Drowsy Chaperone's Best Musical Odds? — Page 2

Thanks!

Who did Color Purple get a positive review from?

Will the Tonys award originality (Drowsy), big ticket sales (Jersey Boys), Oprah (TCP), Disney (Tarzan) or the make-a-mediocre-movie-into-a-musical craze (Wedding Singer)? My guess is either Oprah or Disney, personally.

Color Purple got great reviews?!?!?! Really? Dang, I guess I missed those.

Anyway, it's between Drowsy and Jersey Boys.

JoeKV99, there was a golden age, in fact there were several. When I said that there was a time when shows were original, I meant that there was a varied source of original material, books, personal lives,other plays. Basing a musical on a book is not in any way like basing a musical on a motion picture. A book plays out in the mind and the adaptation, in the right hands, will by nature be fresh and original.

Presently on Broadway, 9 out of 25 productions are based on movies. And in practically every case, there has been an attempt to recreate all the feel good scenes from the movie onstage. What you end up with is the movie onstage with some songs and much of the spark of what made the original movie unique missing.

I would posit that recently, only "The Lion King" took a movie and turned it on its ear and tried from the very beginning to be fresh and original - this from a company that slavishly copied "Beauty and The Beast" a few years previously. At least Disney seems to have learned the lesson in that "Tarzan" sounds like something fresh.

What I was bemoaning is the fact that audiences are starting to lose the experience of coming to Broadway for "an original, can't find it in the movies" experience. The works of the Gershwins, Rogders and Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Loesser, Wilson, Lerner and Loewe, Adler and Ross, Schwartz and Dietz, and Sondheim very rarely were based on movies. And yes, there was a golden age and yes, we seem to have p**sed it away.

And to those that say "The Drowsey Chaperone" won't succees, may I remind you that hundreds of thousands of people have already seen the show and loved every minute of it? It ran in a Broadway-sized theatre in Toronto for a long time and then in Los Angeles. The word of mouth should help offset the single voice of The New York Times reviewer who wasn't able to kill "Modern Millie" either.

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Just want to add a comment to the whole "original" vs "un-original" arguement. I think what it comes down to is people not bemoaning a show that's loosley based on or that takes it's initial calls from another source material but instead hating it when shows are just "the movie on stage," like Lion King is..sort of. An example of something that is based of another play or book, as JoeKV99 pointed out, would be Damn Yankees taking it's ques from Faustus. No one's going to go and say that DY is Faustus: The Musical; there are a vast number of differences, so many that it turns the show into something completely different and worthy of being called original. It all depends on what category shows fall into. I just think people should keep that in mind when someone calls for a return to "original" musicals. Unless they're flat out denying the fact that almost every show can be traced back to some other source material. Then they're just ignorant. I think people are just tired of going to see a show and thinking, "I remember this from the movie/book/tv show." Or something. Geez...I thread-jacked my own thread. Oy vey.

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Foster - the difference is that a lot of shows win BEST MUSICAL TONY AWARDS by default. There have been many Broadway seasons where there have only been two or three eligible new musicals - none of which got great reviews.

MILLIE won in a relatively weak season and it was a given title that would tour well - thats how it was able to win as many Tonys as it did.

This season has yet to have a monster hit, but it's had a lot more respectible entries. From an industry standpoint, you could make a case "why" any of the shows THE COLOR PURPLE, WEDDING SINGER, TARZAN, etc "could" win - in terms of the politics of the theatre industry. CHAPERONE will have to have fabulous reviews to be the front runner. It doesn't have the power backing behind it. I mean even with great reviews, it could be the URINETOWN to a more tour friendly show like JERSEY BOYS.

Updated On: 4/1/06 at 11:03 AM

Michael Bennett (and I feel weird addressing this message to a god) you are right that "Reefer Maddness" and "Rockabye Hamlet" flopped, despite being hits in LA, but you missed one vital element. I saw Reefer Maddness and I worked at The Charlottetown Festival when they did Kronenberg 1491" the original name for "Rockabye Hamlet" and I feel (sorry here folks) that both shows were aweful. (I know Reefer has fans but I just felt the show was nowhere near as good as "Little Shop" or "Hairspray" which both mined period zietgeist. "Drowsy", on the other hand is a gem. If it fails, I guess we might as well move forward on the production of "Xanadu The Musical." Hey wait a minute.... really? SOMEONE IS MAKING THAT?

I quit.

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Hey, I *wrote* Reefer Madness, and although I disagree with allofmylife that it is "full of awe," Drowsy Chaperone's a very different animal. Though both are a bit deconstructionist, DC is more "traditional Broadway" in tone, composition, character, orchestration, etc. and is much more of a *direct* homage to the musical theatre of yore -- i.e. DC wears its goofy little heart on its sleeve while RM is snarkier and more rebellious, I think.

No one can really predict awards, but DC is just terrific, and I hope it kicks butt in NYC.

I'd be really surprised if JERSEY BOYS won, frankly. Not in this season with so many decent original musicals. And yeah, I know it masters the genre, but a lot of industry people still consider it a jukebox musical and aren't so anxious to further the trend.

