GYPSY Posters: A Recurring Theme

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 7:13am

The theme here is obviously the image of each Rose in the same "For Me!" position.

Image wise, clearly Patti's is the worst of the lot. You'd think after so many years, the ADVANCES in technology would lead to better posters, not a crappier looking one.

Personally, I like the Lansbury and Peters ones the best. I think that colors and artwork are what makes a poster unique, and not a fuzzy photo cut and pasted onto a junky logo.

Updated On: 1/13/08 at 07:13 AM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:14am

The Lansbury poster is AWESOME!

[WickedBoy2]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:19am

YEA the Lansbury one is def the best one! Classic musical theatre poster!

[amoni]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:43am

Actually, the Bernadette Peters poster is a second version. The first and the one used for the marquee, was absolutely crappy, and obviously didn't work. They then went with the tried and true.


http://www.tritongallery.com/triton/posters/gypsypeters.htm

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:49am

[dchesnutny]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 11:07am

The Lansbury artwork is beautiful.... but would never work to draw a contemporary audience to buy tickets.

While the LuPone poster is awful...it is the most contemporary design of all of the posters (except maybe Midler's).

Let's hope the current revival takes a cue from the Bernadette Peters revival and quickly revises its artwork.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 11:20am

>The Lansbury artwork is beautiful.... but would never work to draw a contemporary audience to buy tickets.<

Why not? Of all of them, it's the one that catches your eye the most. Part of successful advertising is having an image that gets noticed and that great Hilary Knight illustration does the job.

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 11:44am

I also think these posters show how good their agents all are, as all of their names are about as big as the title on each respective poster.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 11:48am

Yeah I don't think Gypsy needs to go ultra-contemporary, but "vintage" is always seem as cool and hip. So why not go that route?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 11:49am

>I also think these posters show how good their agents all are, as all of their names are about as big as the title on each respective poster.<

Well, there's certainly a historical precedent for that.

Updated On: 1/13/08 at 11:49 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 7:51pm

Wow. To think that that is where THE COLOR PURPLE is playing now. That Sit 'n' Snack is now a Starbucks.

[dchesnutny]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 8:44pm

the Lansbury artwork catches your eye the most of all of them because it's an illustration, not a photograph, and uses (just a few) very strong colors.

Don't get me wrong- I think the Lansbury poster is beautiful (and the LuPone artwork is awful), but I work in advertising, and I would bet money that a poster similar in style to the Lansbury poster wouldn't be very successful in selling tickets.

"Vintage" is a great design strategy, just as long as it's designed with a contemporary audience in mind. Norn's artwork is a great example (posted in the other message thread, "Patti Lupone. Gypsy. At Last"). (nice work, mr.).

Updated On: 1/13/08 at 08:44 PM

[WaltSummersPI]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 8:46pm

The Patti LuPone MySpace put up norn's poster :)
Link

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:12pm

I'm not talking about how the Lansbury poster stands out among the other Gypsy posters. I'm talking about how it works as a piece of advertising art, period. And were that logo used in 2008 for a production with the 50 year old Angela Lansbury starring, it would still work today.

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:14pm

I think Tynes is the worst, it's even more blah than Patti's poster.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:17pm

why do you suppose they stopped using the "a musical fable" phrase after Lansbury?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:20pm

The Tyne advertising logo was different. She was in a sparkly dress and a little more glammed up. The one that is posted at the top of the thread looks like the cover of the cast recording, which had a different image, although it's a shot of what she actually wore in the production.

Updated On: 1/13/08 at 09:20 PM

[BrianIdol]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:23pm

wow, that's service...i was just about to ask if anyone had the other tyne daly artwork. That one is MUCH better!

[RyToast1]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:25pm

Have any other productions been in the St. James other than Tyne's and now Patti's? Where have the others been?

Ethel-Broadway Theatre
Tyne & Patti-St. James

...

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:26pm

The original production with Merman opened at the Broadway and later moved to the Imperial. Lansbury was at the Winter Garden. Bernadette at the Shubert. Tyne also came back and her production played a return engagement at the Marquis.

Updated On: 1/13/08 at 09:26 PM

[ahmelie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:29pm

why do you suppose they stopped using the "a musical fable" phrase after Lansbury?

Probably because by the time Lansbury had played it, Gypsy was a show everyone in the theatre world knew. No need to establish it as *that* Gypsy, or that it was a musical.

Maybe?

[RyToast1]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:32pm

Thanks Smaxie!!

[Smaxie]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:39pm

"A Musical Fable" was added to appease June Havoc, the real life Baby June. She felt the show made a mockery of her life and wanted something that characterized the show as a fiction, a fable, to differentiate the story being told in Gypsy from her actual considerable childhood success. She went along with it because she knew the show was important to her sister and would legitimize her, to a degree. Although still with us, Havoc eventually made peace with the show and sometime after the Lansbury production, the contractual necessity must have been dropped. Havoc even became quite friendly with the 1989 Tyne Daly company, I think even inviting them up often to visit her at her Connecticut farm.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:48pm

Thanks for that bit of trivia, Smaxie!

[seymour krelborn]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 9:57pm

I love norn's poster!!