Legally Blonde reality show. Official.- Page 3

[Aswatrowinkenbo]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 8:46pm

And just think about all the people who know nothing about Broadway that are going to be watching this show and voting...

[jaystarr]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 8:48pm

I hope so... Theater people and professional....

My doubts lies on mTV... they love drama!

J*

[hermionejuliet]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 8:50pm

BOO!

[truman]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 9:13pm

Wellllllll, this sucks major butt.

[yankees1253]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 9:18pm

i just asked richard two questions about this for elles lounge blonde of the month. i asked whats his thoughts about it and also what does the rest of the cast feel about it especially becky. i wrote to him in my question how we all think in this thread its a terrible idea, etc. also that we all thought becky gulsvig should be the next full time elle because shes great understudy and shes been working her whole life to become a lead or co lead in a musical.

i hope he answers this question.

[outdamnwench]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 10:41pm

Whoever runs the site is quite obviously going to put up a question that's just asking for a negative response and it criticizing the producers.

[Jane2]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 10:48pm

carymeto rent-Exactly! I wonder how many posters here who take classes and training are getting a chance to audition for a lead in a broadway show.

those who do show up will get seen by people they may never have otherwise, they'll be giving their headshots out (the more people who see your headshot and resume, the better. You NEVER KNOW.) It always worked for me, and I got lots of work.

"And just think about all the people who know nothing about Broadway that are going to be watching this show and voting.."

Don't we want as many more people as possible to be exposed to broadway? I don't get your point.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 11:02pm

OK I love the show and happen to think its pretty perfect fluff but i do hate reality TV casting (here in the UK it is becoming second nature, Sound Of Music, Grease, Joseph, Oliver) but at the same time it does boost the theatres profile and the shows profile.

From a business point of view its a great idea, the producers of LB know that this is not the kind of show which will get a revival in 10 years so they need to make money back off it now and enjoy success with the show to give it a life on tour and outside the US.

Here in the UK (again, as much as i dont like reality TV casting) they have actually got the casting pretty spot on.Connie Fisher (trained theatre actress) has done a great job in that role and was highly praised, Lee Mead (Trained theatre actor who had done shows before) also did a fantastic job.Both actors pulled in the audiences for both shows.

The chances are whoever gets the Elle Woods role will have some kind of training and could turn out to be great.

I used to think that it took the jobs away from actors like myself but it doesnt.Connie and Lee were both doing the audition circuits they just choose to head down this avenue to see what happened and did very well out of it as well as proving themselves.

Elle Woods is a tough role to play, its physically demanding as the actress hardly ever leaves the stage, so the producers aren't just going to let any random wannabe in to that role.

LB is aimed at a young audience who want to have fun in the theatre and LB provides that.MTV is aimed at the same demographic so it makes sense that they team up.

For MTV to give any theatre event a platform to a mass audience can only be a good thing, and its not a new thing.In 1988 Carrie was also going to tap in to MTV (unfortunately it closed before they could say MTV)

If this reality show finds another Connie Or Lee then its not the atrocity some of you drama queens (sorry couldn't resist lol) make it out to be.

Dont get me wrong, i hope this trend stops soon of casting shows this way but so far it hasn't been a disaster.

I personally dont think LB needed to resort to this yet as the shows doing fine but hey

I wonder how many of you watch and love American Idol or Americas Next Top Model too??

Updated On: 1/24/08 at 11:02 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 1/24/08 at 11:14pm

I love your post, song and dance man. You know what you're talking about.

[bestfreakinshoes]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 1:03am

https://www.broadwayworld.com/showtime/

BWW's blog suggests getting Elaine Stritch to be a judge on the MTV show. I didn't even finish the article because I was laughing too hard at that mental image.

[gertiecummings]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 2:30am

Have they officially said whether or not the viewers will vote on the winner? If they have to air this crap, I hope they do it like Triple Sensation where actual people in the business choose the winner.

[catstagestud]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 2:49am

I've got a friend who's trained and really is very perky and was a sorority girl the whole nine yards who has a call-back tomorrow. She said it was a cool experience and that a lot of the people there were actresses. So there's a good sign. I just hope that it gets more people interested in theatre and that someone who is truly talented enough to sustain eight shows a week is the one cast in the end.

