Posted: 8/14/18 at 9:46am
I love that DidHeLikeIt.com (owned by Ken Davenport) has conspicuously left the shortcut to the reviews off of the main page. You have to click the title in the side bar, and even then the only reviews listed are Jesse Green's negative one and The Wrap's (apparently?) positive one, which doesn't even seem like much of a review.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 9:54am
rjm516 said: "Justsaw a new TV commercial featuring Marilu Henner, and the pull quote is from the NY Times review of the 2013 George Street Playhouse production. "A genuinely funny musical." Lame.'
What happened to that production? How did it change so much? Is it just a completely different show?"
That 2013 review was written by Anita Gates, who can't even be described as a second-stringer reviewer. It's a fluff local piece.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 9:56am
bjh2114 said: "I love that DidHeLikeIt.com (owned by Ken Davenport) has conspicuously left the shortcut to the reviews off of the main page. You have to click the title in the side bar, and even then the only reviews listed are Jesse Green's negative one and The Wrap's (apparently?) positive one, which doesn't even seem like much of a review."
I wouldn't necessarily call The Wrap's positive since it says GTBBT is reminiscent of the vanity musical, a show bankrolled for under a million bucks that typically closed the same week it opened.
Updated On: 8/14/18 at 09:56 AM
Posted: 8/14/18 at 10:03am
I thought I posted about DidHeLikeIt earlier this am. (which is happening a lot: I type a post but it never gets here...hmmmm) I agree: the Wire review is mixed AT BEST.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 10:07am
EJ24642 said: "I wouldn't necessarily call The Wrap's positive"
dramamama611 said: "I agree: the Wire review is mixed AT BEST."
OH absolutely! The reason I put "apparently?" in parentheses is that the non-review isn't even very positive, but they chose the thumbs up icon for it.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 12:03pm
A surprisingly relatively positive review. He appears to be reading our threads. Lol
https://www.zealnyc.com/the-amiable-schlock-of-gettin-the-band-back-together/
I will say I haven’t seen the show and initially had hopes for this show until early reports started rolling in from people who had actually seen the show. That’s different (at least to me) to forming an opinion before a show opens or even enters previews.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 12:24pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 12:56pm
blaxx said: "Wicked got mixed to positive reviews, love. Including a love letter review to Chenoweth from NYT, which is nowhere near what is happening here."
But the NYT headline was There's Trouble In Emerald City, so it was a love letter wrapped in dogsh*t. And it ends with: "''Wicked'' does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical. Ms. Chenoweth, on the other hand, definitely does."
So, based on that review, one can guess that Brantley didn't think it would still be going strong 15 years later.
But the situation is the same. If people fill the Belasco to see this show, despite the critical drubbing, the show can run and run... no review can sink a show people want to see. Which is where the problem may land for GTBBT, do people want to see it?
Posted: 8/14/18 at 1:14pm
Wicked may not have gotten a positive review from Brantley, but it did get noteworthy positive reviews. It also was a recognizable property and tapped into the lucrative teenagers-and-their-families market. It also was fortunate to be anchored by two star-making performances. Off the bat, it was primed for more success than Band was.
Heck, even Summer- which took a lickin' but keeps on tickin'- can rely on its catalog of songs to appeal to people for a while. And even Bronx Tale- which could claim the title of "that ran for how long?!" show of the decade- had some baked-in source material appeal for the bridge and tunnelers.
This has nearly nothing going for it now, save word of mouth in New Jersey.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 3:04pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 3:05pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 3:12pm
Fake Broadway news!
Posted: 8/14/18 at 4:06pm
newintown said: "Of course there has always been ridiculous dreck on Broadway, but it seems that we have a crop of producers today (Davenport, the Rosens, Chase Mishkin, and a host of one-off types) with much more enthusiasm than taste or know-how. There are those like Scott Rudin and Jordan Roth who take a the safe and successful strategy of putting big names into revivals of famous works, but one wonders if we'll ever see another Hal Prince, Kermit Bloomgarden, Cy Feuer, Saint-Subber, Rodgers & Hammerstein, or David Merrick - all of whom have had flops, but who at least gave the public something better than a live version of a bad TV show."
1. Who are the Rosens?
2. Has Chase Mishkin ever actually produced a show?
3. Scott Rudin has produced more shows by far that are not "big names in revivals of famous works."
4. You conveniently make no mention of most of the many exceptional producers who don't fit in your specious narrative.
But thanks for playing.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 4:12pm
1) In Transit (best lumped with the one-off types, probably).
2) https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/chase-mishkin-21494
3 & 4) OK.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 4:12pm
everythingtaboo said: "I'm one of the people that didn't love, but didn't hate it. It was just empty silly fun.
But the one thing I did wonder was how much Ken & Co. paid to license all that Beatles music to play during pre-show?"
It's covered by BMI/ASCAP, which is nominal in cost and automatic. Kinda like what's played in a bar or restaurant. What can be expensive is using songs IN the show.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 4:51pm
newintown said: "1)In Transit(best lumped with the one-off types, probably).
2)https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/chase-mishkin-21494
3 & 4) OK."
@newintown the vast majority of those she was a co-producer on. I only counted a handful where she was credited high enough to possibly be a producer.
Posted: 8/14/18 at 5:03pm
newintown said: "1)In Transit(best lumped with the one-off types, probably).
2)https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/chase-mishkin-21494
3 & 4) OK."
Lots of one-off and even 2-3 off that deserve condemnation. I don't see a show on that list that Mishkin actually produced, but if I am wrong, I am happy to acknowledge. If so, it too seems more like a one-off. I think she was involved in fund raising but not anything else. (You can also condemn her taste and won't get any argument. )
Posted: 8/14/18 at 5:51pm
S394206H said: "Seems Ken Davenport has now taken over the BWW Twitter account- what on Earth is going on with this tweet? I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this tweeted for another show.
https://twitter.com/broadwayworld/status/1029392886385848321?s=21
(Apologies if the link is static, I’m posting from my phone)"
This is weird. I don't want to vote, but curious what the break down is....
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:00pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:11pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:12pm
Unless I'm going crazy, Ken has removed Gettin' the Band Back's Did He Like it Page! It's no longer listed in the show list and if you search on it you only get a error 404: page not found!
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:14pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:19pm
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:20pm
At least he didn't link THOSE reviews to this production??????
Posted: 8/14/18 at 6:25pm
Miles2Go2 said: "That’s a pretty sexist name for a website."
I think Brantley's preferred gender pronoun is he, so all good.
