Carrie, the Musical - Charlotte Interview- Page 3

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/6/05 at 12:29pm

SOMEONE else has a carrie AV - doodley

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 7/6/05 at 1:28pm

I do, Thernardier, tho I was looking for the actual playbill. Someone was asking about the poster the other day, so I changed it from the Eve Was Weak scene.

I truly have loved and been fascinated by this show since it was in NY, and missed it because I thought it would run. FOOL!

One thing that I dont think anyone has mentioned was the set, which worked alot of the time and was very cool. The gym turning into the White's home is fantastic.
The score, Betty Buckley and Linzi Hateley speak for themselves.

But...who thought that putting a gym teacher in high heels was a good idea should be shot!

Thanks so much for the links to the mp3s...anyone know if I'm Not Alone and Hard to Be...that Sally Ann Tripplett sings?

[apdarcey]

Posted: 7/6/05 at 1:30pm

then, this obsession has become unhealthy! make it stop!

[roquat]

Posted: 7/6/05 at 10:40pm

This was Linzi Hately's first show (she was seventeen) and supposedly, on opening night, as soon as Carrie and her mother died and the lights went down, the audience started booing. Linzi panicked and said, "Oh, my God. What will we do?" Betty said, in her steely voice, "We will go on." And they went out for their curtain call, and as soon as they appeared, the boos turned to wild cheers (in a fractioni of a second) They alone delivered the goods in this show.

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/6/05 at 10:41pm

People Boo'd?

WTF

Different times.....different times...

[broadwaybelter]

Posted: 7/6/05 at 11:10pm

yea i felt so bad when i read that...i think they situation would be entirely different today if it had been revived!
ric

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/18/05 at 10:11pm

Carrie Makes Powerful Musical

by Ernest Albrecht, Home News theater critic
The Home News
5/16/88

"Carrie" is the sort of musical you will either love or hate. Wildly. I happen to have loved it, probably for all the same reasons others will find to hate it.

The source for the show is Stephen King's novella by the same name about a late-blooming teen-age girl (Carrie) who is isolated from the rest of the kids her age by her mother's religious fanaticism. DesperateIy unhappy and feeling abandoned she discovers she has been given the strange and supernatural gift of telekinesis. Through this medium she wrecks a horrible vengence on those who have tormented and humiliated her .

This is strong and strange stuff fills the theater with a tension that is quite unlike anything I have ever felt there. And there is no escaping it. Even the relationship between Carrie and her mother is twisted. Despite that it achieves a kind of ethereal beauty through the music of Michael Gore. Betty Buckley as the mother and Linzi Hateley as Carrie have some hauntingly beautiful moments together and individually that are heartbreakingly tender and yet perverse. This relationship is just as dangerous for Came as any she has with her peers. That tension underlies every embrace, endearment. The moment when the mother forces Carrie into the cellar through a trapdoor is shocking and terrifying.

In contrast all of the other peopIe Carrie's age are portrayed as another sort of monster: libidinous beauties who spend more time cultivating their bodies than their minds. They are totally intolerant of anybody who is different and determined to remove any obstacles to the realization of their sex lives.

This aspect of the show is beautifully realized in the brilliantly suggestive dances of Debbie Allen who keeps the kids perpetually twitching with unrealized sexual energy.

In between this world and the severe severity of the mother's Carrie is almost totally alone. She is befriended by a sympathetic teacher and a schoolmate who seems to possess the only conscience in town. Darlene Love is the teacher and she has an enchanting song "Unsuspecting Hearts," that seems destined to become a pop single.

Similarly enchanting is a scene in which Carrie employs her supernatural powers to charming effect. The accoutrements of her dressing table suddenly dance about her as she readies herself for the prom with a date arranged by the conscience stricken friend.

But this is one Cinderella who will not live happily ever after. Carrie's nemesis is Chris. a particularly vicious adolescent played with malicious glee by Charlotte D'Ambroise.

While the tensions and emotions continually bring the show to the brink of absurdity, it seems to me the intensity of alI the performances and the integrity of the music and lyrics prevent its falling into the pit. If one is shocked or embarrassed it is because we are so seldom asked to deal with this sort of material in the theater.

In addition to the emotional intensity, of the material, the show is a stunning visual production that shocks and startIes us even further. It is not just the technology involved but the very design itself that consistently reinforces the emotional content of the show with its strikingly vivid images.

In, other words "Carrie" brings together all the forces that make live theater so exciting: brilliant performances and an exciting and story, reinforced by the physical production and fashions them into a truly unforgettable event. 

[WChafin]

Posted: 7/18/05 at 10:41pm

An interesting side note to the workshop production in 1984 which featured Annie Golden as Carrie, Maureen McGovern as Margaret White, Laure Beechman as Miss Gardner, Laura Dean (from the movie FAME and the musical DOONESBURY) as Sue and Liz Callaway as Chris. It also featured in the ensemble a young Donna Murphy and future pop singer Elisa Fiorillo (known for her hit with Jellybean "Who Found Who"). Also, Dean & Michael recorded some "Pop" versions with alternate lyrics of "When There's No One" with Maureen McGovern and "Unsuspecting Hearts" with a young Lillias White, that are quite good.

