LOTR Premiere Review *SPOILERS WITHIN* — Page 2

The audience was quite good overall, I'd say it was a mix of theater people, LOTR people and just your average folks (rich folks probably) looking for a night out (I'm a bit of all three minus the rich part). They were really supportive and applauded all the great effect moments that truely deserved applause. Towards the end some people got restless and thats understandable, after all it was nearly midnight and a lot of people had kids there. No doubt that everyone was exhausted at the end, but it was a very positive atmosphere from my standpoint. I found that during the two times they had to stop the show people were sort of relieved to get to stretch their legs. During that time I, myself, decided to spite them by taking out my cel phone (really more as a joke) and I called my friend in Kingston just...because. Shes a big LOTR fan and I had time and felt it was a good story so I called her and told er how the show was really good and how it stalled. Others made calls too. So yes, good audience. I sat next to a really nice family and talked to them abit, good people, the whole audience. But tired people.

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Fantastic review too. :) Sad that James didn't stand out as Frodo. Oh well.


Act I ends with Gandalf and the Balrog, where did act Act II end?

I see.

By any chance do you happen to know how much extra each stagehand was being paid for overtime in NY for Angels? I think I have a few proffessors that would love to know that.

Thanks for the info everyone,

Akiva

A good question, Link. I'll see if I can find out. Someone told me the figure at the time, but in the decade since I've forgotten. I know that in certain circles Angels is the stuff of legend -- beyond the obvious quality of the show itself -- for its overtime costs. There have been only a couple of shows on Broadway in the past few decades that have had a three hour+ running time and part of that is because of union costs (though the fact is, not many people write plays that long anyway).

Interestingly, I know that both the last revival of Long Days Journey Into Night (with Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Denehey, Robert Sean Leonard and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Iceman Cometh (with Kevin Spacey) managed to turn a nice profit, despite three hour+ running times. I'm sure that was partly due to the famous names in the cast making each virtually soldout for much of their limited engagements and partly due to the fact that curtain time was 7pm rather than 8pm (I can't remember, but I seem to recall that the big union overtime rate kicks in at 11:01, regardless of the length of the show; if that's true then Angels may have done better with an earlier curtain time).

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Updated On: 2/5/06 at 03:22 AM

Thank you Margo for the insight. I do hope we NYers get a chance to see it some time.

Sounds absolutely fascinating.

Margo, I'm watching All About Eve this very moment for the first time ever. :)

"...and then a blackout"

Niiiiice.

Well, plays with music are really nothing new, and I really don't think this show would get this kind of attention and budget if it wasn't for the success of the film.
They are truly trying to take advantage of as much as they can, when it comes to this very profitable franchise, but I wouldn't seriously expect to revolutionize anything in the artistic sense.

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I was walking through the mall yesterday in St. Catharines, ON (about 2 hours outside of Toronto) and a girl was wearing a hobbit costume around in tribute to the show's opening...that's just mother ******* creepy! And obsessive.

3 hours and 40 minutes??

Jesus.

I could easily see this bypassing Broadway and ending up in Vegas.

I could also see them breaking up the acts into three different shows and selling tickets individually or as some kind of group package.

But my guess is, whatever they end up doing, they are going to probably have to re-evaluate on some levels because most people (even die hard LOTR fans) aren't going to sit through a four-five hour quasi-musical-quasi-play-quasi-spectacle, no matter how interesting it may be.

thanks for posting this......not sure it's my kind of thing, which this tells me.

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