If you had the chance...
If you had the chance...
rockfenris2005
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/10/04
#0If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 12:12am
What musical flop would you amend and revive?
BSoBW2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/8/04
#2re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 12:20amMerrily We Roll Along!!!!! Only it's already been amended... now it just needs to be revived! COME ON, ROUNDABOUT!
#3re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 12:21amAll Shook Up! :) (which I don't consider a flop but I guess technically it is)
#4re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 12:27am
"Mack & Mabel" absolutely! I don't recall why this flopped but it sure wasn't the show! I did hear the show wasn't supposed to be a hit, just a write off. I seem to recall that folks didn't care for the sad ending when Mabel dies a hopeless drug addict, But I saw a tour way back when (70s) and they revamped the show, Lucie Arnaz was Mabel and I believe John Cryer was Mack. The cut the Lisa Kirk role and put in Tommy Tune instead and it was pure magic! There was an incedible tap number in the second act where WDT is shot onstage (By someone offstage, You assume it was Mabel) and behind riser he was standing on rises up Tommy Tune in taps heading the whole chorus in "Tap your troubles Away"!
They changed the ending to Mack, after singing "I promise you a happy ending", to having a fantasy "What if?" it all ended well with a wedding and he & Mabel get married with Keystone Cops in the wedding and it was just great! Revive that and you'll have a big hit.
#5re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 1:53am
I agree with you about the brilliance of the show, jimmirae... but I so prefer the original ending. It's sad that mainstream audiences couldn't accept it... 
#6re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 2:27am
Parade and Last 5 Years were gipped.
Period.
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#7re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 2:27am
It would have to be Parade for me as well.
Akiva
Chrysanthemum62001
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/14/04
#8re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 3:07am
Sunday in the Park With George. And I would cast myself as Dot and Raul Esparza and Michael Cerveris as George! 
It would be done in rep. They would rotate, and when one was playing George, the other would be Louis! 
#9re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 5:49ami agree with MACK & MABEL. i would LOVE to see this!
#11re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 6:37am
ALL SHOOK UP!! 
#12re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 7:17am
You're going to think I'm strange, but...
DRACULA!!! I wanted to see that!
"I'm not in Bambi and I'm not blonde!" - Idina Menzel
fiatlux
Featured Actor Joined: 3/22/05
#13re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 8:14amAlthough, I think there would need to be some form of miracle performed on the book....Anyone Can Whistle.
#14re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 9:19am
Tanz der Vampire, as I would have also liked to have seen it in english.....
(and thank God I got to see Anyone can Whistle in Ravinia last summer, to have never seen that show would have been a sin)
#15re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 9:45amCarrie, Bring Back Birdie, Merlin, Dear World, Raggedy Ann, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Molly, Wildcat, Senator Joe, Breakfast at Tiffany's...and so many more!
cookie2
Stand-by Joined: 5/16/05
#16re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 10:22ami'd like to see Working. so many possibilities for a great ensemble.
fiatlux
Featured Actor Joined: 3/22/05
#17re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 10:35am
""Mack & Mabel" absolutely! I don't recall why this flopped but it sure wasn't the show!"
Well you might get your chance. The director of the current Sweeney Todd, John Doyle, has a version with David Soul and Janie Dee going into the West End - so it might end up back on Broadway His treatment of it was about as good as the show could get - which was fine as long as the book wasn't allowed to get in the way of the songs too much.
David Soul and Janie Dee to Be London's Mack and Mabel
nydirector2
Featured Actor Joined: 10/4/05
#18re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/1/05 at 11:18am
Definitely Carrie.
Depending on what we consider a flop, I'd really like to see Parade get a decent run...especially after all the mess they went through with Livent and Clear Channel, etc.
Additionally, pretty much all the "...the Musical"'s as displayed on the walls of Joe Allen
rockfenris2005
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/10/04
#19re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/4/05 at 7:05am
What I've always said, Dance of the Vampires. If I can't have the German show (with a straight translation) then Steinman's reading script with a few amendments. I must admit, however, that the Previews were a cut above the actual production.. they had a lot of premise: and all the best bits were cut. I felt that the director was wrong for the piece, couldn't make the right decisions. The choreographer was wrong as well. The musical arrangements seemed out of place (and too loud). The venue was wrong because it was too big and they couldn't get anything to sound or look right. Many of the actors didn't have the right chemistry or intensity: Max didn't seem a convincing Alfred... he seemed too brave and confident. Mandy didn't seem the right Sarah, because she was not quiet.. it seemed that her voice was far too loud. And Crawford's Krolock sounded like a spin-off of Phantom. There's one particular scene where it so sounds like it, you can swear you're back in 1988 watching Phantom on Broadway.. with the ghost of Raoul (and the real Krolock) wandering in the background
However, there's one thing I will say; Dance of the Vampires is possibly the one musical (in all of Broadway's illustrious history) to have played the loudest music ever. Listen to God has Left the Building, the section at the start, and it's full-on pumping heavy metal. In the previews it's two or three minutes longer with massive explosions and outbursts, and just everything thrown into the mix. The fixtures on the wall which also brought about the coffin.. which shot out of the floor of the stage like a phenomenal toilet. Plus, it was (probably) the first show to introduce Wagner on Broadway; the start of Eternity is a quote from Siegfried's Deathmarch in Gotterdammerung
All in all, I found the Previews version really enjoyable. It only needed a bit of work - and could have been an amazing show: but it went really down-hill after Opening Night: and the show just sucked from there. It was missing all the nuances and the important bits that there were in the previews, which proved the director had no idea what he was doing and cut everything that should have been kept (and probably would have saved the show). Well, that's my 2 cents on that
Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to be noticed and will be five pages down the board (tomorrow) with my reply as the last? Why? Because that happens a lot around here...
No explaining why
#20re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/4/05 at 8:57amI've discussed this before, but Anyone Can Whistle...
kate2
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/6/05
#21re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/4/05 at 4:04pm
i'll third ASU (if that even makes sense)
Updated On: 11/4/05 at 04:04 PM
#23re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/4/05 at 4:15pm
Carrie
Dear World
Working
Mack and Mabel has not gotten very good reviews in London as a show...just didnt work...and not much love for David Soul (the reviews were on here I think.)
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
#24re: If you had the chance...
Posted: 11/4/05 at 4:19pm
DANCE OF THE (F*ING) VAMPIRES.
for the last time.
there need to be many changes. though i don't really agree with most of what you said rockfenris.
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