Evita National Tour - Don't Waste Your Time or Money- Page 9

[DirtyDollyDibley]

Posted: 7/24/08 at 3:19am

This is hilarious. Evita always caused such drama! It is still true. Hahaha. and PS Broadway brings broadway to america-and networks, troika, big league, and so on. What broadway have you brought lately. I wonder?

Posted: 7/24/08 at 8:11am

Wow. You're incorporated. Which means you paid 35 dollars and filled out some forms. And you bought a domain name. Not too many businesses can boast of that. Now the next step is to, say, get a phone number and actually produce a show instead of just constantly bragging about it for months on message boards.

And it's interesting how you can spend 10 hours ( TEN HOURS!?) on a thread defending yourself but you can't seem to ever produce a date, name or location of any of these shows you've allegedly directed. Oh, I forgot, it turns out that now your past doesn't matter. After you've been totally busted on your fabricated "Mitchell Community Theater" resume.

Posted: 7/25/08 at 12:16am

This is hilarious. Posted yesterday to smnetwork.org:

"PS) It was brought up today that our next 2 "statewide" tour should be "Evita" and "Jekyll & Hyde", which I am super excited about. Both of them are my favorite shows of all time, and I can't wait to get involved with them.

Thanks,
Landon Parks"

http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,3811.msg23246.html#msg23246

Posted: 7/25/08 at 12:33am

Though it seems the Broadway Entertainment Company has already DONE Evita. Mr. Parks posted the following to communitytheater.org this March:

"Just today I received my License Agreement for "Evita" from R&H Theatricals. Our Theater sets 561 and the average ticket price is $20. Total cost for Royalties per Performance: $650.00."

http://communitytheater.org/forum/search_results_posts.asp?SearchID=20080725002628&KW=&PN=5

But of course the past does not matter.

[Landon Parks]

Posted: 7/25/08 at 1:26am

Updated On: 7/22/10 at 01:26 AM

[DirtyDollyDibley]

Posted: 7/25/08 at 2:08am

Ok, I saw the national tour of Evita, and talent wise it landed FAR above any other non-equity tours. When I go see a show like Evita- I don't waste my time worrying about a lack of scenery. Many people were on the stage singing, dancing, and acting very well. the general public does not appreciate live theatre as much as a few decades ago. They want to be spoon fed the simplest plot lines, and not have to think. Those of us who know about theatre and love it, have to help others see how Musical Theatre is/can be artistic not just mindless fluff (although if done right-has it's place). Did anyone see Sunday in The Park With George this past spring? It was hands down one of the best works of art I have ever seen.

Posted: 7/25/08 at 4:01am

You can't give any details about the shows you allegedly directed, produced or stage managed for the Mitchell Community Theater because the Mitchell Community Theater DOES NOT EXIST. I mean, come on, whoever heard of a director that wouldn't take credit for his productions? I suspect you might be clever enough to realize that one of the many reasons you can't just make something up as usual is because you never paid royalties on any of these imaginary shows. And I can promise you they would be very interested in that in NYC. Now go ahead and report me to the Mods.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 1:49pm

I miss everyone killing each other on this thread.

[insertclevernamehere]

Posted: 4/24/09 at 8:28pm

Ahh a trip down memory lane.

[Iris Chacon]

Posted: 7/27/12 at 5:32pm

Ahh... Here it is.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 7/27/12 at 6:10pm

I was very disappointed by this production. Does anyone know, are their plans for a tour of the current production?

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 7/27/12 at 6:11pm

^ Yes, it will begin touring Fall 2013. The tour will start in Providence, Rhode Island. I am pretty excited

[SweeneyPhanatic]

Posted: 7/28/12 at 1:10am

Well THIS was fun to read! No tainted memories of what I saw, thankfully. I'd be interested to go back and see this again to see if 7 more years of seeing shows and studying theatre would change my opinions.

To whoever called Kathy Voytko "short and pudgy" (I believe that was the exact phrasing, it's somewhere in the early pages): wow. I walked from the stage door to the crosswalk with her after the performance I saw, so I got a good look at her. If she is pudgy, I ought to be dead. As for short, have you ever heard of Elaine Paige?

But that's an old, forgotten post, so I won't harp on it. I had to laught at the thread title, though. I spent $15 on a nosebleed seat at Atlanta's Fox Theatre, but was able to move to the front of the balcony during Act I (the ushers herded us into better seats when the preshow started -- apparently the theatre was barely half-full at that show). Even better, the friend I went with (whose grandmother had season tickets) spotted two empty seats in the second row when she & her grandmother took their seats, and since they were still empty just before the second act began, she & I happily filled them. $15 to see half the show that close? I don't believe I wasted a single penny.

Also, I think the souvenier program for this show is one of the best I've ever seen. Too often I feel like my $10-$20 could have been better spent (I'm looking at you, Wicked) but this one is full of photos and information! Kudos to whoever put that thing together.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 7/28/12 at 3:01am

^ I have that same program! It really is a nice program that actually had pictures of the current tour cast whereas most shows just use OBC photos.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 7/28/12 at 4:17am

HA - the stuff about Landon Parks kept me entertained at 4 am. Whatever happened to him?

[Iris Chacon]

Posted: 7/28/12 at 6:41pm

I guess Landon Parks is still around cause all her stuff was just erased.

[carousel94]

Posted: 7/28/12 at 11:53pm

I saw the tour in I think May 2008 and was really impressed. Malia Tippets was my Eva and she really knocked it out of the park. Her voice was terrific and I wish she had been recorded. Overall a good restaging of a great production.

[My Oh My]

Posted: 7/29/12 at 12:44am

Hahaha. Nobody has pointed out the tour in question was a severely scaled-down, simplified knock-off of the original production. It lacked the exciting lit from underneath stage deck so effectively used during "Requiem For Evita" and "Rainbow High." This tour had a painted-on white "M" shape that was lit from above with lights pointing down. Not effective at all. And that was just that one detail.

The Casa Rosada was reduced to a mere roll-on, metal staircase less than half the height and width of the impressive original. The film screen that seemed to morph, change size, and descend and ascend at the same time, was a white, static scrim at the back.

They used software orchestral enhancement (canned sounds) to supplement their teeny tiny orchestra and they cast tweens as Eva.

This is why I made a case of the inaccurate inferences made about The Muny Dreamgirls production by that critic, suggesting it was a proper representation of the original at the Imperial. This tour of Evita was a very cheapo, half-hearted, non-equity version of the great production that Patti, Loni, Valerie, Elaine, and so many others had starred in. The Hal Prince thing was press to help sell the tour by enhancing its image. Notice how most lackluster productions have to always push something designed to suggest it's top notch, when any idiot knows you won't know that for sure until after you see it. By then, they already have your money safe in their pockets, hehehe.

And those who don't know better will trash the original based on that budget tour because of the hoopla about Hal Prince himself having "overseen" the production HIMSELF, LOL.

Updated On: 7/29/12 at 12:44 AM

[theaternut]

Posted: 7/29/12 at 1:54pm

"and they cast tweens as Eva"
I agree with everything you say.. except Kathy was not a tween.

[My Oh My]

Posted: 7/29/12 at 5:03pm

But that other chick who took over might as well have been. There's a video of her screeching "Rainbow High" on YouTube.

Eva doesn't work played by a actress who comes off that youthful. Eva needs some stature and presence. She needs to believably command the stage. Being an Amazon woman need not be required, as petite Paige and Perri, for example, wielded ample amounts of command upon Hal Prince's timeless rendition of the musical.

It's a tricky role to cast but it seems they went for whoever could squeeze those notes out and that's it.