LOVE NEVER DIES bombing in London

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 10/30/10 at 5:57pm

This was already posted on the London board but good news bears repeating. Love the comment (in bold, bold is my emphasis not the original writer's) about artists becoming corporations. Exactly. And it's been happening with ALW at least since SUNSET BLVD if not before. What a huge waste of potential!


If ever there was a textbook example of how to scupper a show that had major hit potential, then Love Never Dies must be it.

It’s too bad a musical boasting a composer’s most heartfelt score couldn’t find its way onto the ­London Evening Standard Theatre Awards best musical nominations long-list. Not even a nomination for the magnificant Sierra Boggess.

Love Never Dies opened with more than £10 million in the kitty, but now on some nights some people pay as little as £3.
They get these tickets via a website called Play by Play that’s used by this show at the Adelphi, and others, to fill empty seats.

Love Never Dies now plays to just under 60 per cent of paying customers and ... the director of record, Jack O’Brien, only communicates with the producers via his lawyers...

No disrespect to Bill ­Kenwright, but no A-list director of international repute would touch Love Never Dies after O’Brien’s departure. Bill is ‘re-directing’ the show, although an executive at the Really ­Useful Company insisted Bill was just helping to put in some changes, which I’ve heard are incomphrehensible. Maybe they got the Far East version by mistake.

This is what happens when an artist becomes a corporation.

It was clear at the first preview that with four to five weeks’ hard work, Love Never Dies could have been fixed.

I’ve never understood why virtually nothing was changed during previews to correct ­problems — including the troublesome ending.




Love Never Dies ...scroll down just below story of FELA!

Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!

I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com

Updated On: 10/30/10 at 05:57 PM

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 10/30/10 at 6:20pm

Not like nobody saw that one coming.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 10/30/10 at 7:41pm

How sad... in many ways.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 10/31/10 at 7:35am

"...And he's gonna start producing, and he's now a corporation, right?"