Hal Prince's EVITA Aims for Broadway? - Page 2

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 2:29am

GeorgeandDot said: "I wonder if Lady Gaga could sing the whole score.  She's got a great voice decent acting chops and certainly has star presence.  She'd be perfect for the part, but I'm not sure if she could hit all of the top notes.  Plus she'd sell like Bette Midler."

 

Of course she could sing it. Despite being perfect for the role, I don't see her ever playing it. The hateful Madonna comparisons would come back with a vengeance.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 2:49am

This might be a dumb question, but is Hal Prince actually going to direct this? Is he going to be in the room or will it be restaged by an associate? 

[Smaxie]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 6:22am

So much craziness in this thread. Evita would not be played by a 68-year-old Patti Lupone, as if the role could be cast like Mame or Dolly. Also, back at the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was one of the world's 10 richest countries, and European immigrants came to the country by the thousands, particularly from England, France, Italy and Germany. The result is that Argentineans are often pretty indistinguishable from most North Americans, and do not conform to what most Americans think of as a "Latin look." So sure, Mandy Gonzalez or Eden Espinoza are fine, but the role is not inappropriately cast should they go for a "white girl." And last I checked, Elaine Paige, Terri Klausner, Nancy Opel, Derin Altay and Loni Ackerman are all very white. 

[evic]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 7:30am

The great Argentinian star Nacha Guevara successfully recreated her iconic role in Eva El Gran Musical in Argentina. I believe she was about 65 and still pulled it off. The only way for Patti to reprise her role is if they got a young woman to play Eva in her youth and have Patti take over starting with " I'd be surprisingly good for you".But that ain't gonna happen. My vote is for Mandy. She would knock it out of the park 

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 8:03am

As long as they don't cast someone like Elena Roger.  Her voice was quite underwhelming.  Whoever plays her should have a strong voice, I think.  I was there at the first preview of the 2012 revival.  

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 9:17am

Random trivia: back when the Actor's Fund was still doing benefit concerts, one of the shows Seth Rudetsky assiduously pursued was a concert of Evita with Patti in the lead, but they could never come to terms with Webber's company. (He once cited this to me on Facebook as an example of Webber's company being difficult to deal with when I was trying to assemble a JCS concert of a similar stripe and consulted him, he being the acknowledged expert at that sort of thing at the time.)

Updated On: 8/12/17 at 09:17 AM

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 8/12/17 at 11:26am

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the 2012 revival. I saw it twice, once with Christina Decicco and once with Roger, and enjoyed their performances, flaws and all. Roger's voice isn't great but I found her performance to be visceral. The set was gorgeous and Grandage's direction impressed me at points--especially leading up to Buenos Aires. 

I hope this happens!

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 8/14/17 at 2:00pm

Hal Prince has offered up some details on the upcoming production as well as his thoughts the most recent revival...
http://www.broadway.com/buzz/189417/harold-prince-determined-to-bring-evita-back-to-broadway-knocks-recent-revival-in-upcoming-memoir/

Updated On: 8/14/17 at 02:00 PM

[Babe_Williams]

Posted: 8/14/17 at 2:05pm

Javier Munoz as Che? 

[chernjam]

Posted: 8/14/17 at 4:40pm

Jeffrey Karasarides said: "Hal Prince has offered up some details on the upcoming production as well as his thoughts the most recent revival...
http://www.broadway.com/buzz/189417/harold-prince-determined-to-bring-evita-back-to-broadway-knocks-recent-revival-in-upcoming-memoir/

"

Was kind of hoping for a bit more than - " t will have been some time since the most recent revival, which didn’t serve the material well," - although perhaps Prince will elaborate when the book comes out?

I don't have a problem with people pointing out the deficiencies in the recent revival - but in the nearly 4 decades since the work premiered, there were a lot of improvements or at least progressions to this piece.  The new orchestrations, the fleshing out of the character Che (which went from its Che Guervera to it's not to) and the addition of "You Must Love Me" - which was one of the most moving points of the recent revival.  Going back to the original and claiming it's "iconic"  and that we need to go back to that production seems over the top to me.  I'd welcome a new production, even with Prince's contributions to it... but let's not simply live in the past

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 8/14/17 at 6:33pm

Well, the simple fact is that Prince understands how to make the material interesting on stage as opposed to interesting on record. One of the major problems with musicals that begin as "concept albums" is that the tend to be expository, which was the chief issue with the last revival (this is also why I believe Jesus Christ Superstar has never had a successful production - albeit for the opposite reason: Evita needs a concept, Superstar is hindered by one). Prince knew this and, with minimal rewrites, created an extraordinary and theatrically thrilling event that made Evita into a concept musical as opposed to a narrative musical. Even the Times, who didn't like the show that much, recognized the strength of Prince's direction while condemning the vague strokes Rice drew the primary characters in.

The revival tried to soften the role of Evita, make her more "likeable". This doesn't work with the character as written, and all it did was stop her from belting the more thrilling notes of the score, instead moving to falsetto. The addition of "You Must Love Me" is unnecessary and gives Eva three big ballads in act two, for no reason. Besides, it's a song added for a diva in the film version, hoping to get an Oscar, and it shows. It doesn't blend with the rest of the score (along with Superstar, Webber's most cohesive) and what does it really add to the story? Another generic pop song? I wouldn't have been surprised had I learned Glenn Slater had served as lyricist as opposed to Rice.

