Krakowski replacement in XANADU — Page 2

Hey, it sounds like fun. I've seen a ton of hysterical camp take-offs like the ones I mentioned above from Tweed and had a great time. If the tickets are around $30/40 or so, I'd be happy to check this out. But for $100? They must be high (and their investors must need some fat tax write-offs to finance this). This show belongs at PS 122 (or somewhere else south of 14th Street) for $25 a ticket.

Heck, I'm probably their target audience -- a theatre queen who loves good camp and remembers that dreadful movie -- but, there's no way in hell I'd pay a penny over $50 to see this. So, yes, I wish them luck -- it sounds like fun, but if they can't get ME to pay full price for this show, what hope do they have with the straight tourist families from around the country who buy most of the tickets these days?

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SJP herself says she's not a singer, she's an actress who can carry a tune.
Xanadu is a personal camp favorie of mine, and I was wondering if you've all read the libretto or heard how the music is being handled. Maybe it's been rewritten enough to make it viable as a good stage vehicle. Was anyone at any of the readings, or knows more about what's been changed?

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All this speculation has me all a-twitter!

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SJP herself says she's not a singer, she's an actress who can carry a tune .

Sarah is delusional. Maybe she should rewatch her horrendous performance from Once Upon a Mattress at the Tony Awards for a refresher on her singing skills. Also Kira should be beautiful, able to carry a tune and a skilled roller skater. I've yet to see Sarah display any of those qualities.

Yeah, yeah. Actors and dancers can carry a tune. Actors and singers can move. Dancers and singers can play a scene.

But the real question is - can anyone of them roller skate?

And the follow up to that is - if they can, why weren't they cast in THE LITTLE MERMAID?

Do we really want Disney rejects in XANADU?

Do we know how big the production is going to be? It seems it came out of nowhere, but the project suddenly took off. Is the set going to be big? Minimalist? Is there room for a big orchestra in the Helen Hayes?

Anyone have pictures of inside the Helen Hayes? I'd be interested to see how its laid out.

'word on my street is Neely O'Hara will start Xanadu rehearsals right after "Tell Me Darling' closes.'

I heard they nixed Neely for Helen Lawson

No, Helen is replacing Eve Harrington in 'Footsteps on the Ceiling'

That was exactly my point. I remember seeing LITTLE SHOP back in the 80s at the 350 seat Orpheum Theatre in the East Village. If I recall correctly, I paid about $10 to $15 and had a great time -- it was fun, charming, campy little show that at that price had no problem attracting audiences and ran for 5 years. A few years ago, they tried to move it to Broadway and audiences balked at paying Broadway prices for what was basically the same charming campy little show (albeit with a Broadway budget and Broadway production values). Thus, it ended up running less than a year and was a flop.

ROCKY HORROR had a similarly rough time of it. Ideally, if the Off-Broadway market was better, it should have played at a large commercial house downtown where it could have had a better shot at keeping costs and ticket prices down and perhaps done a better job of attracting it's core audience (which was used to paying about $5 to see the film version of the show at midnight movie screenings around the country). Instead, they stuck it in a Broadway house where it spent most of its run on TKTS and surviving on discount tickets until it finally closed at a finacial loss.

Also look at the recent flop EVIL DEAD, yet another campy musical adaption of a bad 80s cult film. Had the show been mounted 20 years ago when commercial off-Broadway was still viable, it probably would have run for a couple of years (at about $15 a ticket). Today, audiences won't pay $70 to be splattered with fake blood at a campy silly downtown kind of show.

So, yes, I wonder about the prospects for a show like XANADU. It probably would have been a hit off-Broadway a couple of decades ago, but will today's audiences plunk down $100 a piece for a campy rollerskating spoof? We'll see.

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Well if SJP does either Girls Just Want to Have Fun or Sex and the City as musicals, then maybe I'd bite. But has anyone actually seen what she's done lately? The Family Stone was pretty bad but then Failure to Launch made it look like a classic. As bad as her judgement was when picking those two movies, maybe she would actually commit to doing Xanadu.

As bad as many people think The Family Stone was, it was not a stupid move on her part to accept the role... she was nominated for a Golden Globe.

The CHORUS LINE movie was shot at the Mark Hellinger.

No truth to the rumour.