The timing couldn't have been worse for almost everything during its run. I feel bad for everyone involved.
But this wouldn't have made any money in normal times either. They took a wonderful movie with an irreplaceable star performance and tried to shoehorn it into a musical with a terrible score which added nothing to the scenes, a too-safe book, direction/choreo/design that did not elevate it, and perhaps above all an over-cautiousness that turned it into a lifeless show.
I don't blame Rob McClure, who did the very best he could and found wonderful moments.
The failure of this show stemmed from Kevin McCollum's hubris that his friends who wrote SOMETHING ROTTEN over the span of 10+ years could strike again in half the time. SOMETHING ROTTEN worked because of two people: Casey Nicholaw and Glen Kelly. Jerry Zaks' one great hit in the past 15 years had Scott Rudin guiding it every step of the way, but Zaks & McCollum could not bring that spark to (MRS.) DOUBTFIRE –– especially not when paired with choreographer Lorin Latarro and orchestrator/arranger Ethan Popp, both of whom are wildly overemployed.
Updated On: 5/13/22 at 11:54 PM