Decline in Quality- Page 2

[castlestreet]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 1:40pm

My wife and I on our honeymoon were seated right at the break in the Orchestra.  The production team running the show were to the left side of us by the house entrance taking notes the entire time.  I know for a fact that the show is kept very fresh, which partially accounts for it's long run.  

Combined with it's tourist attraction and the fact that the show has traveled the world so extensively and is familiar, I don't see it closing up shop anytime soon.

[C.Jack]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 1:47pm

But do you guys think that Hamilton is gonna decline at all. I feel like it may start doing Star casting like Chicago did

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 2:01pm

"Chicago- I feel it's a punching bag on here, I've seen various casts 4 times, matinees and evenings and have yet to be disappointed.  I've only ever seen one Velma other then Amra, that was Carly Hughes.  As long as Amra has been in, she has never walked through it- not my fave, but I'm being honest. The score is a great score, Kander and Ebb still translates. Fosse is extremely difficult to pull off and easily detectable if one person is lazy, that cast is not."

Yes it is but the show deserves some of it for casting people like George Hamilton and Christie Brinkley. 

 

[10086Sundays]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 2:02pm

Is star casting really a decline?  Over in the thread about Kinky Boots, several posters have said the show is better now than with the OBC.  If the star is bad sure, but the idea of star casting itself doesn't mean a show's quality is in decline, just perhaps the box office numbers.

Hamilton will be fine.  Like all long-running shows it will ebb and flow, some replacements will be great and some won't.  Even original casts have weak links.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 2:04pm

I saw Phantom 3 years ago when Sierra and Norm were in it. I was surprised at how fresh the show appeared to be.  Caveat: I worked at the Majestic when Phantom opened in 1988.

I thought Sydney James Harcourt leaving Hamilton was done very quietly.  It was like all of a sudden he wasn't there anymore. I think if he were to be cast as Burr it would have been to replace Wayne Brady in Chicago, as his name was mentioned in Times' article about the Chicago company.

[Lot666]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 2:31pm

zainmax said: "While I am not a fan of James Barbour, I think that Ali Ewoldt was an excellent replacement in Phantom."

If they would let Mr. Barbour go and move Jeremy Stolle or Laird Mackintosh into the title role, the current Phantom cast would be pretty tight.

[Lot666]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 2:34pm

adamgreer said: "Hal Prince famously checks in on Phantom several times a year and after his visit always holds extensive notes sessions with the cast.  He doesn't allow the show to get stale."

I was at the May 25 matinee and a friend in the cast confirmed that Mr. Prince was indeed in the house for that performance.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 5:30pm

Gower Champion kept an index card on his person with the starting times for all the numbers in his shows. He'd drop in to see various numbers and if he didn't like what he saw would call a rehearsal to work on that number. He never liked the singing contest/"My Little Butterfly" number no matter how much work he did on it. While rehearsing Ginger Rogers to take over from Carol Channing, he changed it to a polka contest.

During her run in GYPSY, LuPone had the cast go back "to table" once a week to discuss what was working and what wasn't. Even the children participated. The end result was a show that was better and tighter than the one that opened.

[Pauly3]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 6:00pm

Hamilton and Phantom are two good examples of shows I don't see declining, at least not declining in any significant way.  I saw both fairly recently, and Hamilton was just about as good as the first time I saw it with the original cast.  I saw two standbys (Jevon McFerrin as Hamilton & Syndee Winters as Angelica) and one understudy (Nik Walker as Burr), and I didn't miss the original cast nor did I feel the least bit bad about missing three of the primary cast members.

I reluctantly saw Phantom, but the person I went with wanted to go specifically because of James Barbour - and I went along. I had seen Laird McIntosh previously and was pretty bored with the show then.  It had nothing to do with Laird as he was good, but I didn't think he was outstanding in any way.  The current cast was excellent though, especially Ali Ewoldt.  I also thought Barbour was excellent.  The entire show seemed to me to be a giant improvement over what I saw maybe 18 months prior.  I left glad I had given in to seeing it one more time.

Fun fact:  of the four Andrew Lloyd Webber shows currently running, only Phantom reached $1 Million last week.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 6:11pm

Hal Prince famously checks in on Phantom several times a year and after his visit always holds extensive notes sessions with the cast.  He doesn't allow the show to get stale.

He must be doing the same in London.  Unfortunately, I've seen way too many long-running shows in London get sloppy, but when seeing Phantom in 2015, it was in terrific shape.  I do enjoy the show, though I have never been a huge rah-rah Phantom fan.  But over the years, every time I take a friend or family member to see it for their first time (Broadway, London or national tour of the original staging), I've always been impressed.  Les Miserables in London is another great example of this.  

One of the most disappointing declines I'd seen in a show was probably when I revisited Rent somewhere around 2005 or 2006.  The Rentheads in the first row were obnoxious as hell, putting their feet up on the stage, trying to talk directly to the cast during the performance, basically acting like it was their own private party.  And the show was not the same.  The personalities of several characters were altered to the point that they were different people than they were almost ten years earlier.  It was bizarre.

[CallMeAl2]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 11:12pm

C.Jack said: "But do you guys think that Hamilton is gonna decline at all. I feel like it may start doing Star casting like Chicago did"

Chicago needed stunt casting to run. Hamilton doesn't. That said, I expect they will continue to move niche stars through supporting roles.

Phantom is not my cup of tea, but every time a friend has seen it they have come back marveling at what good shape it is in.

[loveinnewyorkcity]

Posted: 6/8/17 at 12:08am

In 2015, Jersey Boys was in some of the best shape it had ever been in. Richard H. Blake, Quinn Van Antwerp, and Matt Bogart were the perfect 'Seasons' and better than the OBC ones in my opinion. Mauricio Perez who was an understudy at the time and later an alternate was on-par with John Lloyd Young as Frankie and really brought a youthfulness and energy to the show that hadn't been there in a while. However, after the closing was announced and Mark Ballas took over and some of the 'Seasons' exited and  Drew Seely(?) and another actor as Tommy took over, it became very lackluster. Maybe it was the fact that the show was closing and everyone's spirits were down, especially those who lasted the entire 11 years, or maybe the swapped cast members were just not at the level they needed to be at.

 

[NoName3]

Posted: 6/8/17 at 4:43am

This thread reminded immediately of a review I read decades ago in Time Magazine. A critic had gone back to re-review the original How to Succeed a year or so into its run. I've never forgotten the first line: "Long runs in musicals can be like long runs in stockings."

Out of curiosity, I googled to to see whether the review is online. To my surprise it is but behind a paywall. Here is the preview:

"Long runs in musicals can be like long runs in stockings. Things get shabby. Dancing becomes listless. There is something a little threadbare about the beat, the book, the cast, the chorus. Even the tickets seem faded.

"Actors start playing the match trick—lighting a match and holding it until it burns their fingers, thus distracting the audience's attention from another actor. The geometries of their love affairs become hopelessly complicated, and morale is chewed up by cliques, gossip, and fierce little jealousies. Meanwhile, the washed and eager faces out front are sitting on upholstery that may be wearing out, but..."

I'm not willing to pay the fee but I remember the gist of the rest of the review. The critic thought the show was in even better shape than when it opened, when it had won every major award, including the Pulitzer. He thought everything was sharper, tighter, and meaner. I specifically remember his commenting that "The Brotherhood of Man" had completely changed its tone and that before it had seemed to embrace your mother "but now it kicks her down the stairs."

I saw the first How to Succeed in the form of its first national tour. The two New York revivals were embarrassing in the way that they missed the brilliantly mean fun of the original, not to mention the perfection of the sets, costumes and the choreography of Hugh Lambert, supervised by Bob Fosse, who was credited with "Musical Staging."

I also saw the original first national tour of My Fair Lady. Back then, first national tours were complete recreations of what was seen on Broadway, with perhaps minor adjustments to the sets to accommodate touring. Those were the days.

Updated On: 6/8/17 at 04:43 AM

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:15pm

I was going to start a new thread for a few questions, but they seem to fit into this one. Two days ago, I saw the touring version of Phantom in Las Vegas. Not only was I blown away (in a positive sense) by Derrick Davis's performance, but I noticed that there have been major changes in the staging of the touring version since I last saw it at the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa. These changes, in my opinion, vastly improve the show, to the point that it is now every bit as wonderful as the original.

I am about to review the touring version of POTO for my Palm Springs area Broadway World readers. I realized that I should write about these massive changes because most people have read reviews saying that the touring version is darker than the original and that it isn't quite as good. Does anyone on this board know:

1) What (or who) triggered these major changes?

2) Is there a list available of all or most of them?

3) When did the changes take place?

Thanks for any help members of this board can give. If anyone would rather contact me by private message, that's fine.

Audrey Liebross (Phantom maniac)