Jerry Zaks brought on for Addams Family- Page 2

[Marlothom]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:16am

I think this show should welcome any help from a seasoned Broadway director. While Saks has a mixed record, I think he will be able to focus this show and make it presentable for a Broadway audience.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 2:29am

So if you are a designer, you can never direct? What a foolish thing to say. Especially as Tom Ford is having quite a debut on film with A Single Man.

Considering Julie Taymor.

Considering Smaxie's comment that some of you must have accidentally missed: "They designed AND directed the acclaimed Shockheaded Peter".

Don't generalize.

[A Director]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 2:32am

Good thing they didn't bring in Arthur Laurents.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 12:06pm

Both directors are also critically praised and highly respected performers. Both have worked at the highest levels internationally. They are not 'rank amateurs'.

If only people who have directed on Broadway can be allowed to direct on Broadway, that is one hell of a closed shop, and a direct route to stale, repetitive production. 'Shockheaded Peter' was one of the best reviewed and lucrative shows of the decade, from Indie routes. If there is finger-pointing to be done, maybe we should be looking at the writing...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 12:14pm

Considering Smaxie's comment that some of you must have accidentally missed: "They designed AND directed the acclaimed Shockheaded Peter".

Well, PalJoey saw it but he insinuated Smaxie was wrong.

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:18pm

They did direct a very well received and popular production of SATYAGRAHA at the Met Opera a few seasons ago.
Updated On: 12/29/09 at 01:18 PM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:39pm

Smaxie is never wrong!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:49pm

In 1973, producer Harry Rigby decided to revive the 1919 musical IRENE for Debbie Reynolds. In it, she would sing old crowd-pleasers like You Made Me Love You, I'm Always Chasing Rainbows and Alice Blue Gown.

Then he had the bizarre idea to hire Sir John Gielgud as director. Not surprisingly, he was fired and Gower Champion was brought in.

Sir John wrote about it at great length in his letters. He took the job, he said, because they offered him a good percentage and he thought it might be quite successful. He had what he called "a dreadful time," and in the end, he found the experience "most unpleasant and rather humiliating."

That should have been a cautionary tale to many, but it wasn't.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:52pm

That's a great cautionary tale. What does it have to do with hiring people who took a directing job for the right reasons? Even IF they may have failed?

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:54pm

Wow. This news means...absolutely nothing!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 1:57pm

So the designers are John Gielgud? Maybe they should try to get Arthur - The Musical! back on its feet.
Updated On: 12/29/09 at 01:57 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 2:49pm

jrb_actor, Julie Traymor might not be the best example to bring up. She seems to have gotten quite lucky with "The Lion KIng" but then, if you really think about it, Lion King is more of an extravaganza than a musical. Personally, I love her visions but hate the show. Sitting through it a second time was like being forced to use a hair dryer to help paint dry. Her subsequent work on stage and theater has been, well... not my glass of tea.

Tom Ford is another bizarre exception. I have never been able to figure out if he's a talented designer or more of a great huckster. But I enjoyed his film far more than anything Traymor has done, so I'll give you that one.

What I was actually trying to say was if I had invested in this show, I would have been quite concerned when the producers didn't make at least a sensible decision on the director. This choice would have concerned me greatly. And that concern, it turns out, would have been well-founded.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 3:05pm

Perhaps a better example of designers not directing would be Bob Crowley, responsible for directing and designing Tarzan.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 3:38pm

Okay, here we go: The first three previews have been nixed.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 3:42pm

Those extra three days will save the show!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 4:41pm

Taymor has had a nice career as director/designer. She's done more than TLK.

I think it's absolutely silly to generalize. Lots of people start out in one aspect of the business and segue into other areas. To rail against this is to go against the history of theatre.

Are there designers who failed as director? Yes. There are directors who failed as director. So, what really is the point? This is just silliness.

Updated On: 12/29/09 at 04:41 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 5:35pm

Oh this whole thread is silly. Alan Jay Lerner had a great name with his partner for the type of people many of us seem to have become: "Dear SH*Ts." In another era, many people like the ones on this site would make the trek out to New Haven, in hopes of seeing a show flop, pre-Broadway. Then they'd go back to New York and drolly mention at the next party, "Oh, yes, I saw it in New Haven and it stank."

Help like that, the production team could do without. Maybe gleefully congratulating ourselves when our predictions of failure come true is not really helping the art we profess to love.

Just a New Years thought....

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 5:39pm

I wholeheartedly agree with all that!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 5:45pm

I predict Jerry Zaks will turn this into a lot of fun.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 5:47pm

I agree with that as well. Perhaps the two aesthetics will merge into the perfect concoction.

[Fanb]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 6:09pm

Good for you, allofmylife. A group of theater artists are working together to create a show. I like musicals. I like going to and enjoying musicals. I wish them the best. Besides, the addition of Jerry Zaks, who knows his way around comedy, seems like it may be the thing to push this show over the top. I, for one, hope it does.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 7:21pm

Who do they have lined up to replace Bebe? Christina APplegate?

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 12/29/09 at 8:56pm

Oh please. Get off your high horses. I didn't say anything about designers ALWAYS being bad directors, but in this case, they didn't seem up to the job. Shockhead Peter is not musical theater. This is a standard book musical. It's a whole different genre.

And Julie Taymor is an awful example. She's a great designer but a horrible director. She knows how she wants it to look but she can't tell a story and should never help write the story (see "Across the Universe). It had some great ideas in it, but the story was boring and dull. Lion King is great to look at it, but there's not much substance there and the acting is very amateur.

[orangedress]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 1:51am

I have never posted on this board, but I need to stand up for Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch here. He is a stunning, prolific, accomplished, and unique director in his own right. He has helmed some of the most interesting and intelligent theatrical work that I personally have ever seen. The scale of his work ranges from the Met Opera to tiny black box theatres. I have not seen Addam's Family so I cannot comment on his work there, but based on his past productions, I would have complete faith in him to helm a Broadway production.

If you are interested in learning more about his work, please visit his theatre's website: http://www.improbable.co.uk/
You can read the articles and interviews section to "hear" him and Julian speak very intelligently about theatre. Their interviews about puppetry are invaluable!

You can also hear them (Phelim and Julian) talk about their work on SATYAGRAHA here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCGmbzRz9Ws&feature=related

Peter Hall once said you can't have any great successes without great failures. This is a duo who are always willing to take risks and I applaud them for that. I hope the best for everyone involved with this production, and hope everyone will soon see how beautiful Phelim and Julian's work can be - whether or not Addam's Family is the showcase to display it.

Thank you for listening.

PS - Another great designer-director is Tony Walton. (and I *Believe* Phelim would consider himself a director first --- and Julian his associate/designer...could be wrong, I've never met either of them...just admired their work.)

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/30/09 at 1:57am

Rentboy (and others): Taymor has directed more than TLK. If you don't like her work, fine. But to say she's had no success as a director other than TLK is incorrect.