ILLINOISE at the St. James Beginning April 24- Page 3

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 3/19/24 at 3:28pm

I trust Kad’s analysis of this (as well as most things Broadway).  the Best Music competition is likely going to get pretty exciting.  
 

I would adore a Best Musical win for Illinoise. 

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 3/19/24 at 4:10pm

Kad said: "For the purposes of the Tonys and other awards, "musical" has a history of being interpreted rather expansively- it's included dance pieces (Contact, Movin' Out, etc), legit operas (Baz Luhrman's La Boheme), operettas (Pirates of Penzance, etc), and revues (Smokey Joe's Cafe, etc). It's basically come to mean "anything that tells a story largely through musical performance.""

 

And, then of course, there's the very sneaky "play with music."

[Kad]

Posted: 3/19/24 at 4:13pm

TotallyEffed said: "Kad said: "For the purposes of the Tonys and other awards, "musical" has a history of being interpreted rather expansively- it's included dance pieces (Contact, Movin' Out, etc), legit operas (Baz Luhrman's La Boheme), operettas (Pirates of Penzance, etc), and revues (Smokey Joe's Cafe, etc). It's basically come to mean "anything that tells a story largely through musical performance.""



And,then of course, there's the very sneaky "play with music.""

Yes, the they/thems of theater pieces that ruin the binary.

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 3/19/24 at 4:29pm

We saw this last night and the show is in fantastic shape. Ben Cook and Rachel Lockhart were phenomenal. The entire band and the singers were top notch and delivered a perfect version of the album. I cannot recommend this sweet, imperfect show enough. I'm hoping it has a successful Broadway run!

[ACL2006]

Posted: 3/19/24 at 6:28pm

interesting to note that they'll only be doing 7 shows per week. Their typical schedule is Mon-Sat evenings and only a Saturday matinee.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 3/19/24 at 9:55pm

Also interesting to note, as my friend pointed out, that if Illinoise wins the Best Musical Tony, its 115 performances will easily set the record for the shortest-running show to win that award. (Of course it could extend a number of times to exceed Passion's total of 280.)

Updated On: 3/19/24 at 09:55 PM

[Danasi]

Posted: 3/20/24 at 10:08pm

ACL2006 said: "interesting to note that they'll only be doing 7 shows per week. Their typical schedule is Mon-Sat evenings and only a Saturday matinee."

That is interesting, I guess it's to give the dancers more time to recover compared to an 8 week show?

They do have some random Weds matinee too  (April 24, May 1, Jul 3, Aug 7). I'll be going to the first show. The comments on here have me intrigued

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 1:21am

If a show doesn't have sunday performances it is usually because they don't want to pay the house staff time and a half rates

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 8:15am

Saw this last night and… I don’t know. I just didn’t connect with it at all. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I kept waiting for it to exhilarate and it mostly was just “pleasant.”

The dancers are obviously very talented, but the choreography is so pedestrian and irritatingly literal and repetitive. The musicians and singers - also very talented - are drowned out by an over-amplified sound design that doesn’t allow you to fully understand the dense, purple prose of the lyrics. And if you’ve ever wanted to be repeatedly blinded by flashlights and stadium lighting, this is your chance!

I went in wanting to love it and walked away scratching my head about how this became such a runaway hit.

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 9:27am

"scratching my head about how this became such a runaway hit."

This album is a touchstone for a whole generation of a certain kind of person. I think it sells a lot of tickets on that fact alone, it certainly did here in Chicago. I liked this a lot (particularly the Superman number and the tap dance) but figured it would be absolutely confounding to folks not intimately familiar with the album. 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 9:35am

I’m familiar with the album and very much of the generation who grew up with it as a touchstone of early/mid-00’s folk. It’s not one of my favorites though, and I’ve only listened to it all the way through maybe once in my life, but I appreciated hearing it live.

My comment about its hit status confounding me had more to do with the production as a whole, since it’s not just the album being played live. All the pieces together didn’t cohere for me.

To be honest, I think maybe dance theatre is not my preferred medium of narrative storytelling.

