Productions of Sondheim shows

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 11:46am

I have been monitoring MTI for years trying to see productions of:
Anyone Can Whistle (0 - scheduled)
Marry Me A Little (3 - scheduled)
Merrily We Roll Along (5 - scheduled)
Passion (1 - scheduled)
Pacific Overtures (0 - scheduled)

None of these shows have played within a 5 hour drive of me in the last 5 yrs. I would think there would be directors trying to do these shows. Are these shows such box office poison that even colleges won't do them?

[macnyc]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 11:50am

You saw this, right?

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/169063-Revised-Marry-Me-a-Little-Will-Star-Lauren-Molina-and-Jason-Tam-Off-Broadway-New-Songs-Added

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 11:54am

Yes.

[castlestreet]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 12:14pm

Anyone Can Whistle and Pacific Overtures I think would be a very hard sell regionally- they didn't fare too well on the Great White Way and non-hardcore theater people have never heard of them, or have no desire to produce/perform in/see these shows. Sondheim's name alone is not always enough...

[westcoast_wannabe]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 12:33pm

Even the best known Sondheim shows rarely sell well. I can't imagine most amature groups would want to waste thier resources producing his lesser known / less successful shows regardless of whether a director wants to direct them.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 12:37pm

As most college theatre programs tend to skew far more heavily towards the females, a show like Passion is a very tough sell for a department to agree would be in the best interests of their students. You'll find some that do it, but a lot of programs will generally avoid it to stem the outrage of thirty girls who feel they are getting slighted by the department picking such a male-dominated show.

As for Pacific Overtures, I don't know how big of a cast that is, but, unless you want to see a bunch of white kids in yellow-face you probably won't find very many college theatre departments who have enough students necessary to do the show.

[westcoast_wannabe]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 12:53pm

And the colleges that do have enough Asian kids to produce Pacific Overtures are probably more likely to do Miss Saigon or Flower Drum Song, both of which have wider audience appeal.

[hyperbole_and_a_half]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 1:46pm

I did three of those shows in college (played in the pit for one) and let's just say that the cast recordings really showcase what's good about them while mercifully omitting the things that are terrible. Merrily and Whistle have brutally awful books and Overtures is so far afield of what Western theatregoers expect that you practically have to wow them with viscera to get butts in the seats--and even then it's a tough sell.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 7:02pm

Just to second hyperbole's thoughts, I can sit through MERRILY always anticipating the next song, but ANYONE CAN WHISTLE just doesn't work, no matter how badly we want it to. That brilliant first act of WHISTLE is so long, we're an hour or more into the show before we know who anyone is. Much too late for most audiences to care.

The off-Broadway production of PACIFIC OVERTURES was highly accessible to Western theater audiences, but it had a very specific directorial vision; I don't know if a lot of other directors can get the same result even if they can somehow cast the parts. I can't begin to explain in any detail why that production worked.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 7:07pm

Didn't David Ives rework the book of Anyone Can Whistle for Encores a couple years ago? Why isn't his version licensed now if the original book is so bad?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/15/12 at 7:23pm

I'm not crazy about the word "bad" in reference to WHISTLE's book, because in many ways it is brilliant. It simply doesn't work, as even Sondheim himself now admits in FINISHING THE HAT. I believe he says something like "Arthur and I were too smart-assed for our own good."

The problem is structural and, personally, I've never figured out how to fix it. If the ENCORES revision succeeded, I'd love to hear how.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/16/12 at 1:13am

David Ives largely just edited the book, from what I can gather. And really, Whistle would be impossible to have some sort of revised like Flower Drum Song book foisted on it. I can only see a theatre company doing it as a curiousity or a concert, but not a full production except for those few theatre companies whose goal is to do interesting/rare/challenging musicals (Primavera Theatre in the UK did it recently, Scott Miller who wrote several books on musicals--even if I often don't agree with his opinion--has done the show a few times at New Line Theatre which sets out to do challenging musicals, in St Louis).

One thing about the book that Gaveston didn't mention, and I just noticed on re-reading it recently, is how at odds the book and the songs often are. Or the songs and the songs. Or the book and the book, for that matter. Is Faye a strong idealist as she comes off at first, or is she a frigid cynic, for one example.

Merrily, is a different bag, for me. I've seen it three times live since I was 12 (odd, as there are many more famous shows by Sondheim, like Company, that I've yet to be able to see live). All three were at different universities--two with big theatre programs but not much of a history of musical thatre (and to do musicals in their season is rare). Two of them were actually very good, and seemed to go over well with the audience, one didn't.

I do think a big problem with PO is the need for a strong Asian cast--and again it's not a show that many places who want to put on a "big Broadway Show" would choose, because it's not that. A political theatre company could probably do well with it and get their regular audience, for example. Passion would probably go over better, in many cities, done by a chamber opera company (as increasingly it seems to be done).

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 8/16/12 at 10:27am

I am aware of the new "Marry Me A Little" production.

