HAIRSPRAY LIVE! Viewing Thread- Page 17

[broadwayguy91]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:09am

this sums up my reaction towards the show as a whole:

[CindersGolightly]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:16am

One of my favorite lines was:

Seaweed: "Oh, you surely may."

Penny: "No, I'm Penny Lou!"

I cant remember if that was in the original production. I didn't quite catch it watching it the first time, but it made me cackle the second time around.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:21am

neonlightsxo said: "newintown said: "Maybe he wasn't solely responsible for earlier success?"

Seriously. The success of Grease was the combination of Tommy Kail and Alex Rudzinski. When you remove Tommy Kail...you get what we saw last night."

i was referring to the technical direction of Grease being far superior to Hairspray, and i was under the impression Alex did both technical directions and Tommy had solely directed Grease dramatically (that's what was implied by many earlier this year when some were congratulating Kail on the technical direction)

[rjm516]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 5:58am

Lol that Tyra gif is PERFECT. My thoughts exactly.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 6:57am

Wow, So the claim that the camera cut away from Kristin's Bow because her strap broke is true?? How'd they fix it soo fast, cause she was dancing along with the rest of the cast a few shots later.

[newintown]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 8:20am

"i was referring to the technical direction of Grease being far superior to Hairspray..."

And again I say, perhaps he wasn't solely responsible for earlier success. Just because he's the technical director doesn't mean he's personally responsible for every single technical  thing that happens. There's a whole team working on that stuff. Who knows who dropped the ball (or ran with it in Grease)?

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 9:57am

Did anyone else experience a technical glitch right after Miss Baltimore Crabs? Our screen blacked out for like 30 seconds.

All in all, we really enjoyed the broadcast. It's great that Harvey Fierstein's performance has been preserved. Every time K-Chen hit one of those ridiculously high notes, I was like- "Of course they had to put that in."

Ephraim Sykes was an amazing dancer, and of course J-Hud was wonderful in "I Know Where I've Been."

Andrea Martin and Sean Hayes's cameos were so cute.

As an aside, I don't think The Wiz Live! was nearly as bad as people are saying here. The cast was great- in fact, I thought Ne-Yo was the biggest surprise with his performance. To me, that alone would make it worth seeing at least once. I'm finally going to watch Grease Live! this month. Way behind, I know.

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 10:33am

I really missed Nikki Blonsky. That's probably not a popular opinion, but I would have loved to see her do it again. Ditto on James Marsden. It took seeing a few other Cornys to realize how much humor and charm he injected into that part.

For me, this was definitely the best of the live musicals. Not technically, but overall. THE SOUND OF MUSIC was embarrassing, PETER PAN sucked every bit of joy out of the show, THE WIZ was lethargic, and GREASE bored me to tears with that cast (Tveit being the exception).

The score and adult cast definitely saved this one. 

Updated On: 12/9/16 at 10:33 AM

[jenn3258]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 1:34pm

Lets agree to disagree but my opinion was sound of music was the best one to date. From there things started going downhill and for me its not what I expected these broadcasts to be. I cheered when I read that they were doing Hairspray, because in two years we were finally getting another well loved title but how disappointed this left me. I don't know maybe because it failed technically but I feel that this just failed. The opening number which is one of my favorite made me wanna tune out. 

I said this last year and will say it again. Talent should not be showcased on these broadcasts. Shanice Williams was great but sorry to say this Tracey failed. 

[DigificWriter]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 2:03pm

Danster said: "I cannot understand why and who decided to toy with the libretto of a Tony Award Winning Show."

The "who" in that equation are Craig Zadon, Neil Meron, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman, and Harvey Fierstein, and the "why" is that they wanted to create a hybrid of both the stage and film versions of the show because there are songs from both that they all liked and wanted to include.

[littlemouse921]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 2:57pm

I don't know if this was mentioned, but some of the facts on the Facebook live backstage stream were totally wrong. My favorite being: "Andrea Martin, who plays Penny's mother, has won six Tony Awards!"

Did they think she was Audra McDonald by accident?

[GiantsInTheSky2]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:05pm

I'm surprised by the negative opinions on the broadcast - especially since most of the complaints are technical, as opposed to actual performances that have been more or less the weakest link of the previous broadcasts. 

I thought this was the best one so far. There were technical flubs with camera angles, lighting, etc - but isn't that expected? Doesn't that solidify the 'live' factor? I feel like if it was an absolutely perfect show all around, people would be saying it was prerecorded or that there wasn't a point to doing it live, etc. I feel that people are often looking for things to bitch about when it comes to these. 

Hairspray is one of my favorite shows, and even though I went into this a little nervous, I was 99% pleased. I had a great time watching it! I genuinely had fun and was along for the ride, even when they had the Darren Criss commentary and all that.

Pros: I love Harvey in literally everything, so I'm biased there. Kristin was incredibly strong. I think Maddie is honestly the best Tracy we've ever gotten, acting and singing wise. Little cameos like Rosie, Sean Hayes, Rikki and Marissa were serviceable and fun. JHud. The actress playing Amber was funny and solid. I liked the set design and while it didn't blow me out of the water, I didn't expect it to. I wanted them to do the show justice and I believe they did.