[ahhrealmonsters]

Posted: 8/14/17 at 6:42pm

No one's mentioned Sara Ramirez, who would be my vote to play Eva.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX7G8rN2Stg

[chernjam]

Posted: 8/15/17 at 12:18pm

Sally Durant Plummer said: "Well, the simple fact is that Prince understands how to make the material interesting on stage as opposed to interesting on record. One of the major problems with musicals that begin as "concept albums" is that the tend to be expository, which was the chief issue with the last revival (this is also why I believe Jesus Christ Superstar has never had a successful production - albeit for the opposite reason: Evita needs a concept, Superstar is hindered by one). Prince knew this and, with minimal rewrites, created an extraordinary and theatrically thrilling event that made Evita into a concept musical as opposed to a narrative musical. Even the Times, who didn't like the show that much, recognized the strength of Prince's direction while condemning the vague strokes Rice drew the primary characters in.

The revival tried to soften the role of Evita, make her more "likeable". This doesn't work with the character as written, and all it did was stop her from belting the more thrilling notes of the score, instead moving to falsetto. The addition of "You Must Love Me" is unnecessary and gives Eva three big ballads in act two, for no reason. Besides, it's a song added for a diva in the film version, hoping to get an Oscar, and it shows. It doesn't blend with the rest of the score (along with Superstar, Webber's most cohesive) and what does it really add to the story? Another generic pop song? I wouldn't have been surprised had I learned Glenn Slater had served as lyricist as opposed to Rice.

"

Sally - appreciate your thoughts on this... you made some interesting points I hadn't really thought about.  I suppose my appreciation of "Evita" started in the 90's when I first got interested in ALW/theatre.  Had seen Aspects of Love (and really loved it) so I started going back and listening to the other scores.  And the music of Evita really caught me pretty quickly.  Soon after I saw a production of Evita done by a University that was following the Hal Prince Direction/production.  And not too long after the movie started coming into fruition.   

To me, the movie succeeded only because expectations were so low for Madonna and for a "movie-musical".  (People tend to forget that at the time, this was the first movie musical done in ages... let alone a sung-through 2hour plus musical).  But the difference was I think I saw this as a completely  different animal than a staged version.  

The addition of "You Must Love Me" where it was sung over rather than sung out by Eva on screen was moving as it was ambivalent is she saying you MUST love me like a command or is it a realization like - oh, you must love me - right at the moment when everything is about to collapse for eva - her ambition, her dreams - her very life.   I agree, on stage/live it's harder to pull off though to the same effect.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 8/15/17 at 7:30pm

BroadwayConcierge said: "After the lackluster 2012 production, I would love an amazing revival of Evita.

 

"

All these negative comments about the 2012 Evita is making me think Frozen will be a dud. Since it's the same creative team. 

[david_fick]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 10:58am

Photos from the first leg of the international tour are out.

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 2:02pm

david_fick said: "Photos from the first leg of the international tour are out."

What awful, awful production photography. 

[binau]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 2:21pm

adamgreer said: "How exciting! The 2012 production was horrendous in every way (look BC, we agree again!), starting with the nightmare that was Elena Roger's "singing." Cerveris was the only bright spot in an otherwise awful production.

I would fly up and pay a large sum of money to see LuPone take on the role, regardless of her age. However, I don't see that happening under any circumstance, so I'd be more than happy with Mandy Gonzalez or Eden Espinosa in that role.

Also, talented as she may be, I can't imagine they could get with casting Jen Colella or any white woman besides LuPone. Did this Great Comet fiasco teach us nothing? Cynthia Erivo would be all over that bit of casting in a second."

Didn’t we have this discussion recently and conclude Eva was actually a white woman? I mean, I don’t doubt at all that the casting of a white woman as a historical person who is a white woman would cause controversy in 2017. But I would sincerely hope it wouldn’t. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 3:23pm

BroadwayConcierge said: "david_fick said: "Photos from the first leg of the international tour are out."

What awful, awfulproduction photography."

It’s like they took those photos with a first gen Iphone

[Steve C.]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 3:40pm

qolbinau

You're right about Cynthia Evita...err..Erivo, then they could cast Okie as Che with Mandy Patinkin playing Juan this time....and of course, Lin-Manuel as Agustin Magaldl...(are tickets on sale yet?)

[evic]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 7:47pm

It is impossible to recapture the brilliance of any successful production even if you have the original creators who don't remember what they did 40 years ago..  This looks like another tour.  The clips on youtube are meh.to awful.  There is only 1 Patti and Mandy. And Elaine page for that matter.  Recreating is very different than creating.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/18/17 at 8:24pm

And add in Terri Klausner, while we're being nostalgic. Klausner's first act was superb, sexy and youthful, and LuPone's 2nd was of course remarkable, iconic. They were both terrific in the part, and I saw both twice (I saw the first preview, 9/10/79). It's worth noting: people who saw Klausner with the original two male stars weren't cheated. 

[johnmichael]

Posted: 11/20/17 at 9:20am

david_fick said: "Photos from the first leg of the international tour are out."

Its that a joke? it looks like an amateur production.

conceptual it might be, but production values have to count for something too surely?

the 2012 revival was absolutely stunning set, lighting and costumes.

not some cartoon like this.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 11/20/17 at 10:57am

I'm glad to see that the remount of Hal Prince's Evita looks just as jank as the original one. They couldn't even bother taking Magaldi out of that mariachi looking outfit.

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 11/20/17 at 11:58am

The show curtain is breathtaking! 

[AMWB]

Posted: 11/22/17 at 10:49am

Miles2Go2 said: "Patti is over twice the age (68) Eva was when she died (33). Do you envision that being an issue? I ask this with all due respect to Ms. Lupone."

 

True, but Patti can still sing it, which is pretty remarkable and thrilling!!  A one night concert event with LuPone and Patinkin would be A M A Z I N G !!