Broadway Star Joined: 12/19/04
I will also defend Urinetown until my dying day. I saw it in Toronto and was blown away, however I understand that some people wouldn't appreciate without seeing it.
As for JLT, I stand by my idea that she should play Dot in a Sunday in the Park revival.
Urinetown is difficult to truly appreciate without seeing but at the same time, its hardly impossible.
Edit: unless of course you saw it with Amy Spanger as Hope and not Jen because Jen was 100 times better than her. I can't comment on the other Hope's around the world because I never saw them.
Broadway Star Joined: 11/4/03
Bythesword, why did you not like Amy as Hope? I never saw her in the role myself, but I have heard from a lot of people that they didn't like her. I thought she was fantastic in tick, tick...BOOM, and the best part of the movie Reefer Madness, so I'm just curious as to why there is a general dislike of her take on the character?
I saw Christiane Noll and loved her. Her voice is gorgeous and her acting was superb.
I've heard great things about Christiane and it doesn't suprise me that she was great.
As for my take on Amy- she just didn't pull it off. She played Hope as too over the top and took the character in a direction I'm still not sure worked. She made Hope seem easy and cartoonish. Granted all of the characters in the show weren't exactly realistic but the fact that they played them so seriously and so real was what made them so good. For me, the way Jennifer Laura Thompson played her, with almost innocence about her was the way Hope was meant to be. One of the times I went I saw Rachel Coloff go on as Hope and although she didn't play her the same as Jen did, she did a fantastic job. With Amy, she was simply annoying. Not to mention my biggest annoyance with her (and likewise with Luther Creek) was the kiss at the end of Follow Your Heart, when done with those two was over the top and obnoxious. I'm not a huge Amy fan- I enjoy her voice on the recording of tick, tick, boom and I thought she was a great dancer in Kiss Me Kate when I saw her in that (although acting to me was only mediocre) but in Urinetown I felt her performance was horrible.
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