Cons: Ariana Grande - her casting made no sense other than for stunt purposes, felt that from the cast announcement and not a second of her performance changed that for me. The actor playing Seaweed was behind in RATT and wasn't as exciting as the role usually is. My boyfriend and I agreed, consistently throughout the night, that the sound guy totally failed. That was probably the most disappointing aspect. 

I was sad to see that it was the lowest ratings out of the four broadcasts, but not surprised, given the results of the election. I bought a DVD copy of The Wiz Live! through a third party seller (for Oz collecting purposes) but other than that, I haven't had any care to purchase or even rewatch any of these broadcasts. I can tell you that I have ordered both the Hairspray Live! soundtrack & DVD from the NBC store because I want to show my support. 

Apologies for the long, overly positive post. I'm usually very critical of these but I am happy with what I saw last night.

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:19pm

New York Times review by Neil Genzlinger gets it right:

All in all, it wasn’t an unpleasant revisiting of a great musical; it just wasn’t a particularly coherent or revelatory one. Now someone just needs to mount a Broadway revival and cast Ms. Hudson in it.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:28pm

Is Ephraim Sykes family? 

[amoni]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:37pm

The press makes a big deal out of the ratings while the network doesn't because when "The Sound Of Music" was broadcast, it was billed as a one night only live event. Then it was repeated, then the DVD was issued. Now audiences know fully well that there are options. The network knows a certain amount will watch it live, while more will DVR it, On Demand it, and buy the DVD. At the end of the day, all that is added in.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 3:49pm

Dove Cameron looks like a real live Barbie doll. She's adorable. 

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 4:07pm

CarlosAlberto, well...

[Testing1232]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 7:35pm

Watching on demand now ---    Even more impressed with Dove this time around, and was hoping that I wouldn't dislike Grande as much as I did the other nite ---    Her delivery is just so poor. And as much as I liked Maddie's dancing and singing ( great voice) , I just don't remember Tracy being played with so much confidence before --- miss the vulnerability - 

The Criss moments are even worse second time around !!  

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 9:00pm

Watching this right now on the website but WTF why was Good Morning Baltimore taking place in the evening? And why didn't anyone work with Ariana on her acting? So atrocious

[wiggum2]

Posted: 12/9/16 at 10:12pm

ljay889 said: "Hairspray isn't my favorite show but Is there a better broadway finale?? 

 

"Agreed but I think it works better when it's not broken up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9smuMQMDJc

 

[Danster]

Posted: 12/10/16 at 1:13am

The problem with these broadcasts is that on the night they are live, negative comments which are very influential and affecting one's views are bombarding social media. Frankly, I cannot understand how someone can judge a performance by toying with their device and the show is going on. But for that night it is becoming much more interesting to read/type tweets than watching the actual show.

Fortunately and unfortunately once these are released on DVD they are much more enjoyable to watch than the evening of the live broadcast. Fortunately because its a nice thing for fans to own these shows and are able to watch whenever they like. Negative side is because future shows relies on the ratings they bring in and once we see a decline in ratings, we would definitely be seeing an end to this tradition, which was just taking off. 

Hairspray is a very entertaining and enjoyable piece, however I do feel that NBC failed last Wednesday. Mainly because of technical problems and I do hope that these will be fixed for the official release as well the re-broadcast which is scheduled for December 26th. But I do agree that another reason this failed was because they tried hard to make it look like Grease as they possible could. The network should have kept its own style and not try to imitate and hire people that worked for FOX to make it identical. From interviews one could tell that this was their goal and my perspective is what made Hairspray fail. 

From what we have seen I question Fox's success. No doubt that the majority who enjoys commenting on these chat boards loved it, but a good question what did the majority of the other viewers think? For the same network's Rocky Horror Picture Show there was a dramatic decline in ratings and another for NBC's Hairspray. As much as I enjoyed Grease, there were a lot of things that annoyed me, notably the interviews which NBC decided to adopt between scenes. 

I enjoyed the first three broadcasts very much, and hate to see this thing coming to an end before it even started as there are lot of shows I would love to see. 

 

 

 

[gypsy101]

Posted: 12/10/16 at 2:43am

broadwayboy223 said: "Watching this right now on the website but WTF why was Good Morning Baltimore taking place in the evening?"

the scene took place in the early morning, but it was filmed at dusk in LA so it was evening.

[jenn3258]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 7:46pm

I own all the live shows on DVD and The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, The Wiz had edits to remove faults. That being said I am toying about Hairspray, since personally I did not like it that much. Will it be same performance and will it be edited for the DVD release. 

[Theater_Nerd]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 9:15am

My On Demand service was out so I took a chance and purchased it from the iTunes store and was disappointed to find that all of the Darren Criss behind the scenes stuff was left in. I think all of that was unnecessary and interrupted the overall flow of the show. I can only imagine it being worse with all of the commercials as well. 

It was an okay production overall, nothing to write home about. 

I'm going to go on record and say that I enjoyed "The Sound of Music" more, but the best of the bunch remains IMO, "Grease Live".

[silent]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 8:56pm

I wish these broadcasts were not filmed live.