Updated On: 3/21/24 at 09:35 AM

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 9:45am

Yes, I understood. I was just trying to add that, for many, the album is so important that they could have wheeled out a victrola and played the album and it would have sold out the Armory for at least a few dates. Adding Justin Peck choreography certainly helped but the emotional response much of the audience is having has more to do with a time in their life than it does what is actually on stage. Nothing needed to cohere (and it very much does not cohere IMO), nostalgia is a powerful drug. 

[Falsettolands]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 9:53am

I've never listened to the album. Very interested in going into this completely blind and seeing if it holds up removed from the nostalgia factor.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 10:13am

I imagine we’ll be seeing more of a mix of reactions as more people are able to see the show and there is some inevitable hype backlash.  

[rattleNwoolypenguin]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 11:09am

I hope people don't try to judge this or critique it as a musical.

It's a dance piece with Sufjan music. It's about getting swept away into sensory.

It's not gonna be everyone's cup of tea and maybe it's mostly for folk fans who want a visual diversion with a beloved album and that's okay.

I'm thankful it's not trying to shoehorn anything. 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 11:22am

rattleNwoolypenguin said: "I hope people don't try to judge this or critique it as a musical."

Except that the creative team is calling it a musical and treating it as such. So, I think they want us to do exactly that.

[yyys]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 12:23pm

16 weeks is too ambitious I think....

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 12:49pm

"Except that the creative team is calling it a musical and treating it as such."

That's an odd choice to me. As it stands it's a dance piece. A good one. It's not a musical. Even Movin' Out! had a clearer story with lyrics that aligned better with the story being told. I get classifying it as a musical for the Tonys. I don't get describing it that way on the poster. 

[rattleNwoolypenguin]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 4:24pm

ColorTheHours048 said: "rattleNwoolypenguin said: "I hope people don't try to judge this or critique it as a musical."

Except that the creative team is calling it a musical and treating it as such. So, I think they want us to do exactly that."

Marketing decision I'm sure. 

"Dance Fantasy" or whatever doesn't sell probably. 

[CukorLover]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 6:37pm

Gia Kourlas, NY Times

"It’s hard to pin down what “Illinoise” wants to be, though it clearly has Broadway ambitions. Is it the musical theater version of a story ballet? A concert with dancing? Does it even care about dancing, really? The show, referred to as “A New Kind of Musical,” has little that seems new; it’s drowning in sentimentality, which is about as old school as it gets. And it doesn’t have much of a story, but what is there — by Peck and the playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury — is opaque. There’s no dialogue. It’s the music that is the undisputed star here."

 

 

‘Illinoise’: A Place of Overflowing Emotion, but Little Dance Spirit

Updated On: 3/21/24 at 06:37 PM

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 3/21/24 at 11:00pm

Call it whatever you want - it's the best musical/dance happening this season.  Hype or not, we are hoping it's the "Best Musical".   

[jagman106]

Posted: 4/4/24 at 5:55pm

I just got a message from Seat Geek regarding my June 3 ticket for Illinoise saying "event has been cancelled and to expect a future email message with refund options." I'm thinking maybe just this Monday night performance is cancelled, and not the entire transfer. Curious if anyone else received a similar message.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 4/4/24 at 6:11pm

jagman106 said: "I just got a message from Seat Geek regarding my June 3 ticket for Illinoise saying "event has been cancelled and to expect a future email message with refund options." I'm thinking maybe just this Monday night performance is cancelled, and not the entire transfer. Curious if anyone else received a similar message."

They changed their schedule for that week. They added a Friday matinee and cancelled the Monday evening performance.

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 4/4/24 at 6:20pm

FYI, if anyone missed it on the discounts thread, APRILFOOLS2024 for $20 off $50 or more on SeatGeek, through April 8.

[jagman106]

Posted: 4/4/24 at 8:40pm

ACL2006 said: "jagman106 said: "I just got a message from Seat Geek regarding my June 3 ticket for Illinoise saying "event has been cancelled and to expect a future email message with refund options." I'm thinking maybe just this Monday night performance is cancelled, and not the entire transfer. Curious if anyone else received a similar message."

They changed their schedule for that week. They added a Friday matinee and cancelled the Monday evening performance."

Thank you. I see that my ticket no longer appears in my SG account, but still no follow-up email. I hope I can just exchange it for a different performance.