"
Posters are also right that it should be done with 7 actors in a theater with no more than 500 seats. Correction:
6 actors - one man doubles as Hennessy the director (stage manager?) and the Captain, as Hennessy is only in Act I and the Captain is only in Act II. Some amateur groups cast two actors in those roles (to spread the love, I guess), but it diminishes the fun and the feeling of a small, tight ensemble. There is actually no good reason to cast two actors - it improves nothing.
I don't think Peters has the vocal chops for Mona - it's a role for a powerhouse singer with a strong belt as well as a super-strong soprano range. And she really ought not to be a senior citizen...
Additional thought - to me, putting
Dames At Sea on Broadway in a glitzy commercial production (with an added extraneous chorus?) would be very similar to putting the Charles Ludlam plays on Broadway. If you never saw Ludlam's own productions of his plays, you can be forgiven for not knowing that the
shoestring was an integral element to the fun of his shows - seeing sets made of cardboard, costumes fashioned from repurposed everyday items of kitsch, obvious and slightly awkward attempts at stage illusion - these
added to the magic of those shows, just as camp seediness did for the original
Dames At Sea. Part of the intrinsic spoof is the fact that this is a tiny, cheap attempt to pay homage to those big Warners musicals.
Take away that element of camp, and you're stuck with a cutesy, run of the mill imitation of
42nd Street, something that doesn't rise above aiming to sell a few tickets to bored tourists devoid of wit.
Updated On: 8/21/13 at 09:27 AM