Cheers,

Christopher

[jv92]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 9:44am

God, why are they doing this? The grosses are so lackluster, it'll probably be gone by March. And if any cast members would like to PM me about that please go ahead. You've done it before, why not do it again?

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 9:57am

its gross is fine, have you seen the size of the theatre its in?, its selling more tickets than most shows

[massofmen]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 10:29am

um, hi. The gross is NOT fine.
If you had a show that opened less than a year ago that was based on a very popular movie that had aired on one of cable tv's most popular channels (and gotten a lot of viewers, 16 million they said), you would hope that your show would be selling better than 70% in jan. Yes, jan is a slow month but this show should be selling better with all of the major publicity its gotten.
Or maybe we can just all finally realize that the show is just bad and the majority of people don't like it. So the word of mouth is bad, which then leads people to not buy tix. Or all those people that saw it on MTV didn't like it. If the show was really good, the MTV thing would have helped. It didn't.

This reality thing won't help either. Look at grease. That reality show was seen weekly by 4 million people and they started hitting 80% a month or 2 after they opened.
If a reality show didn't work for GREASE on FOX (one of the top 4 networks), it aint gonna work for Legally Blonde on MTV. A good network but come on. Its not FOX.
This is a desperate last ditch effort to keep the show running through the summer. If they can, it will def close in the fall. NO more tricks after this one...unless they can send a legally blonde cast member to the moon or something. I personally didn't think it would last this long.

[keepitpossitive]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 10:40am

The smartest thing this show COULD have done was send the Elle that is chosen on tour not broadway. That way all the little girls and gay boys that watched the show would be able to go and see their dream Elle in action.

Chances of all these people watching the show flying to new york to see the MTV version of Hannah Montana are slim to none.

Thats just my personal opinion. I think the show is doing everything it can to stay open and i personally hope it does stay through the summer. With most contracts ending in July its going to be very interesting to see what happens with this reality show, and how long the show stays open for after the new Elle comes in

[Anakela]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 10:50am

And if any cast members would like to PM me about that please go ahead. You've done it before, why not do it again?

Cast members never PM me.
Sad now.

If a reality show didn't work for GREASE on FOX (one of the top 4 networks), it aint gonna work for Legally Blonde on MTV. A good network but come on. Its not FOX.

Grease = NBC...although maybe it would have gotten better numbers on FOX. :)

Ditto what's already been said re: reality casting for the tour instead.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 11:23am

massofmen OK You need to look at the whole table when you are looking at the gross etc.

Legally Blonde is on 70 percent attendance in a theatre the size of the palace.Its tickets sold are over 9,000 which is a lot more than 90 percent of the show on Broadway.So your ridiculous argument of " Or maybe we can just all finally realize that the show is just bad and the majority of people don't like it. So the word of mouth is bad, which then leads people to not buy tix " is rubbish, as more people are turning up to buy tickets for Legally Blonde than most other shows.

Its gross is nearly always above $600.000 and has on many occasions gone over a million.

It has to fill a barn yard of a theatre every night which is never going to happen, but to be selling the amount of tickets its selling on a regular basis the show is doing fine.

If Legally Blonde moved in to a slightly smaller house its gross would be above 90 percent at these current levels nearly every week.

You cant just look at the attendance and go "oh 70 percent doesn't look good the show is failing" you have to look at the bigger picture

Look at Xanadu, its normally in the 60 percent sometimes pushing to 70 percent.You have to look at its theatre size and realize that that show is not doing well.

when over 9,000 people are turning out to watch LB and 3,000 people are turning out to see Xanadu, i think its safe to say that LB is doing fine.

If you dont like LB fine, but dont make out that the show is flop what no one is going to see, when that statement is clearly wrong.Legally Blonde has a LOT of fans (you only have to look at how well the cast recording is doing to know that)

[bwaybaby2]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 11:33am

America doesn't get to vote for this one -- only the judges like on Project Runway or ANTM.

[bwaybaby2]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 11:43am

I'm in agreement with songanddanceman and Jane. The creatives involved from the theater side are not going to let someone who's never acted before sink that show. The whole point is to keep it going-- they know that if they get someone unqualified and she blows her chords, it'll be over. Plus, guys, we're talking about Legally Blonde the Musical-- one of the most commercial productions out there, this isn't Lincoln Center. It's always going to be about business first.

