I love the victoria clark idea. Is that for sure? Carolee is also an inspired choice :)

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 1:54pm

The Destruction was horrid in the original. It looked so 80s. I liked the music though

Nimrod... the show was on Broadway in 1988 -- THE 1980's! It was supposed to be set 'in the present'... FOR 1988!

Oy!

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 2:00pm

And what's wrong with the 80's anyway?

[ABB2357]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 2:14pm

I agree with those who think the score is about 75% there. Get rid of the horrid 80s orchestrations and it would be quite affecting. I even like "Dream On."

In terms of cast, Jenn Damiano is a great idea as Carrie, and age-appropriate too. Celia Keenan-Bolger may be too old at this point.

I see nobody's mentioned Barbara Walsh for Margaret - surely Alice Ripley is a hotter name right now, but Walsh is due for a real leading role and would sing the hell out of the part.

[philly03]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 2:16pm

I think for something like this names won't matter for whose casted this time around; people are going to see it regardless of it's Alice Ripley or some total unknown.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 2:17pm

Seriously, I loved the 80s! And BrodyFosse is right. The Destruction looks very 80s because that is precisely what it is. Sort of like Chromolume #7 or One Night in Bangkok. You can't get more 80s than a show set in present day written and performed during the 80s.

[James885]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 2:55pm

The Destruction was horrid in the original. It looked so 80s. I liked the music though

The music for The Destruction is all right, but it doesn't really convey any real horror. This is the climax of the entire show. It should be a scary, terrifying ordeal that leaves the audience breathless, and the music should convey that. I think the music for The Destruction could be re-written to better establish that.

However, I think that Carrie's lines at the beginning of the Destruction are wonderful and should be kept because they allow the audience to actually see and hear Carrie snapping and rehashing everything that her mother previously warned her about.

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 3:25pm

casted = cast. Please.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 3:48pm

I dunno about Alice. Her voice is in pretty rough shape these days.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 3:50pm

I am thrilled at the possibility of this show having a reboot. I agree that there was a lot of good stuff in the score. Maybe they can figure it out this time.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 3:52pm

I would prefer Mrs. White to have a rough voice. A clear voice doesn't sit well with me.

[phantom39]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 4:03pm

I agree about Mrs. White having a rough voice... Alice would do a great job in the role.

I sure hope they don't change much of the mother-daughter numbers.. they're just breathtaking.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 4:10pm

All I want is someone who can belt the HELL out of Eve Was Weak and I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance with the strength and power required to make Margaret White a terrifying and imposing character. Lord love her, Barbara Cook didn't have the range (when she flipped to head voice, she sounded something like a squeak toy), but Betty Buckley is absolutely chilling. I thought Alice Ripley was magnificent in Next to Normal, but her voice has a sort of cloying quality (sounds like she keeps too much of her emotion tight in the throat) that I just don't feel is right for Margaret White.

[Jane2]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 4:18pm

I vote there's no better voice for this role than that of Buckley.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 4:23pm

Exciting as it may be, remember though that this is just a reading at this point. It is no guarantee that we'll even get a workshop, let alone a full revival. Many shows get resuscitated for a reading and then put right back into their coffins.

[phantom39]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 4:38pm

This is not "just a reading", AEA. This is the first time since 1988 that composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Pitchford and book writer Lawrence D. Cohe agreed to revisit (and rewrite) CARRIE, after years of denying any relation to the musical. I doubt we won't see anything coming from this...

Updated On: 10/19/09 at 04:38 PM

[Dantes]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 5:18pm

"Seriously, I loved the 80s! And BrodyFosse is right. The Destruction looks very 80s because that is precisely what it is. Sort of like Chromolume #7 or One Night in Bangkok. You can't get more 80s than a show set in present day written and performed during the 80s"

Just because it was the 80s did not mean it had to look so 80s. The way they decided to play up her powers on the Destruction were terrible (as hands himself later admited). They were pandering to a 'young MTV Audience' with stuff like that instead of paying any attention to what was supposed to be going on. She was telekenetic, so why were lasers shooting out of her hands?

The argument about a piece looking 80s because it was set in the 80s does not really fly when they effect that they were using had no relation to what she was able to do.

Betty was amazing Jane2 i have to agree, i also think Maureen McGovern from the workshop of Carrie in 84 was great (and kinda had the Betty thing going on which is odd considering they picked Cook for the role lol)

[BudFrump23]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 9:47pm

Perhaps I'm the only one in this boat, but:

I don't know why they want to re-work it to try to make it good. Part of the fun for me is watching the production (granted, online) and laughing about how much was wrong with it. What if the show was revived in it's original format, but was marketed as "The Biggest Flop in Broadway History: You Missed It 20 Years Ago, Now See It Live!"

For me, I feel like people would want to see what made it such a bad show, and why it has such a cult following (perhaps it would grow as well, ala RHPS)

It would be campy fun at the theater - the actors would play it seriously (as they did in the original) but they would know that it was all for laughs and fun.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 10:21pm

I am still saying Linzi Hateley as Margaret. Bring it full circle and get her back over in New York.

[philly03]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 10:28pm

And Hateley has said countless times she'd LOVE to return to New York, as recent as replacing Judy Kuhn in the Les Miserables revival but then it obviously decided (/had to?) to close.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 10/19/09 at 10:29pm

Can Linzi do crazy?

[BwayTday]

Posted: 10/20/09 at 12:52am

Bud, for me it is because I see some potential under the mess. I think a good show could come out of it. With a bunch of changes. The set, the book, the costumes, the choreo., and some of the score.
Like a few other people said I really think that Carrie should be a story grounded in reality. Make it real, develop the characters, make people feel bad for Carrie, and the others too. It is a very real story. It is a girl who gets picked on, tormented, and pushed to her limits. Using her powers to massacre the school could be compared to if she brought a gun and massacred the school that way.
I personally think its heart breaking to see Carrie have a hope that things could get better(I'm Not Alone) and then to have to believe Tommy never really cared and was just in on a prank. Horrible, her breaking point, when she dececides she's done.
It isn't a horror musical, nor should it be marketed as such. Is it scary? Sure. Yet I think it is scary because it shows what kids can be like, and how these things can happen. Maybe not telepathically, but there have been a number of shootings due to this kind of torment. If it is handled correctly, Carrie could become a beautiful drama.