Posted: 5/30/17 at 5:01pm
I've only been to New York once (for a week), but it was specifically timed so I could see Bridges of Madison County, as I knew it would flop and I would never get to see it otherwise.
It was not a perfect show for all the reasons discussed at the time, but to see ravishing performances of a ravishing score with well-written dialogue (even if the "book" was the biggest issue), on that beautifully simple staging... it was an absolute delight.
Spring Awakening was a huge flop here and I hugely enjoyed it; Avenue Q also flopped (long run does not mean it made any money!) but I didn't love that quite so much. Most of the flops I've seen here have been outright terrible or plain mediocre; certainly nothing to love ironically, even.
One I would possibly learn to love if I ever saw it again was The Light Princess. It was a curious beast of a show and deserved its very mixed notices, but the (sometimes overwhelming) imagination of what was happening on stage and Rosalie Craig's performance were truly wondrous - her literally flying around the stage singing the awesome "Better Than Good" while avoiding being upstaged by a ridiculously cute comedy rat was something I will remember for a long time. If they'd cut down the interminably long Act 2 opener (much longer on stage than it is on CD!), and recast Clive Rowe as the King, it might have had a commercial run.