[romancegirl]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 12:00pm

Ok now I don't know which is sadder. The fact that they are doing this show or the fact that I will watch it!
I hope it's not a phone in vote kind of thing. I would rather have it in the hands of professionals.
I also agree that it should be the tour not the Broadway show.
But sadly I will watch it.

[massofmen]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 12:52pm

songanddanceman,
I do know how to read balance sheets and income statements. And looking at the numbers on legally blonde it seems to me after pouring all this money in advertising into a show to not have it do better than it is doing has to be scary for the producers. Ergo: reality show to try and boost ratings.
And you are not hearing what I am saying. If a show airs its show on MTV for what 6+ times, where over 16 million people have seen it, and cannot sell 10,000 tix a week, there is a problem. That means, that the people didn't really care about the show in the first place. Or that the people saw it and didn't like it. Or that the people saw it and decided they didn't wanna go see it live cause its too expensive.

Sure, people ARE seeing the show, but not the kind of numbers needed to keep a big show like that alive. They lost upwards of 1.8 million for the strike weeks. They went over a million what 4 times over the past 9 mos. Its a 12-14 million dollar show. They aren't going to recoup making an avg of 150,000/week over op costs. how long would that take songanddance? By my rough estimates, if their Investment is 13 million (plus ongoing advertising) looking at their box office numbers since opening, they have made in profit towards recoupment, around 5 million dollars (judging that their running costs are around 625,000/week). Thats it in almost a year. they still have almost 2/3 of their initial investment left to recoup.

So i guess it will take them another year or more to just recoup (seeing how shows tix sales usually drop off from their opening months numbers considerably as new shows take away patrons unless you are a wicked or Hairspray..which this show is def not). I don't see that happening. i don't see this show lasting past the fall of 2008 IF they can make it to this summer. I thought it wouldn't last this long to be honest. It just doesn't seem feasible with how the tix are selling.


And it doesn't make any sense to compare it with shows like Xanadu because thie running costs are so much smaller. Yes people are seeing the show but you need more. Much more paying premium prices. 37 dollar tix from the teeny boppers ain't gonna keep this show running. If Legally Blonde was in the Xanadu house it would have closed in 3 mos because they couldn't make enough money off of sales to keep it afloat, even IF they sold out every night You produce a big show, you have to make big money, Blonde isnt. 700,000/week (around 175,000 in profit) isn't big money with a 12-14 million dollar show.


Phantom did a movie of their show and people came to Broadway. Hairspray did a movie of their show and people came in DROVES to broadway. Chicago did a movie of their show and people swarmed in to see the show. Legally Blonde reached half as many with their "live" taping of the show to the EXACT dempgraphic they are looking to sell to, and no one seems to be swarming in to see the show. 550,000 in grosses last week, 688 this week. Throughout the fall its was slowly and methodically slipping in numbers. Just look at them. Legally Blonde HAD a movie ALREADY and still no swarming.


Its a sinking ship, the producers are scrambling for something and this is a last ditch effort. Everyone knows it. If the show was doing really well, do you think they would have to resort to this to get a new Elle Woods? No. They would cast it like every other show does. It's just simple number crunching.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 2:21pm

Well i have to disagree im afraid, ive worked in this business for years and to me Legally Blonde is in good shape (especially for this time of year)

And i hate when people guess a shows running costs, we dont know and never will know, we also don't know about marketing costs, but going off what you have said, if the show has made a $5 million of its budget back in under a year then the show is doing fine.And all shows lost money during the strike so that remark is irrelevant.

Also Phantom and Hairspray did a large scale commercial MOVIE.Legally blonde aired on a cable channel.With a movie Hairspray and Phantom had worldwide promotion, i doubt the legally blonde MTV airing even had a billboard in hicksville, so to compare the 2 entities in insane .

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 3:21pm

Didn't bother to read this entire thread (or the Press Release) but is this for the Broadway company of the US National Tour?

I think it would be in their best interest to have whoever wins do the tour as most in middle America will at least have some connection to the actress because they saw her on TV, et al.

[FosterChild]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:04pm

Sorry but massofmen is right about pretty much everything he/she said.