Lines dependent on the performance location?
Lines dependent on the performance location?
#1Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 10:08amI remember a line from A Little Night Music where Desirée says to her daughter "You've grown a mile!," which makes no sense because they're in Sweden and they use the metric system. *Tangent post* Have you ever noticed a line that might differ depending on the location of the production?
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#2Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 10:20am
I don't think expressions/idioms count. Even so...
Scandinavian Mile
#2Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 10:35am
This isn't the same thing at all, but I've been wondering why the line in the current Anything Goes revival is "I know that you're bound to answer when I propose," but the same lyric in the 1987 revival was "I know that I'm bound to answer when you propose." I'm sure there's no big reason behind it, but it seemed like an innocuous lyric to change.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
Updated On: 7/5/11 at 10:35 AM
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#3Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 12:40pm
I've wondered about that too, givesmevoice.
I thought this thread was going to be about site-specific shows like Hedwig. I'd imagine that the line from A Little Night Music is the same anywhere it's performed in English.
Updated On: 7/5/11 at 12:40 PM
#4Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 12:49pmIn regards to Anything Goes I believe there are a few alternate lines in that one. I've also seen a "Bee-bop refrain" replace the "cocaine" line.
"All our dreams can come true -- if we have the courage to pursue them." -- Walt Disney
We must have different Gods. My God said "do to others what you would have them do to you". Your God seems to have said "My Way or the Highway".
#5Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 1:08pm
From the original London production of Evita, these lyrics were changed in Good Night and Thank You:
Eva: Oh, but it's sad when a love affair dies, we have pretended enough. It's best that we both stop fooling ourselves.
Che: Which means "Get stuffed!"
to these lyrics for Broadway:
Eva: Oh, but it's sad when a love affair dies, the parting, the closing of doors. But we must be honest, stop fooling ourselves.
Che: Which means "Up yours!"
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
dreaming
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/24/09
#6Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 1:09pmDidn't they change some of Avenue Q when it went to London? (And haven't they changed it off-Broadway as well. I'm thinking of the Gary Coleman stuff here.)
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#7Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 1:11pmThere's also "She'll take a mile!" in Evita, and they use the metric system in London AND Argentina.
#8Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 1:13pmAnd if Tim Rice could work "eiderdown" into a lyric, I'm sure he could've managed "kilometer."
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
BroadwayShowTime
Understudy Joined: 9/11/10
#9Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 1:40pm
I know of two Rent changed lines.
Rent Broadway - "You can take the girl out of HICKSVILLE/But you can't take the HICKSVILLE out of the girl"
Rent Tour - "You can take the girl out of JERSEY/But you can't take the JERSEY out of the girl"
and
Rent Broadway - "and then she let them take a picture with her,
and then she said she'd help them find the CIRCLE LINE"
Rent Tour - "and then she let them take a picture with her,
and then she said she'd help them find the STATUE OF LIBERTY"
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#10Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 2:03pm
In the BBC TV production of SHE LOVES ME back in the 1980's, they changed following lyric:
WOULDN'T IT BE SOMETHING IF WE ALL TOOK OFF FROM WORK
LEAVING MR. MARACZECK WITHOUT A SIMPLE CLERK
because the British pronounce "clerk" as "clark", so the rhyme would not work. I can't recall the new lyric.
...or as Larry Hart put it:
ZIP - ENGLISH PEOPLE DON'T SAY CLERK, THEY SAY CLARK
ZIP - ANYBODY WHO SAYS CLARK IS A JARK!
#11Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 2:31pm
Jersey Boys Toronto: "Everywhere from Medicine Hat, Wyoming to Flyspeck, North Dakota" was changed to "Flyspeck, Alberta."
Jersey Boys London: "the can" was changed to "toilet" and Neil Sadaka was changed to Englebert Humperdinck. Uncle Sam was changed to "the tax man."
The Australian Les Miz revival had some different lyrics in Fantine's arrest. I'm not sure if these were unique to Australia, though.
Rent in Düsseldorf changed "Smile for Ted Koppel" to "Smile for CNN."
"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt
Updated On: 7/5/11 at 02:31 PM
#12Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 2:43pm
Legally Blonde tour, Boston, Chip On My Shoulder: "...Roxbury slums" became "...Dorchester slums."
I don't know enough about Boston to know why, (is the theatre it was playing at part of Roxbury?), but it was only changed to Dorchester while the tour was in Boston.
#13Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 4:56pm
During the Little Shop of Horrors tour in Baltimore a few years ago the one of the lines in the finale was slightly altered from the original ".... Eat Cleveland/ and Des Moines/ and Peoria/ and New York/ and where you live!"
to
".... Eat Cleveland/ and Des Moines/ and Peoria/ and New York/ and Baltimore!"
I assume they changed that last line for every stop of the tour.
In Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway, during the scene where Lawrence and Freddy discuss the terms of the bet there's a line where Lawrence mentioned a suburb of New York (can't remember the name of the town, or the line itself). On tour this line was changed and Lawrence mentioned a suburb of whatever city the show was playing in.
"You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" - Betty Parris to Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Smaxie
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/26/05
#14Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 5:19pm
I think the She Loves Me lyric was changed to something like:
Wonder what would happen if we did just run away?
We could leave a note that says we won't be in today
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#15Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 5:27pm
I think another Evita change was:
Broadway:
Screw the middle classes, I will never accept them.
London:
F*ck the middle classes, I will never accept them.
But that may have been a change from concept album to stage version, I can't remember.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
sassylash3s
Stand-by Joined: 7/5/11
#16Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 7:33pm
"I think another Evita change was:
Broadway:
Screw the middle classes, I will never accept them.
London:
F*ck the middle classes, I will never accept them.
But that may have been a change from concept album to stage version, I can't remember."
I'm really curious about this--have you ever heard it performed as "F*ck the middle classes"? It's "screw" in every recorded version I've heard. The reason I'm wondering is because I just came across a book of lyrics that was published after the concept album but before the staging which included the "F*ck" lyric, along with some others I had never heard before.
lizliz
Understudy Joined: 2/19/09
#17Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/5/11 at 8:34pm
In Spring Awakening in the West End, they had a lot of trouble with the line "Looks so nasty in those khakis", partially because they don't use "khakis" to refer to a type of trouser in British English, and partially because when said with a British accent, it no longer rhymes. They went through a bunch of changes and finally settled on "looks so crowded in those trousers", I believe.
They also changed "Michaelmas Chorale" to "Christingle Chorale", but that was more a function of realizing they'd screwed it up in the first place, and that change was carried through to the US tour.
Updated On: 7/5/11 at 08:34 PM
ahhrealmonsters
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/11/10
#18Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/6/11 at 12:02amI don't get why the actors in A Little Night Music spoke with British accents. Aside from the fact that Sweden is not England, the characters are likely not speaking English, and everything we're hearing is the translation. (Does that make sense?)
nasty_khakis
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/15/07
#19Lines dependent on the performance location?
Posted: 7/6/11 at 12:53am
I always assumed the accents in Night Music came from the fact the production started in England and the 3 main leads were British. It also clearly set the piece in a European country instead of the audience wondering if they were out in Yonkers or somewhere. When Peters/Stritch replaced the accents went out the window with Bernadette's fading in and out and Stritch not even attempting one.
This is just my speculation, I wasn't at the meeting the decided to use the accents or anything.
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