Casting Roxie Chicago at the Hollywood Bowl- Page 2

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 6:19pm

She must be so excited to be doing Broadways again.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 6:22pm

Is it Roxie who gets to be the ventriloquist dummy who moves her mouth while the singing is done by somebody else? Cuz Ash is PERFECT for that.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 6:32pm

Wow, um ... yeah.

Live at the Hollywood Bowels!

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 6:33pm

"He has consistently proven himself to be a decent, if not stellar, musical comedy performer. Even back in his days on the Drew Carey show, he made sure to include song and dance consistently, including a memorable full cast performance of "'Brotherhood of Man.'"

I wish Netflix showed the seasons. I feel as if I've seen it on a streaming service before, but can't find it.

[NYC4Life]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 6:58pm

this entire thing is a missed opportunity. the only exciting person cast is Lucy Lawless and she should be playing velma or roxie

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 7:32pm

To be fair she was actually not bad when she was in Chicago on the West End

[blaxx]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 7:49pm

Did anyone see her in London? She's done it before (not that that means she's any good)

She wasn't awful, but I wouldn't say she was great. Pretty mediocre or just Ok if your expectations are low.

[slmlbl]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 10:46pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjSjB-3xPVM

[DAME]

Posted: 7/8/13 at 11:31pm

I am probably going to pass . Or at the last minute some night get the cheap $14.00 bench seats and watch on one of the screens. I will say this.... kudos to her for saying yes to doing it. I think I have put too much expectation on what I thought these summer musicals at the Bowl would be.

[jwsel]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 3:06am

I think I have put too much expectation on what I thought these summer musicals at the Bowl would be.

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I think Hairspray was so well done that it raised the bar in people's minds. Plus they annually had events with top Broadway performers -- things like the Porgy & Bess with Audra McDonald & Brian Stokes Mitchell, the Sondheim concert, etc. But this musical sounds utterly dreadful.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 6:18am

I think it's time to leave Chicago on the shelf for a while. Everyone of note who has wanted to do it already has. Everyone who's wanted to see it already has.

Let the revival and tours run (out). Then put it away for a while.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 9:07am

Because it never gets old...


"It's such a great Broadway" Updated On: 7/9/13 at 09:07 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 9:24am

I wonder what other Broadways she was offered.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 9:29am

It doesn't matter, because she chose the best Broadway!

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 9:50am

Pippin is a good Broadway. Can she tumble?

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 9:56am

"Also, was Liza Minelli's guest appearance in Chicago the beginning of the gradual trend towards "young and sexy" which, admittedly, she was at the time?

Everything I've read has suggested that the initial idea for Velma and Roxie was to have women in their late forties to mid-fifties. These characters and the other vamps around them would be not girls, not women, but DAMES. Dame is a title of honor now, for women of nobility... there are still "Dames," but there just aren't dames anymore."

I've always assumed that Roxie, at least, was originally planned to be much younger than originally thought, based on one of the scenes in All That Jazz, where Joe tells Audrey (and I might be paraphrasing a bit here) "I only agreed to this show because you wanted to play this 24 year old" and she responds at some point in the scene "and they're wrong, I can still play 24." This could, of course, just be a purely dramatic, imagined conversation, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was pulled from a real life conversation between Fosse and Verdon, as so much of the movie is.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 10:24am

That's kind of what I thought, too, regarding that bit from All That Jazz. That in theory, the role of Roxie is actually a bit younger than the standard age of the actress that plays her. The original play and movie versions had Roxies that veered toward the younger side. Sure, it makes it funnier when an older Roxie claims to be pregnant, but I think that both Roxie and Velma have a pretty wide range of acceptable ages for the characters that play them.

I always thought dame (not the British honorific) fell out of use in the same way "broad" did. It's an antiquated, borderline sexist term.

[OperaBwayLover]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 12:36pm

I always assumed the 'younger/sexier' trend came about because of the movie. I played Roxie a few years ago in a community theatre production, and the director pretty much wanted a straight copy of the film. I was actually told to "play Roxie like Renee Zellweger did" and was considered a snob because I wanted to have red hair like the script called for, instead of platinum blonde like Renee had. Anyhow, I was in my early 20s. It made the line "I'm a lot older than I ever intended to be!" a bit odd to say. And the girl who played Velma was several years younger than me.

That does make sense that Liza started that trend, though.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 12:51pm

The hair color thing doesn't bother me if they decide to either wig an actress one way or another or just use her natural hair color. A good majority of the Roxies on Broadway have not been red heads, and they just adjust the line in the monologue to reflect whatever hair color the actress has. It's only red in the original script because of Gwen Verdon, it's not an integral plot point, such as Joanna having to be blonde in Sweeney.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 2:14pm

The real-life women upon whom the original play is based were 23 and 30 at the time of their arrests. They had most of their lives ahead of them.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 3:08pm

Best, that made me LOL. :)

[darreyl102]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 3:38pm

I am surprised that people are praising the Bowl's production of Hairspray soo highly. I really felt that Hairspray was somewhat of a disappointment. I mean, the Broadway people (Fierstein, Love, DeGarmo, Winokur) were amazing, as was Corbin Bleu, but the rest of the cast was mediocre at best. Jonas was bland as can be as Link, Susan Anton could have been better if soo much of her character had not been shortened. Stamos seemed half into it, Carey was pretty good. McDonald and Gaffney as the two authority figures were great, but still, it could have been WAY better. The set was one flat that never changed. The Hairspray can was a FLAT- I mean, A FLAT. Having seen the show hundreds of times on Broadway, Tour, London and Regional- I can safely say that this could have been an INCREDIBLE production, but was just good- great in some aspects.

Updated On: 7/9/13 at 03:38 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 5:29pm

" The set was one flat that never changed. "


The Bowl is a concert venue. Not a theater. I thought they did pretty well with Hairspray. As far as staging it was a copycat of the Broadway version adapted to play to 18,000 people. You also have to remember that they can't spend a lot of money. Musicals at the Bowl usually just don't sell well. Rent was a exception and that was only on the Saturday night of the run.

Updated On: 7/9/13 at 05:29 PM

[Wildcard]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 8:13pm

The sets were good considering they had to fit the orchestra on stage too and that there was no fly space nor much of a backstage.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 7/9/13 at 11:25pm

I still think that Flat could have been changed- even if just once. But the Can- WTF I mean, it was a flat too, With some streamers on the sides- that was just crazy too me, why such a cheap can? I have seen better cans in high school productions- you can't tell me that they could not have had a better can then what they had LOL