Updated On: 7/19/05 at 10:41 PM

[Broadway_Bound_Star]

Posted: 7/18/05 at 10:52pm

Wow WC, thats some cool info!

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/18/05 at 10:54pm

Yes, I was surprised when I first heard about Donna Murphy. It doesn't even sound like her...or it does...n/m

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 2:44am

Anyone have the playbill?

PM me, please!

[Urban]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 3:45am

I happen to enjoy the song "Heaven" (and the reprise which is longer then the original number!). The music is a little to soft-pop and could do with a fix up (but granted, it was 198, but the lyrics and general melody is pretty good.

I do agree "And Eve Was Weak" is a powerful, chilling performance.

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 3:48am

It's Heaven
It's almost like Heaven....

I like it too...though the reprise is more like a reprise of all the songs.

[Steve2]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 8:21am

Does anyone think that "Dracula" or "Dance of the Vampires" will have similar discussions like this 20 years from now?

[ticenewyorkcity]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 9:25am

Dracula and 'Vampires' will of course be talked about but Carrie is the kind of show that so many people regret for having not seen it.

If the critics hadn't killed the show the dancing alone would have killed the cast. Those girls bodies would have been dead in two months from Allen's choreo.

Many ensemble kids said the dumbest thing they ever did was open the show. they should have previewed longer and built up interest in the show while still having time to rework stuff.

The set was cool but in a way some of it didn't work and some of it did. I personally love the cars for don't waste the moon.

But it is true...you never really knew who these kids were why they all hated her and where Carrie was getting her power from. during 'Eve' the mother throws Carrie down the 'cellar' door and just as she slams it shut a spark and a fire happen on the corner of the house wall.....at the end of act one mother begs Carrie not to go to the prom,

carrie
..."I said Yes Mama. I said YES.

margret

"Come and pray"

carrie
'NO Mama! No! NO! NO!

carrie 'magically forces her mother back into her rocking chair at this point as a vertical strip the length of the stage opens up with "fire" and the lights go dim to blasts of steam and sparks and Carrie turns around with her hand's on fire singing

"I am not afraid of you at all. i have nothing left to loose. I have powers I can use. Nothing you can say or do, will ever stop me....again" (THE only mention from ANYONE Carrie included that she has any telekenetic powers) She walks back toward the strip "flams" and facing Up Stage holdes her arms out in a sacraficial pose and the curtian drops....

I don't know what else to say about her....SHE NEEDS a revival.

Pitchford needs to GET over it. He had success with Footloose..like it or not....and needs to let it get the proper staging it deserves.


Updated On: 7/22/05 at 09:25 AM

[TheColorOfFlame]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 11:16am

That's my favorite moment. The Act I finale. Eat your heart out, Defying Gravity.

[seymour krelborn]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 11:24am

I'm going to have to agree and say that is also my favorite act one finale of all time. Carrie needs to come back.

[Broadway_Bound_Star]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 11:52am

Yes, It NEEDS a revival, this show is just a beyond amazing, the act 1 finale, just makes me want to die just listining to it. Yes Dean DOES need to get over it. I would pay good money to see this show done again. But with charlotte as Chris again! She would be amazing!!

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 12:05pm

"I would pay good money to see this show done again. But with charlotte as Chris again! She would be amazing!! "

Um. Charlotte D'Amboise was too old to play 17 the FIRST time around. That was part of the problem. The cast was so old, the whole show looked like it was set in the steam room of a strip club locker room. That said, D'Amboise's repeated walkovers in the opening number are pretty fierce.

But I'd be game for an OBC concert revival. I don't think we'll ever get a major Broadway revival again.

[ljay889]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 12:10pm

Charlotte was only about 24 when she played Chris - that isn't that old.

I'm sure she was good. I like how she sounds on "Out For Blood." I would hope she got some dancing to do.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 1:16pm

I'm also a big Carrie fan. I have collected everything except the Playbill and poster, both of which I'm trying to get. The show needs to be restaged with some minor weaking to the score, but it really is a fantastic piece of work. I'm sure with an internet petition, Pitchford will release the rights. Those petitions solve everything, don't they? LOL

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 1:21pm

Matt, I've been looking for the poster for YEARS and cannot find it...I shouldve listened to that voice that said, "This is gonna flop...get the poster!" Also because it was such a good poster...wonder what they are worth now.

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 1:21pm

I'd love to see Maureen or Betty play Margaret.

In a way, I don't think the word "telekintetic" should be used.

I mean, the audience knows it. But the people onstage, the characters, really don't know it...not until the PROM scene...but they all die.

I'd love to see Ms. Gardner walk away, alive. I have an idea how to do that...

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 1:22pm

Triton sells it for $200.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 7/22/05 at 1:22pm

I haven't heard any of the music. I see people talking about it on here, but I have no idea how they got it. Can someone PM me with suggestions???