WARNING: LONG RESPONSE! Wow. Some REALLY fantastic threads on here... I don't even know where to begin.
ON SONDHEIM:Any Into the Woods or Sweeney: Sorry, no. The shows are SO perfect as they are. The point of Into the Woods is really about the themes of morality and growing up, and most importantly, parenting, which people don't think about in fairy tales, and to modernize it would be trying to spell it out WAYY too much.
ON GENDER NEUTRALIZING PRODUCTIONS: I think there would be plenty of productions that I would love to stage as concerts, taken completely seriously, as totally gender-switched or all-female or all-male casts. I think it would be ironic to see Carrie: The Musical in concert, taken completely seriously, with an all male cast. Just the actors all in black. Because, the story relies so heavily upon female roles, it would just be so interesting. I'd also love to see an all-male Woman in White.
ON CHILDREN'S THEATRE: I've always wanted someone to use Richard Kelly's screenplay for Holes and turn it into a stage play. It's VERY dark and post-apocolyptic, but it would take a really ambitious, risque group. I would have my community theatre troupe do it, because we do plenty of weird, accletic productions, but we don't have enough people. Holes is very common among children's theatre, and I would love to see someone take a new stab at it.
At my school next year, since it's both a middle AND high school, we're talking about doing Peter Pan...but we're doing the Douglas Irvine version licensed from Children's Theatre Company, which only asks I think a six-person cast with shadow puppetry. I'd love to play around with as much shadow puppetry and puppetry as I could. Really minimalist set, I see a lot of weird things on the set: Lots of christmas lights, scrap metal...looking very eccentric and acclectic. Sort of a dark fantasy kind-of setting.
I was in a production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I was thirteen that was TOTALLY concept. It was beautiful. I was Augustus Gloop, one role I am TRULY proud to have played, and the production came out shortly after the new Tim Burton--but my director borrowed none of his ideas. Basically, the Narrator was a creepy janitor who cleaned the factory, Charlie lived in a trailer, and his grandparents were all creepy and weird, except Grandpa Joe--(Grandma Georgina was like a former model and was trying to relive her glory days, but she had dementia and would end up smearing lipstick all over, and she looked creepy as hell) and Willy Wonka was a retired rock star that decided to take up a career making children's candy. The Beauregardes were trashy guidettes from New Jersey, (which was ironic, seeing as the production was IN Jersey), Veruca was emo, and her Dad was a businessman still, Mike Teevee's mom was a southern belle ex-Beauty Queen pageant winner, the Gloops were tacky tourists from Germany (I wore a Tinkerbelle t-shirt, Mrs. Gloop wore an N'Sync t-shirt). The Oompa Loompas were all punked out little boys...and the set had lots of checker boards and mirrors...and it was implied that all the kids who made "mistakes" (i.e, Augustus, Mike, Violet, Veruca) died, and when Wonka handed Charlie the factory, he did this evil laugh--and the lights were killed.
But changing up children's shows can be genius or awful. I saw a HORRIFIC production of Alice in Wonderland recently (a show I've wanted to direct for years), and it was trying to portray non-existent undertones of the French revolution. It was also trying to play up Victorian society, but it was completely non-sensical. Alice was a teenager with a tight dress (her tits popping out), and most of the costumes very very minimalist, and so was the set. The Queen of Hearts killed everyone in the end, Alice fell in love with the Jack of Hearts...it was a MESS. It would've been fine if the costumes were Victorian and there weren't drug references galore...and the fact that Alice was molested by the Cheshire Cat and raped by the Dodo made it worse. It was so painfully pretentious--and the fact that it was an all-teen cast and director made it worse.
I was going to direct Hansel & Gretel for a one-act festival, but it was played out like a trashy slasher film. The whole show had a table with a tape recorder on it, and the entire show would be pre-recorded on this tape recorder, that was recorded by Gretel, because before her mother died, she was given a tape recorder, and when she died, Gretel decided to record EVERY event on it. Hansel & Gretel lived in a trailer, their Stepmother was a pushy b_tch who worked four jobs, their father was an alcoholic with a gambling addiction, and came home drunk one night and spent all their money. Hansel and Gretel ran away in seek of their Aunt and Uncle who lived a few towns over, and had to walk through the woods to find them. In the woods, they hear someone following them, but ignore it. They came upon a drug-pusher running away from the cops, who calls himself "The Troll" who gives them food and helps them out, but the next morning, H & G wake to find him dead, and carved into his arm is a message that reads: Leave these woods. They keep walking, and then they are both struck by stones and marked unconcious.
They awake in a woman's basement. The woman has a surgical mask on and gives them candy. Since she has the surgical mask, Gretel calls her a witch, because she's afraid of her strange apperance. She then leaves, and we fast forward to weeks forward on the tape. They've been locked in the basement for an estimate of about a month, they've been sitting in their own feces, piss, body odor and throw-up, and the Witch finally lets them out into the kitchen, where she tries to make Gretel get a cake out of the oven. She slams Gretel's head in the oven, and she falls to the ground. Hansel and the Witch get into a fist fight. Hansel pulls of the Witchâ??s mask, to reveal that she has slit mouth. and the Witch grabs a knife from the drawer and slits Hanselâ??s throat. He falls to the ground. Gretel gets up and reaches for the drawer and gets a gun and shoots the Witch twice. The Witch falls to the ground. Gretel then goes to the oven, gets the cake out and digs into it, and begins to eat it, but realizes it's posioned and falls to the ground.
A Police officer reveals he's found the tape and the Witch was an escape mental patient, who was a squatter in a home of a family that she had murdered, and the bodies had been found mostly eaten, in her bedroom.
OTHER MUSICALS I'D LIKE TO CHANGE :
Dolly: I've been meaning to make a version of Hello, Dolly that sets it in modern day with same-sex couples (Cornelius and Barnaby, anyone?). Still an idea that's been in the works for FOREVER now, I've yet to get it off the ground.
Beauty & The Beast: Whoever said minimalize it--I'm with you. I was in it this summer, and wonder if it could be entertaining and practical. The story relies so heavily on special effects. I have a friend whose directing a Disney cabaret soon, and she wants the Aladdin and Jasmine singing "A Whole New World" to be dressed a little like scene kids. I think the idea isn't the best, but she didn't want to go all-out gothic, but she wanted a little something.
Pippin: I'm directing Pippin at my school next year, and we are using the traveling circus idea. We're probably going to add some things into it. With permission a la MTI. My idea for Pippin: The Leading Player is going to draw names out of a hat for who will be playing what part during this performance of Pippin (it will be heavily implied this show had been performed over and over again). And he'll draw everyone's names, and they'll all look excited that they haven't played these roles before, except the Leading Player will skip over the actress playing Catherine and assign it to her. And Catherine will complain she's played the role a million times and that it's not fair that he's not giving her another chance to play something else, and he says "Well, you'll play it a million and one times then." And at the drawing, the Leading Player will call the upon a member of the audience to play Pippin, and the actor playing Pippin will be a plant in the audience, and he'll be assigned a script which he'll be reading off of for most of the show--and that's why in the Finale when the Players want him to die, it'll be such a surprise to him that they want to kill him off, and ask questions such as, "Did I do a bad job? I don't understand..." etc, etc.
So, any thoughts? Sorry this was so long.
Recent Broadway and Off-Broadway:: Carrie, Merrily, Ionescopade
Next On The List :: Clybourne Park, Once, Streetcar, BOM
Updated On: 2/21/10 at 01:35 PM
