Marketing the A CHORUS LINE revival. Color or black and white?- Page 2

[Princeton78]

Posted: 2/12/06 at 8:51pm

True...

I feel like in recent years, the only revivals they really got 'right' were Chicago, Cabaret and Carousel.

As for ACL..i'll admit, i'm not a huge fan of the show, but I'd love to see it done in the original style. I'm a big fan of "Godspell" and was born about 1 year after it closed. I would love to see a production that is totally faithful to the original staging and direction...

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/12/06 at 8:57pm

I agree. And the thing about CHICAGO, CAROUSEL and CABARET is that ALL were markedly different stagings/intepretations of the material - thats probably one reason they were so great.

[StephanietheStar]

Posted: 2/12/06 at 9:15pm

I didn't really read all the replies so someone may have said this:

but I kinda think it'd be cool (don't judge me if it's a dumb idea!) that the marketing could be black and white, and then do some colorization, say with leg warmers and things. kinda adding that it's a classic show but "hey look" we are in the 2000s and bridging those two genres.

I don't know if I explained that right!
JMO :)

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/12/06 at 9:30pm

The one thing that the b&w advertising couldn't show was "the red dress". Cassie's red dress was a Broadway icon.

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 2/12/06 at 9:31pm

Very interesting, i never really thought about it...

I would say they might do B & W, but try and distinguish it from the original, maybe adding a little color or something?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:16am

The difference between this revival and the touring casts for the past decade or so is that Bob Avian will be in charge of this one and Baayork Lee was in charge of those.

Avian may be bring Bennett's creative inspiration to the new production, something Lee's slavish recreations were never capable of.

Updated On: 2/13/06 at 12:16 AM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 1:04am

I hope so Pal - though Bob Avian was never able to do much to invigorate all those productions of EVITA he recreated...

[morosco]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 7:44am

"...though Bob Avian was never able to do much to invigorate all those productions of EVITA he recreated..."

Are you thinking of Larry Fuller?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 11:17am

Yes, you are right, my bad :)

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 11:55am

Lee is still in charge of the choreography of this one. Hopefully Avian will really crack the whip (not really his style) so that the performances have a passion somewhere near what Bennett got out of the dancers in this show originally. Lee can put the carbon copy of the show on stage, but her productions don't have quite the vitality and electricity that show had while Bennett was alive (and dancers were constatly scared that he might be lurking in the back of the theatre, so they knew they'd better dance like their lives depended on it, lest they be fired or screamed at backstage -- which did happen from time to time).

Avian was responsible for the musical staging of Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard and Putting It Together, but this will be his first Broadway directing credit. I take it he's always preferred to be the #2 man to someone else rather than assuming the lead -- that's the story of his career. I hope he has it in him to be the kind of taskmaster this show is going to need.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:17pm

I was reading an article in the latest issue of Bitch, the feminist pop culture magazine, and it had an article about how today's female sitcom character don't reflect the great Mary Richards legacy of being a successful single woman who was not obsessed with "getting and keeping a man."

They interviewed several of the writers of MTM, including Treva Silverman, who was in many ways the inspiration for Mary Richards. But she was also the inspiration for the proposed very early '80s Michael Bennett musical "Scandal," about a sexually liberated and libertine woman. She was to have been played by Swoozie Kurtz. Bennett shelved the idea when the AIDS epidemic hit.

I always wondered how far in development that project got and if there is any evidence of the work anywhere at all.

Updated On: 2/13/06 at 12:17 PM

[TheatreMonkey]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:18pm

Bein' a youngin' (but an educated, musical theatre literate youngin'), I'm most intrigued. The first version I saw was the movie -- never quite understood the criticism of it. Then a few years ago, Baayork Lee came down and directed/choero'd a production at the regional theatre here (North Carolina) and I really, really liked it. The show, production not withstanding, is such a creative, mind-blowing experiance that I've not soon forgot.

In a way, I'll be interested in seeing how much "soul" the revival has; the orignal creators (and some of the actors, I believe) were involved in the mammoth "research" period before hand. They knew these characters/people. They experianced the people whose stories they were using. To me, that would add a lot of magic -- more so than anything that can be found in a show bible.

~Sam

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:33pm

Silverman wrote a draft of the book and was in workshop along with Bennett, Kurtz and Treat Williams experimenting and developing the show. The workshop continued for several weeks until Bennett suddenly abandoned it (for health reasons, though he didn't say that at the time).

Updated On: 2/13/06 at 12:33 PM

[TheatreMonkey]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:39pm

Huh, that's really interesting. I read slightly different in a book that had 40+ pages on each of Broadway's great directors/choreograpers. It really stressed the importance that the workshop had on the show and Bennett (I don't doubt you, just interested.)

And by research period, just to clarify, I'm talking about the workshops they had where they recorded all these real Broadway dancers telling their stories.

But it still had a considerable impact on the process afterwards, if not the final production, no?

~Sam
Updated On: 2/13/06 at 12:39 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:47pm

I was referring to SCANDAL, the show FindingNamo was discussing directly above you that Bennett and Silverman workshopped, but was abandoned. ACL was in 1975 (LONG before AIDS had taken hold of Bennett). SCANDAL was a decade later.

There are a couple of whole BOOKS on the workshop and developmental process of the creation of A Chorus Line. There were three workshops actually and I could go into great detail on each of them, but suffice to say, ACL forever changed how new musicals are a created and made the workshop a standard part of the process.

Updated On: 2/13/06 at 12:47 PM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:53pm

Not to mention that ACL really added to the coffers of The Public Theater.

[TheatreMonkey]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 12:54pm

Ahhhhhhh...pays to read! Hehe, sorry.

Well, in regards to Bennett, "They don't make 'em like they use to."

~Sam

Posted: 2/13/06 at 1:17pm

It will be interesting to see the "body types" they cast in this revival. Dancers bodies have seemed to change dramatically over the years. Will they "look" 1975?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 1:35pm

I guess my prayers will go unanswered in that they will not cut that annoying song "Sing".

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 3:30pm

Along the same lines, I wondered if the revival marketing would include the original font for the title. To me, the lettering of the title in advertising materials was as much a signature to the show as the aforementioned cast photo. It's a dated look, to be sure, but I couldn't imagine what the poster or marquee would look like using anything else.

I wonder what my silver ACL windowcard autographed by Hamlisch would fetch nowadays...

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 3:50pm

I think I'll wear my "End of the Line" t-shirt to previews.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 2/13/06 at 5:48pm

Back to Michael's legacy. I kind of remember besides "Scandal", the mention of Bennett being interested in adapting the movie "Love Me or Leave Me" to the stage with none other than Ann-Margaret. I believe this was around the time of "Ballroom". Anyone else remember that?