Missed Opportunities

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:04pm

Do you ever mourn the loss of those shows which had so much potential, yet wound up on Broadway in embarrassingly misfired productions? For me, the saddest were:

Carrie
Dance of the Vampires
Jekyll and Hyde
Footloose

All of them could feasibly have been wonderful shows, but were either poorly staged or tinkered to death completely blowing their shots on Broadway. I would include The Little Mermaid except for the fact that it's selling so well.

[SgtDonut]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:24pm

Tarzan. How could such a wonderful movie with a great score be so bad? Terrible missed opportunity for a follow-up to Lion KIng and Beauty.

Updated On: 6/9/08 at 04:24 PM

[Gpvegas]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:27pm

TABOO

[NDR]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:29pm

The Pirate Queen - could have been so much better and still could be...

[into_the_woods2]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:36pm

i agree w/ jekyll and hyde

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:37pm

I like Matt's list, except I'd add Chess and Taboo.

I also remember thinking that Nick and Nora sounded GREAT before I saw it in previews.

[blaxx]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:44pm

Tarzan. How could such a wonderful movie with a great score be so bad?

Tarzan was a wonderful movie?!

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:46pm

They should never have screwed around with Dance of the Vampires and Chess like they did.

Honestly, I was looking forward to Lestat. But there were many missed opportunities. I think that in San Francisco, they had the makings of a good show or at least a show that would get people to buy tickets. When they panicked at the bad reviews and did an overhaul, that's what did in the show.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:53pm

My #1 missed opportunity is Rags. It should have been and could have been an enormous success.

[Brick]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 4:56pm

TABOO. I truly adore the score. Shame about the book, the timing, the lack of an out'-of-town.

THE WILD PARTY. Such an incredible score. And that cast! Why Wolfe, why?

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 5:01pm

Oddly enough, I always found PRYMATE to have an interesting premise: An aging monkey who can speak sign language is injected with the AIDS virus. I just think in the hands of a writer with imagination, Suzan Lori-Parks for instance, it could have been provocative and exciting.


What was wrong with Wolfe's THE WILD PARTY?

[DrewBill]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 5:01pm

I think we've witnessed a missed opportunity this season -- "The Little Mermaid." The film was so good, and the music is classic. It's a shame that the stage version is a misfire. I was really hoping that Disney would have redeemed themselves after the lackluster "Tarzan" and the only slightly better "Mary Poppins."

[Brick]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 5:07pm

I felt Wolfe's staging of WILD PARTY too unfocused, and you eventually disliked everyone onstage. And I love me some LaChuisa, but oh, his books!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 5:11pm

I actually thought WILD PARTY was one of LaChiusa's better books...it absolutely should have been done in a more intimate theater, tho.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 6:33pm

I absolutely agree with Chess and The Pirate Queen. I was really looking forward to Pirate Queen and I love some of the music. But when I saw the Chicago tryout...yikes! It was such a shame. I did go back for a second glimpse just to hear that wonderful cast sing some beautiful songs.

I'm on the fence about Taboo. I saw the DVD of the London production and it started out strong, but really fizzled in the end. It was very unfocused and I never knew who or what the show ultimately was supposed to be about. Then it just sort of ended. I might have enjoyed the Broadway production more, but I'm not sure I could drive up enough empathy for the characters to truly enjoy it.

[myshikobit]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 7:19pm

Uhhh Carrie. My sweet baby, Carrie. Dear World, too. And Prettybelle needs a revival; it was wayyyyy ahead of it's time. Before I rant too much, there's a nearly identical thread on the board right now; we should probably not waste so much room and pick one or the other.

[SirNotAppearing]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 7:22pm

Young Frankenstein.

A giant rolling ball of missed opportunity mowing down everything in its path.

[defyingravity11]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 7:24pm

Seussical

[mattonstage]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 8:06pm

I must agree about Nick and Nora and Taboo. And I'd like to add Anyone Can Whistle.

[Brick]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 9:02pm

Ooo, ANYONE CAN WHISTLE is pretty rotten all around. The score - I'm sorry - isn't really up to par. Well, yes, it was up to Sondheim's par at the time, but looking back it isn't. The songs are have seriously undeveloped melodies or unsatifying endings. Aside from a couple, very good songs like "Me and My Town" and "Everybody Says Don't".

And the Bway TABOO was much improved in all respects, but the book needed an out-of-town tryout to focus its story and allow the audience to truly care for someone.

And, sadly, WILD PARTY is LaChuisa's best book, but that's not saying much!

[SpellingBeeFan4Ever]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 9:07pm

The Wedding Singer

[philly03]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 9:16pm

A lot of people will say Jekyll & HYDE, which I agree, but a lot of the problems people associate with the Broadway production were already with the pre-Broadway national tour anyway (most notably the Facade reprises). It may have been darker certainly, but with the exception of the character of Lucy it wasn't all ENTIRELY different as it's been made to be. Just very different direction, the base of the piece for the most part remained in tack with the minor subplots removed (like Gwinny and the Spider complaining about the rich...unnecessary to me.)

And I agree 100% with Chess. If they didn't screw around with the story and left it like London's, it would have somehow worked. It wasn't all that bad or not too bad to follow to begin with.

Woman in White...it probably could have been a better success by means of a few more months of playing time if they had decided to leave it alone and try not so hard to cut every last detail, especially some of the scene-changing melodies and some minute dialouge. And if they had let Judy Kuhn play Marian as intended when Maria went out, it could have picked up some sales possibly as well, but I guess we'll never know!

Updated On: 6/9/08 at 09:16 PM

[puppetman2]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 11:43pm

Jekyll and Hyde depended on when you saw it. Rewrites were constantly done on it. When I saw it in Buffalo some of us were taling to the musical conductor at intermission and he said what we were seeing was not what was on Broadway. Too bad as it was an excellent show and Chuck Wagner was terrific.

Updated On: 6/11/08 at 11:43 PM

[philly03]

Posted: 6/9/08 at 11:58pm

"Jekull and Hyde depended on when you saw it. Rewrites were constantly done on it. When I saw it in Buffalo some of us were taling to the musical conductor at intermission and he said what we were seeing was not what was on Broadway. Too bad as it was an excellent show and Chuck Wagner was terrific. "

That was the "Broadway" National tour, but it was almost entirely different with the same sets/costumes. It followed the Broadway version with the Facades, but took out two of the not-so-popular songs from Broadway (Lost in the Darkness & Good 'n Evil) and put it in the two more popular ones (I Need to Know & Bring on the Men). They also took out a staple of the entire work, "No One Knows Who I Am" by Lucy, which itself had been re-arranged, re-worded and re-worked from time to time, and by the time it made it to Broadway it was slightly over a minute, after being about 3 minutes if I'm not mistaken on other recordings. That production always gets better reviews, and with it came a different director, in which hopes came they might pull a Scarlet Pimpernel...close the Broadway version and reopen with that...which never happened, most likely due to all the stunt casting that came on Broadwya after the tour.