You know, I get tired of people rewriting the past. The Color Purple got Mixed-to-Positive reviews with a couple of raves and a couple of pans. Its critical slate is certainly on a par with several previous Best Musical Tony winners (and better than Millie's, Titanic's, and a few others) and the fact that it's a major hit is going to help with the voters. Some examples of the positives:

Backstage:

"After a parade of mediocre songbook musicals and screen-to-stage tuners (think Footloose), Broadway should applaud long and loud over The Color Purple, based on the iconic Alice Walker novel and the 1985 Steven Spielberg film. As musical theatre, the piece has flaws -- the grating Act I imbalance between Marsha Norman's book and the songs, a sense of being too episodic -- yet its ambitions are blissfully noble. It is that rare bird: a serious, intelligent, crowd-pleasing Broadway musical. When Celie is reunited with Nettie, who became a missionary and raised Celie's children in Africa, there's not a dry eye in the house at the sight of these two women, whole and truly free. There are several moments like this in The Color Purple, which marks director Gary Griffin's Broadway debut. He paints beautiful stage pictures, but he does something else: He captures the dramatic color of great material ? and the hue and cry of joy. "


Broadway.com:

"Jukebox musicals and chamber pieces are fine and well. Ditto theme-park spectacles and ironic lampoons. But the new musical The Color Purple reminds us what Broadway's for, and all that Broadway can be: big-hearted, broad-stroked storytelling, with the epic emotional sweep only music can conjure. On its own terms, this deft, moving adaptation of Alice Walker's seminal feminist novel works like gangbusters; that's cause for rejoicing enough. We should also save some hallelujahs for what it represents: another alive-and-kicking incarnation of that seemingly endangered species, the straightfacedly serious book musical. They've made some choices we can quibble with, and, given the show's incendiary subject matter, even squabble over. But you'd have to have ice water in your veins not to be stirred by this unabashed paean to human resilience, and impressed by a production as masterfully executed as it is soulfully intended. "


NY Post:

"What in the final count carries the show, and what you carry out from the theater, is the commercially yet adroitly conceived music, the vibrant singing from the entire cast, and the individual performances that in many instances transcend the material. Finally, one cannot forget the choral, moral, comic threesome of Kimberly Ann Harris, Maia Nkenge Wilson and Virginia Ann Woodruff. Like this musical itself, this trio of ladies is neatly calculated, brashly obvious -- yet somehow, wickedly winning. "


Newsday:

"'The Color Purple," which opened last night at the Broadway Theatre with Oprah Winfrey's approving brand on the marquee, is a big, beautifully cast and produced, middle-of-the-road musical adaptation of Alice Walker's 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. It also is awfully nicey-nice for an epic about racism and black-on-black sexual abuse in Georgia in the first half of the 20th century. The show loses its way in the second act and, ultimately, leaves no cliche unturned. But this is not merely the first new old-fashioned American musical of the season. It may well be built to last. And for all the obvious expense of this handsome production, Gary Griffin's direction and Donald Byrd's exuberantly lyrical choreography seldom feel hard-sell. For much of the evening, director Griffin - a Sondheim specialist from Chicago making his impressive Broadway debut - locates the perilous balance between the vitality and oppression that drove Walker's haunting story about the male-dominated, post-slavery African-American culture."


The AP:

"At the beginning of "The Color Purple," two young girls sit in a giant, gnarled tree that dominates the stage of the vast Broadway Theatre. It's a sweet-tempered image of sisterhood that haunts this respectful, occasionally roof-raising musical adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of female empowerment. Fans of Walker's novel most likely will not be disappointed in this reverent stage retelling and will embrace it heartily as a live souvenir of the original. Others may crave a little more theatrical excitement."


Nytheatre.com:

"The Color Purple, the exquisite new musical adapted from Alice Walker's novel and Steven Spielberg's film, is glorious. It's joyous and heartbreaking, funny and sad, exhilarating and serious, epic and scarringly intimate. It's a triumphant celebration of how one woman finds her voice by finding faith and power within herself. And it's a show that exults in letting its audience feel, be moved, and become part of its uplifting emotional spirit. The Color Purple, effusive and sprawling and full-hearted, is a welcome addition to Broadway. I hope it will stay there for a long, long time."


Theatremania:

"I suspect that many facets of The Color Purple -- not just LaChanze's performance -- will be remembered at Tony Awards time. I'd put my money on the charismatic Fields, who's making a marvelous Broadway debut, and Paul Tazewell's consistently terrific costumes. (Hair designer Charles G. LaPointe also deserves special mention.) Director Gary Griffin may have a tougher time getting to the podium; his ensemble work, in particular, seems uninspired. As for the show itself, it's too early in the season to tell if it will take home the blue ribbon. But all those involved -- and that includes you, Oprah! -- should consider themselves winners for bringing Walker's work to the stage so smartly."


Curtainup:

"Making this epic journey from despair to the discovery of love, independence, creativity and spiritual renewal into a musical that's fun and bright is a tough balancing act, but Ms. Norman and director Gary Griffin prove themselves to be adept jugglers. While there are plenty of get out your handkerchief moments, it is clear from the start that this is also a good time show. With songs running the gamot of blues, jazz, gospel and ballads, the composer-lyricists can't be faulted for lack of variety in musicalizing the story. "


NY1:

"The Color Purple is a complex work effectively combining the power of the novel with the magic of live stage. Director Gary Griffin and his choreographer Donald Byrd took some bold liberties that mostly paid off. As art, the show is flawed, but it's also so full of heart, the flaws don't seem to matter. The Color Purple sings to the soul. "

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Updated On: 4/1/06 at 02:21 PM

Drowsy's strength is not JUST that it's an original story but that the whole conceit is really original. It manages the feat of paying homage to a past age of musicals without just being a pale imitation of them, as so many of these types of shows can be. It's also probably the most laugh out loud funny show I've seen in forever. There are literally four or five belly laughs before the curtain even rises.