Doyle to direct Merrily We Roll Along?- Page 3

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 3/9/07 at 6:02pm

The thing that would be interesting about Doyle's Merrily is that the show is, unlike Sweeney, rooted in realism, and also not impressionary the way that Company is. It would be fascinating to see how he hooks into it and whether it's successful.

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 3/9/07 at 6:24pm

Ahh, I love Merrily! For anyone who's in the Providence area, there's a production being done this weekend and next at Brown. The cast is fabulous and it includes Jed Resnick who was Mark on the Rent tour last year, as Charley.

http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/Theatre/merr.htm

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/9/07 at 3:35pm

The possibility is mentioned in this new article:

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/107162.html

That's exciting, although the article has a pretty big inaccuracy:

It was also unclear whether Doyle would approach Merrily with his usual directorial modus operandi, in which the cast also acts as the orchestra. Actors in both Sweeney Todd and Company have doubled as instrumentalists. Doyle has, on occasion, abandoned this staging method.

since this is hardly his "usual" and just something he occasionally abandons. People are so quick to forget that he'd been directing all kinds of theater for years before he hit the Broadway spotlight.

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 4/9/07 at 3:39pm

To be perfectly fair, though, actor-musician productions are sort of Doyle's claim-to-fame, so I don't think it's terribly inaccurate that they phrased it that way. He's done two major Sondheim revivals and was in the planning stages for Barnum with that concept.

On another note, I'm SO excited for the prospect of a Merrily We Roll Along revival directed by anyone, and Doyle's not too shabby a candidate. Updated On: 4/9/07 at 03:39 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/9/07 at 3:50pm

I was just about to edit my post, heh. It is fair to assume that that's what people (hell, especially here) know him for, but publishing stuff like that doesn't really help the unfair accusations that he's a one-trick pony. I'm really excited for that new musical he's directing, because I'm so looking forward to seeing how he handles more conventional direction. I felt like it was sort of inaccurate because to say he occasionally abandons it reads that he does it more often than not, which isn't necessarily true; he's been directing for decades and has done it a bunch of times, but whatever, semantics and I'm picky.

And yeah, I also really would love the chance to see Merrily live.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/9/07 at 3:51pm

Its gonna take a hell of alot more than actor-musicians to make this boring book fly.
Until they find a way to make the character of Frank actually worth the almost obessive interest the other characters have in him, the show just has absolutely no center.

Updated On: 4/9/07 at 03:51 PM