Favourite scene transitions?- Page 2

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 12:16pm

One of the first shows I did as music director was "High School Musical 2." There's a transition from Scene 1 into Scene 2 where the music suddenly gets, for lack of a better word, EPIC. And I remember consulting with the director about that, and saying "is this a staging thing that's supposed to happen here?"

That's an interesting alternate question: pieces or moments where the music suggests something more or bigger happening than the actual libretto gives you, which you'd only really know if you'd seen the production.

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 12:48pm

Not exactly a scene change as nothing actually changes onstage, but in The Pillowman when the "walls" of the interregation room are revealed to be scrims that the stories play out behind.

Also, the first reveal of the shop in the 2016 revival of "She Loves Me".

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 1:01pm

I have to agree with some others...the appearance of 10086 Sunset Boulevard in SUNSET BLVD; hands down.

Honorable mentions: the original productions of RAGTIME and ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 1:24pm

HELLO, DOLLY! when Minnie Fay and Irene push the hat shop door and it revolves while the other set pieces fall into place.

[Kelley10]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 1:46pm

The first thing I thought was the the transition in GYPSY from the younger to older performers. Even the movie and TV version use it it's so great. No special effects - just a simple strobe. Brilliant!

[ggersten]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 1:47pm

I didn't see the show, but this is a great video of set changes - 

 

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 2:03pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "Oh, boy. Let’s correct some things here: Tony meets Maria AT the dance, so “Tonight” happens afterwards, not before the dance. The transition you meant to say is when Maria is inside the bridal shop (with Anita, Bernardo and Chino) and mentions her excitement for the dance and begins to twirl as the stage goes dark and as other girls twirl on stage alongside her, in a loud pop colored streamers drop from the flies and in a blink the entire stage is engulfed with dancers (the Sharks and the Jets) dancing inside the gym. Also, this revival (which played the Minskoff Theatre) was in 1980, not the mid-80s."

Thanks, Brody. Watching Jerry Robbins work the the girls twirling and the streamers coming down and going back up and the Jets and the Sharks entering over and over and over again remains one of the highlights of my life.

It is the greatest of all theatrical transitions--and part of what makes it so great is that he was never satisfied (to quote Hamilton). Never. Just when everyone thought it was perfect, Mr. Robbins's voice could be heard from the production table, "Let's take it again from Maria's 'Tonight is my first night as a young lady of America.'"

I wish there was video of it, but this clip of the transition from Alan Johnson's 2007 touring company is a close approximation--minus only Jerry's perfectionism.

 

 

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 2:07pm

 

What makes it great, of course, is that it not only is skillful stagecraft, it also mirrors Maria's anticipation and excitement at going to a dance.

 

Like everything Jerome Robbins did, it's not just staging or choreography, it's also CHARACTER and STORYTELLING

.

[YvanEhtNioj]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 2:53pm

The opening number during Phantom - where the time goes back as the chandelier rises. It gives me chills every time. 

[robskynyc]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 3:13pm

Call_me_jorge said: "robskynyc said: "Call_me_jorge said: "This is very good question and one I really had to think about. I dont think Ill forget about the fun home tours transition going into the house. It so breathtaking and shocking at the same time.
Kind of on that note the first transition in Lookingglass Alice is always a wonder to watch."

are you talking about the projections where it looks like she's going down in the elevator? I think it was with Janet Dacal"

That’s not lookingglass Alice. I’m talking about the play that was produced by the lookingglass theatre company."

you're right. I'm thinking of wonderland. lol

[PatrickDC]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 3:33pm

It may not be the most dramatic or technical set change I've ever seen, but I saw the PETER PAN tour as a teen, one of my first experiences seeing a major Broadway show, and the first set change has stayed etched in my memory all these years later. Peter and the Darling children start flying, then the nursery set pieces magically (to my young mind then) sail off stage to reveal a star-filled sky. I'm sure seeing actors "flying" and the wonderful music of "I'm Flying" from the orchestra all add to the magic of the scene. 

[Scarlet Leigh]

Posted: 12/31/18 at 10:12pm

David10086 said: "For me, just about every scene transition involving Norma's mansion in the original run of SUNSET BOULEVARD was captivating. Watching the 'mansion' land onto the stage, or rise above it to reveal Artie's place was fascinating. A lot of time, thought,work and technology went into that - and it paid off. (Especially considering it was new technology 25 years ago.)"

Oh man HOW could I forget about this set? Sunset was one of the earliest musicals I saw when I was younger and WOW that set. I can still remember begin just totally amazed when they had the party happen in the apartment UNDER the entire house set. That blew my little, young, new to Broadway mind.

[johnmichael]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 3:23am

Scarlet Leigh said: "David10086 said: "For me, just about every scene transition involving Norma's mansion in the original run of SUNSET BOULEVARD was captivating. Watching the 'mansion' land onto the stage, or rise above it to reveal Artie's place was fascinating. A lot of time, thought,work and technology went into that - and it paid off. (Especially considering it was new technology 25 years ago.)"

Oh man HOW could I forget about this set? Sunset was one of the earliest musicals I saw when I was younger and WOW that set. I can still remember begin just totally amazed when they had the party happen in the apartment UNDERthe entire house set. That blew my little, young, new to Broadway mind."

 

sunset, absolutely. what I really loved about the design was, that technically as impressive, and intricately and beautifully detailed as it was (and it REALLY was!) was that how perfectly it served the piece both narratively, and emotionally, too...

