"Jerry Herman must be delusional, because the only chances in hell he'd ever have to see his non DOLLY! and MAME and LA CAGE shows done would be at Encores!. He should be celebrating Encores!. Shame on him."
And even MAME hasn't seen the lights of Broadway in almost 30 years...
I would love THE RINK with LuPone. I am tempted to ask for Benanti as the daughter, but her voice really isn't right.
I would also love THE WILD PARTY and MARIE CHRISTINE (maybe starring Sherry Boone or Anika Noni Rose?).
As for the original CARRIE, to authors would never let it happen, but Lillias White is inspired! I wonder if Buckley would reprise her role. Then it could finally be recorded!
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
Have they really not done FLORA, THE RED MENACE before? That is kinda surprising. It's nice to see how they can't run out of interesting, appealing titles no matter how long they are around. It'd be a treat to see FLORA live.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Eeeeh, the point of Encores is produce shows that aren't down commercially very often, sometime not in 30 or 40 years. Not a show that was on Broadway 2 years ago and that is currently on tour.
Weill and Lerner's "Love Life" would top my list of unrecorded shows I'd like to see at Encores. Also Kern and Hammerstein's "Very Warm for May" ("Sweet Adeline" was already done at Encores) or Kern and Harbach's "The Cat and the Fiddle." How about Rodgers and Hart's bizarre flop "Chee-Chee" (based on the novel "The Son of the Grand Eunuch" that as an in-joke quotes music from "The Nutcracker."? There's also Youmans' "Hit the Deck" and Schwartz and Gershwin's "Park Avenue," a satire in which amost of the characters keep marrying and divorcing each other.
Anika Noni Rose would sing the sh!t out of Marie Christine. Steven Pasquale as Dante, too?
Flora, The Red Menace and Grand Hotel would be fantastic as well.
My dream: Once On This Island with Shanice Williams as Ti Moune and Cynthia Erivo as Asaka. Heck, I'd bring Uzo Aduba on for Erzulie and Norm Lewis as Papa Ge. This could be a hot ticket.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Floyd Collins at Off-Center, and I'd love See What I Wanna See as well - the original production was only ten years ago, but we got a revival of Wild Party quickly.
"I saw Pavarotti play Rodolfo on stage and with his girth I thought he was about to eat the whole table at the Cafe Momus." - Dollypop
Are we restricting this to just the regular series (which is supposed to be focused on forgotten musicals), or also the Summer Stars and Off-Center programs?
'Cause if we're also doing the other programs, I think Jesus Christ Superstar would be a prime candidate for Summer Stars. Aside from the original 1971 production, which was pre-sold largely because of the album's success but was (by all accounts) not all that great (if incredibly inventive and ahead of its time visually) and didn't last long on the boards, the show has never done well on Broadway in any of the three revivals it's seen.
As Andrew Lloyd Webber now feels the show works best as a staged concert, I think you could pack the cast with some really great people (stars of both Broadway and the recording/film worlds) and do a nice job with it.
I'd love to see Fade Out - Fade In with Leslie Kritzer taking on Carol's role. She certainly has the belt for it and I think she could handle the comedy and make it her own.
I know it's a fairly recent show, but I would love to see them assemble a killer cast for the La Chiusa Wild Party.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
My dream: Once On This Island with Shanice Williams as Ti Moune and Cynthia Erivo as Asaka. Heck, I'd bring Uzo Aduba on for Erzulie and Norm Lewis as Papa Ge. This could be a hot ticket.?
Yes. Just...yes.
I would also love to see First Lady Suite at Off-Center. I enjoyed First Daughter Suite at the Public last year and I don't think First Lady Suite has been done in New York since the original production. And I know we had a recent revival at the Transport Group, but I would love to see Hello Again in a more traditional setting. Really most of LaChiusa's works would be great, I think Marie Christine could work well too.
While I go to most Encores! production, there's something I've always wondered. Do they choose a show and then cast it, or do they have certain stars in mind and then choose a show well suited to them? (Because casting is usually excellent!) If, say, Audra McDonald told them, Look, I'm available March 2017 and I'd really like to do Rags--would they try to make it happen?
Peter2 said: "While I go to most Encores! production, there's something I've always wondered. Do they choose a show and then cast it, or do they have certain stars in mind and then choose a show well suited to them? (Because casting is usually excellent!) If, say, Audra McDonald told them, Look, I'm available March 2017 and I'd really like to do Rags--would they try to make it happen?"
I believe they do both. I'll have to dig for the article, but I'm pretty sure I read that Jack Viertel already knew he wanted LuPone when suggesting Can-Can. I also think Sutton Foster was announced with Anyone Can Whistle at the beginning of that season.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad