Musical adaptation of film SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED from Nick Blaemire and Ryan Miller (Guster) to premiere at BAM- Page 2

[Ledaero]

Posted: 9/25/24 at 11:30am

Saw this over the weekend. Absolutely hated it. Production is a complete mess. Represents pretty much everything about "new musical theatre" that I just can't stand, which is unfortunate because I like Nick Blaemire, Lee Sunday Evans, and Duster - and the movie! The show is way overscored with songs that awkwardly sit somewhere between musical theatre and pop rock. The sound mixing in the space is atrocious - very live acoustics!

All around - very dumb, very disappointing. Antithetical to what's special about the movie.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 9/25/24 at 11:35am

I haven't seen the movie, but I hated this. To me, there was nothing about the story that screamed "this needs to be a musical," and while I liked some of the songs it just didn't work for me.

It has commercial money behind it (Wagner & Johnson), but I don't really see a future for it on or off Broadway.

[Theater3232]

Posted: 9/25/24 at 11:47am

The (good?) news for anyone who scores a cheap ticket is now they appear to have closed off their balcony due to extremely poor ticket sales and virtually the entire prime orchestra is unsold for all upcoming performances, so everyone who goes will score a prime seat at box office pickup. How can this stay open? Also, why wouldn't they pick better casting? The only person I know is Taylor Trensch and the rest of the people I never heard of.

[kurtal]

Posted: 9/25/24 at 12:18pm

I saw this on Friday and didn't mind it.  Is it good?  Not really.  Once I realized it was full cheesy satire, I just sat back and had a good time.  

That said, BAM is absolutely the wrong venue for this show.  It'd have done much better at a smaller house like the Beechman or even NYTW.  It's a quirky small show that is absolutely swallowed up by the BAM stage.  

[cglaid]

Posted: 9/25/24 at 7:27pm

Just learned that my performance, Saturday's matinee, has been canceled.

[quizking101]

Posted: 9/25/24 at 7:51pm

Theater3232 said: "The (good?) news for anyone who scores a cheap ticket is now they appear to have closed off their balcony due to extremely poor ticket sales and virtually the entire prime orchestra is unsold for all upcoming performances, so everyone who goes will score a prime seat at box office pickup. How can this stay open? Also, why wouldn't they pick better casting? The only person I know is Taylor Trensch and the rest of the people I never heard of."

The entire run is 5 weeks. Also, how many major stars do you think are going to want to star in an experimental new musical deep in the heart of Brooklyn for what is probably an Equity minimum?

Plus, I believe this is cast also participated in labs and workshops leading up to this, so unless they absolutely sucked, why take away all that hard work they put into development?

[TheQuibbler]

Posted: 9/29/24 at 10:10pm

I saw it this afternoon and found the material quite charming. I really enjoyed Trensch and Obi-Melekwe. However, it’s all undercut by the direction. The stage itself is too large for this show and there’s never any sense of space or location. chrishuyen and raddersons nailed it there. It really needed some Dear Evan Hansen-like lighting to define the space more. Songs end awkwardly or people randomly sing with the band and then have to get off a platform. There’s so much air between songs and transitions. There’s an FBI subplot that’s rendered completely silly simply because of their costumes. Stagehands are on stage nearly as much as the cast, moving tiny set pieces around on a cavernous stage. And it sounds like they’re in a train station.

Which is all a shame, because I think there might be something there with a little more work on the supporting characters (we really don’t need to spend as much time with Jeff as we do). And I did end up having a nice afternoon. Maybe if I could go back in time, I’d hire someone else. 

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 10/4/24 at 11:33am

Positive review from Theatremania

[rachelfran]

Posted: 10/4/24 at 11:37am

absolutely stunned and shocked by a positive review.

[kidmanboy]

Posted: 10/4/24 at 11:51am

Saw this on Sunday with my wife and 2 kids and we all enjoyed it a lot.  The story was engaging and thought, performances and music were great.  While the staging was bare, it fit the piece well.  I'd kill for a cast recording.

[TheQuibbler]

Posted: 10/4/24 at 11:59am

Sara Holdren's review echos a lot of how I felt:

"Despite several winning performances and a very big heart, the show feels sketchlike — not in the sense of SNL, but in the sense of an idea still being worked out. I’m convinced that this quality of patchiness doesn’t actually derive from an unfinished concept but from a disparity between content and container. At the big, beautiful BAM Harvey Theater, Safety Not Guaranteed feels like it’s in the wrong box. If this were a Fringe show, I kept thinking, I’d probably be completely charmed. There’s something about the Harvey’s scale and atmosphere — the peeling proscenium, the shades of Lev Dodin, Thomas Ostermeier, and Peter Brook — that seems to have stranded Safety’s director, Lee Sunday Evans, and scenic designer, Krit Robinson, somewhere between scrappy minimalism and bigger, slicker musical-theater impulses."

Vulture review

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 9:37pm

Mixed (but encouraging) from NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/theater/safety-not-guaranteed-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.RU4.uUCY.nQw6bKbSjR6_&smid=url-share

I don't know that I agreed with her assessment about feeling endeared towards Kenneth.  I did feel like the show wanted us to focus more on Darius but didn't know how to make her a compelling character, so I guess Kenneth is at least the most interesting.

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 10/10/24 at 9:47pm

New York Stage Review

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED: NOR IS A SATISFYING TIME

By Michael Sommers

★★☆☆☆ An intriguing-sounding sci-fi musical romance, disappointingly realized

https://nystagereview.com/2024/10/03/safety-not-guaranteed-nor-is-a-satisfying-time/