 

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 7:37am

There wasnt much to recommend in NBCs first live musical The Sound of Music, except the scene transitions. I dont remember any details, only the feeling that they were very well done and made possible by the size of the set.

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 8:50am

The transitioning into the office following 9 to 5s opening number.

[Impossible2]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 9:43am

Not so much a transition, but when foal Joey turns into mare Joey in War Horse was pretty great.

 

[Loopin’theloop]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 11:32am

The RNT and subsequent West End transfer of My Fair Lady had a lovely moment when the arches of Covent Garden piazza became the bookshelves in Higgins study.

The transition to the Dance at the Gym from West Side Story as talked about above, is of course just sublime.

[Loopin’theloop]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 11:32am

The RNT and subsequent West End transfer of My Fair Lady had a lovely moment when the arches of Covent Garden piazza became the bookshelves in Higgins study.

The transition to the Dance at the Gym from West Side Story as talked about above, is of course just sublime.

[bandit964]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 4:13pm

Recently:

-Yerma - some of those scene changes were astonishing.

-Three Tall Women - the transition between Act 1 and 2 was trippy.

-People, Places, & Things - When the lighting grid came down and Emma passed through a hole in the center of it between the rehab and home scene.

-1984 - the change into the interrogation room was epic and intense.

-The Antipodes - Right before our eyes the whole table was eating food and you don't see where it came from.

-The Father - those super subtle scene changes made you second guess your own memory.

-Let The Right One In - The final transition into the pool scene.

-Machinal - The box that they created would spin during transitions and it was beautifully staged.

[PatrickDC]

Posted: 1/1/19 at 4:26pm

A few years back Ray of Light, a San Francisco-based musical theater company, produced CARRIE. It was a fantastic show. I was prepared to see the big notorious flop, but the revisions for the Marin Mazzie version a year or two earlier worked. The scene change that amazed was the end of the prom scene. The gym backdrop was a huge grid made of what looked like old wooden bleacher seats. After the destruction Carrie stands alone and the backdrop falls forward to the stage. The actress, a high school aged girl, had to be positioned just right to be in the path of an open window near the top. She he’d nerves of steel and didn’t so much as flinch. The *whoosh* from the gigantic panel rushed through the theater. It was a breathtaking illusion that illicited gasps from the audience. And suddenly we’re in the White home. Great stagecraft.

Posted: 1/2/19 at 1:09pm

Almost every scene change in the original production of DREAMGIRLS

[Lot666]

Posted: 1/3/19 at 8:45am

Most everything that came to mind for me has already been noted above: the mansion in the original Sunset Boulevard, the overture in Phantom of the Opera, and the part near the end of 1984 when the set literally came apart to reveal that the protagonists were being surveilled the entire time (absolutely chilling).

I'd also add the "Prologue/The Coney Island Waltz" sequence in the original London production of Love Never Dies, when the derelict boardwalk came to life in vivid color around Madame Giry to recreate the Phantasma park. Stunning.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/3/19 at 8:27pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "Oh, boy. Let’s correct some things here: Tony meets Maria AT the dance, so “Tonight” happens afterwards, not before the dance. The transition you meant to say is when Maria is inside the bridal shop (with Anita, Bernardo and Chino) andmentions her excitement for the dance and begins to twirl as the stage goes dark and as other girls twirl on stage alongside her, in a loud pop colored streamers drop from the flies and in a blink the entire stage is engulfed with dancers (the Sharks and the Jets) dancing inside the gym. Also, this revival (which played the Minskoff Theatre) was in 1980, not the mid-80s."

Oops! You are entirely right. I did admit I'm not as devoted to the show as so many others understandably are. But I could have looked up the opening date in IBDB.

Thanks for the corrections.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/3/19 at 8:36pm

David10086 said: "For me, just about every scene transition involving Norma's mansion in the original run of SUNSET BOULEVARD was captivating. Watching the 'mansion' land onto the stage, or rise above it to reveal Artie's place was fascinating. A lot of time, thought,work and technology went into that - and it paid off. (Especially considering it was new technology 25 years ago.)"

And I had the exact opposite reaction. The mansion set was beautiful and looked like an actual mansion, not a musical set. UNTIL they lifted it to reveal the garage underneath and proved the set was little more than papier-maché.

It made have been "fascinating", but it ruined the main, mansion interior for the rest of the evening.

And as long as I'm talking about "worst scene transitions", the rising mansion was only second to the moment in POTO when Christine and the Phantom disappear into the floor, only to appear immediately 60 feet in the air descending a staircase. Because when watching I realized instantly that the actors who disappeared into the floor could not get to the top of the set in so little time, so (a) I realize I'm watching doubles, which leads me inevitably to (b) I start to wonder who is singing and is anybody singing live?

Both of those transitions belong in a book entitled WHEN DIRECTORS MASTERBATE; they are "cool" attempts at making theater imitate film transitions, entirely at the expense of theatrical illusion.

Not that I feel strongly about it... (/sarcasm)

[stoptheworld38]

Posted: 1/4/19 at 6:32pm

Almost everything in Once On This Island and Come From Away. When I saw CFA in Toronto this past summer it blew me away how fast they could change from the plane set to the Gander set using only 12 chairs. Also especially the change during the storm/One Small Girl in OOTI...just WOW.