Is Rob Ashford's PROMISES, PROMISES Coming to Broadway in the Spring?

According to this article it might be.

Although a brewing revival of "Brigadoon," to have been directed and choreographed by Ashford, got yanked from the 2008-09 Broadway season (in a move attributed by producers to the unavailability of appropriate Rialto houses), he's on board to helm a potential revival of "Promises, Promises" that could materialize on the Rialto in the spring.


Variety Article

---

Updated On: 9/7/09 at 07:23 PM

I'd prefer Neil Patrick Harris but I bet they go with Sean.

As a huge fan of the Baharach sound I'm dreading what this will sound like in a reduced revvial--surely at the least we won't have the pit singers.

Better be a damn good Turkey Lurkey or else...

---

Turkey Lurkey is so iconic I don't think anyone should try a new one--I don't envy them. It's like Watne Cilento (great dancer but not a great, IMHO choreographer, but still) when he tried doing a new Rich Man Frug for Charity, or Kathleen Marshall foolishly even trying to do a new Who's That Woman for FOllies...

You're right they can have singers sing off stage - Chorus Line did it as well (since they have so many actors in the opening scene.

How many other shows had pit singers though? Tunick and crew claim PP was the first--and Tunick reused it for COmpany, but I'm not sure what else. Of course one reason Bennett wanted it for Promses was so he could hire a chorus of dancers who weren't encesarily the best dancers--nowadays the average "gypsy" is also a great singer.

Too bad Cyndi Lauper is too old for Fran, she would be perfect.

---

It's also dated and sexist. I loved the show, and saw its original tryout at the National in Washington, then again on Broadway. It was a revolutionary show in many ways, musically and yes, with those pit voices. But the book will need some MAD MEN-izing to go down easy. It's a male world with one pitiful girl in the middle, and a lot of screwing around. And one female clown in act two. The show needs some serious tweaking. I hope they will restore the song that Jennifer Lewis did in the Encores. It provides a much needed female point of view outside sad, suicidal Fran and drunken Marge. But please don't cast someone too young and cute. Neil Patrick is 100% wrong for that role. It needs a young chracter actor who sings, not some toned cutie.

---

How close is the book to The Apartment?

---

Updated On: 9/8/09 at 12:14 PM

Susan Boyle to make her Broadway debut as the Owl Lady.

---

A simple scan through my score shows the pit singers are in nearly every song.

---

Doesn't almost every show used "pit singers" these days? I think it is called a "sweetening track" or something like that.
You know, so they can cast all of those "triple threats" who are really just "one threats".

---