i want him so much to be Prince Eric but on the other hand, he could be quite sexy as Charles Darnay in A TALE OF TWO CITIES. Still kinda leaning towards Prince Eric though.
early thoughts on tale of two cities is that it is not good. this from readings and latest workshops (within the last 2 weeks). I hope he goes with a project that will be a hit, not another lestat.
sorry to threadjack but your settings are set so you can't receive PMs. To answer your question...
It's my own opinion. the past reading/workshop on the 24th of May was... interesting. And by interesting I mean dull. Thats the harsh truth. the piece itself just doesn't seem able to hold up on its own. sort of like trying to take dense, complex material like Lestat and make it a musical. Tale of Two Cities runs into the same problem. No one cares enough about it and the music isn't good enough to make it compelling. to keep audiences attention, or to get people to see it night after night.
It was just a reading, so maybe i'm being prematurely harsh... but my guess is audiences will not like it. It has to be done masterfully well, like Les Mis. People will argue that Les Mis has its problems, but it does manage to pull of a compelling,complex, dark story as an interesting musical. no easy task. I'm not saying ToTC doesn't have potential. It just needs a lot of work. And IMO, too often producers are too eager to please investors and get shows on Broadway, they simply ignore all the work that still needs to be done to make a show not only interesting, but marketable. How will you market tale of two cities the musical? I just fell asleep thinking about it. No, but really. If it sounds boring, and on top of that is boring, it won't shape up to much. And from what i saw... if it goes to Broadway now, or soon, or without lots more work.... its time on bdway will be short-lived.
I recently talked about Tale of Two Cities with someone who saw the workshop. He said they're just trying to do way too much--tell too much story in too little time like Lestat and it's way too much of a spectacle--that they're trying to make it Les Mis and it totally wouldn't work that way--it needs to be stripped down to like the way Sweeney is staged.
"If there was a Mount Rushmore for Broadway scores, "West Side Story" would be front and center. It snaps, it crackles it pops! It surges with a roar, its energy and sheer life undiminished by the years" - NYPost reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli
Again, sorry for the thread jack- but that's too bad. A friend of mine is working on it (whose opinion I respect) and he said he thought it would be really good, but I didn't ask him to elaborate. I believe it's one of the only major Dickens novels without a theatrical interpretation, I thought with the right team it could certainly do well. But again, the Lestat comparison continues...
Some of the songs I heard on BWWradio were pretty good, but not memorable - as I couldn't tell you their names. The only way this show will survive is the spectacle of it. I don't think it would work as a small/scaled down staging. It's too big of an event and too big of a story to strip down. It needs some big turntable or helicopter to happen into it. I feel like this show is opening a decade too late. It seems like the spectacle has died down.
From what I heard, the arrangements for A TALE OF TWO CITIES, are going exceptionally well and we are likely to see it hitting Broadway, early next year.
Thanks for letting me know Little Wing. Despite just PMing you again with an alternate email - I actually think i might have just fixed the settings after all - so PM should be working now.