Unfortunately, I am in Detroit and make it to NYC about every 18 months. Company & "Into the Woods" get numerous productions. I thought since the theater "insiders" where more than not in love with everything Sondheim, that would include most college theater faculty, which really don't have to worry about selling tickets. The colleges fall into two categories those that sell every ticket to every show no matter the source, new student works to R&H and those that can't sell more than 100 tickets to the most popular shows. So, box office is not an issue for these institutions. Talking to faculty, there is a great desire to perform shows that the students and directors are not familar with to have the experience of "creating" a show from scratch without preconceived ideas. I have heard faculty that wanted to do "3hree" and "The Human Comedy" for those reasons. Surely, the Sondheim shows listed fit the criteria...

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 8/16/12 at 11:50am

But remember that Sondheim shows in general are very difficult for younger actors to pull off, and I would say his lesser-known ones even more so. Ideally a college theatre department, even if they don't have to worry about ticket sales, are still picking shows that are within the talent range of what their students can do. While challenging your students to push themselves is great, challenging them to do something that they just can not do is of little value to anyone.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 12:13am

There are some Sondheim shows that should not be done by colleges/high schools purely because of their themes - Follies and Merrily come to mind first, maybe Company too. I suppose a college Merrily could work, but only if the young cast could really grasp the tones of regret/loss/missed opportunity that permeate the whole show, especially the beginning.

I think with the other shows it's just a matter of 1: Can you do it well? (Sweeney, Assassins, Into the Woods) and 2: Do people actually want to see it? (Pacific Overtures, Passion, Anyone Can Whistle, etc.) The only non-professional Sondheim production I saw, in fact my introduction to his music, was a brilliant high school Sweeney. Would I think the same now, seeing it with a much broader knowledge of Sondheim? Don't know.

One other thing: I think it's interesting that nobody's yet mentioned Night Music in this thread. Is it a show that should/could be done by high schools and colleges?

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 1:29am

I think Night Music could work as a college show. Not so sure about high school. I don't enjoy thinking about all the over sung and dramatically inept versions of "Send in the Clowns" it will inspire, though. Has anyone else noticed that when people over sing that song, it loses all of it's power?

Company is a fun show for high school or college, IMO. Some of the themes might go over the heads of the actors (The Ladies Who Lunch, especially), but y'never know. I can see Merrily working well, too. I've never understood the concept of a high school Follies. It just sounds silly and God knows they won't have the budget to make the set or the transition into Loveland work, so what's the point?

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 9:52am

I don't see why "Pacific Overtures" needs an asian cast. High Schools, colleges, and community theatres have done "The King & I", "Once on this Island", "Miss Saigon", "South Pacific", "West Side Story", "Big River", & "The Mikado" with all white casts and/or racially miscast characters. Heck, Jerry Dixon played Rolf in "The Sound of Music" in high school.

Why does PO have to have racial purity?

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 09:52 AM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 4:01pm

Why does PO have to have racial purity?

Because PO is actually about the Japanese. The other shows you name tend to use non-Caucasians as exotica. That isn't to say they are mean-spirited about other races, necessarily, just that they tend to view them through a Caucasian lens.

One can debate its success, but PO tries to be different in that regard. I can imagine filling out the smaller roles with non-Asians, perhaps, but not an all-white production.

***

While I was there, UCLA students did a surprisingly good COMPANY, and excellent productions of ASSASSINS and INTO THE WOODS. I don't think they'd have any problem with MERRILY, considering it was performed by kids in the first place.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 5:06pm

We did a small production of Marry me a Little about a decade ago just after we did Into the Woods. We stated in our advertisements something to the effect of "From the same composer of Into the Woods, Company and Sweeney Todd" A total of 13 people requested refunds prior to the show opening because they took the ad to mean that we were actually doing Company and Sweeney Todd. We explained that it was a smaller revue of Sondheim's music mostly cut from other shows. One woman said "I want to see THOSE shows, not one that you made up using songs nobody cares about."

Now, yes, this can be indicative of the audiences we have here who would give a standing ovation to Andrea McCardle after watching her play the Phantom. But we figured out very quickly that as great as Sondheim is, people in this area are only interested in Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd. Even A Little Night Music has struggled when productions have been done by ASU and the other universities in the state. I guess this means people know what they want.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/21/12 at 1:57pm

Even in its revised format, I prefer Merrily with a younger cast anyway. I don't think it's an issue for a university age group at all.

I've seen Night Music live three times. Once professionally in Vancouver (very good), once in a semi pro production that was AWFUL (and it was my time introducing Sondheim to my Grandma, so I was relieved that she was the first to say that she could tell it wasn't a very good production--they played everything as a cartoon), and once by a young opera studio with no set (although Mme Armfeldt was played by a much older student)--which was the best of the three.

[3bluenight]

Posted: 8/21/12 at 2:50pm

I too like the energy that a younger cast brings to Merrily.

Re: Why does PO have to have racial purity?

because media representations matter. when we think about american stories, we tend to think about white stories. but asian, middle eastern immigrants, indigenous populations, african american populations - they're all american stories.
the reception is different when it's white actors telling the story. it superimposes white dominance over the experience. it diminishes the relevance and validity of minority voices.

I would assert that even with shows where minority characters aren't drawn with the same level of complexity than more modern characters are, it is still important for people to look on the stage and see actors of color and stories about people of color. it helps us all to 'live' the experience of a polycultural society.

Updated On: 8/21/12 at 02:50 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/21/12 at 6:21pm

It's certainly preferable to cast correctly according to race whenever possible. I agree.