Question RE: The Sondheim "Opening Night Audios"

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:14pm

Is there any chance that these could ever be cleaned up professionally and released for sale? I think they're amazing and would give anything to hear them all fixed up but I don't now the legalities of that.

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:28pm

Jordan, can you give some more information on these? I have never heard of them.

[binau]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:33pm

I certainly would like to 'hear' about them :P

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:33pm

They're essentially bootlegs recorded patched in through the sound system for the opening nights of FOLLIES, NIGHT MUSIC, COMPANY, SWEENEY TODD, PACIFIC OVERTURES. The entire shows, every second of dialogue and music and the quality is amazing for being that old. But if they were cleaned up and (re) mastered they would be INCREDIBLE.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 5:49pm

The FOLLIES one is godly. Though I don't get why the prologue's tempo is so fast. I wonder if that was really the tempo on opening night? Or did something happen to the file over the years?

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 6:02pm

Oh Soundboards. I have Night Music, would love the others...

[JOak]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 6:07pm

ljay when you say Follies Opening night audio are you referring to the one where Gene Nelson mistakes the lyrics in Buddy's Blues?

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 6:15pm

I wish I had any of these, had no idea they existed.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 6:21pm

I always wonder why the theatre community isn't as 'on top of' older bootleg recordings as the general music world. There have been countless 'bootleg' recording releases professionally and otherwise for rock concerts and such for half a century and more now, but I can't think of a single time its happened in the Broadway community. I haven't heard any of these opening night audios, but I do hope that some time Broadway will get on top of seeing that even though the magic of theatre is fleeting, sometimes its nice to have a bit of a record centuries later.

[JOak]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 6:23pm

Wasn't a bootleg from Drat! the Cat! released commercially?

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 6:48pm

Thanks Jordan, I figured that's what they were.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 8:00pm

There's a Pacific OVertures one?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 8:21pm

I always wonder why the theatre community isn't as 'on top of' older bootleg recordings as the general music world.

I think sites like BWW contribute to a hysteria about them. Remember when you couldn't even type the words "you tube" because if someone listened to a bootleg there and clicked from BWW then BWW was going to explode?

I know there's some precedent for releasing old bootlegs commercially, but I imagine it's usually more trouble than its worth. Equity, for one, would be a barrier.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/11 at 10:51pm

Though I don't get why the prologue's tempo is so fast. I wonder if that was really the tempo on opening night? Or did something happen to the file over the years?

Remember that these "files" weren't "files"--they were tape--until the early or mid 1990s, when floppy discs and analog-to-digital converters came into commons use. So for 20 years they were floating around and dubbed, machine-to-machine, and stored in less-than-archival conditions.

Tape stretches, It breaks. It expands in heat and contracts in cold. It plays at different speeds on different players. And the people who were duplicating the tapes were not doing it in the open. They were doing it in secret, legitimately afraid of "getting busted," the same way they were secretive about gay sex and drug use.

Look at the way I was freaked out about the "Follies in Miniature" when I first joined BWW. I had hoarded it for 15 years, dubbing the 3rd-generation videotape as birthday and Christmas gifts for those I thought I could trust. Now it's a Megaupload/Megavideo link, which I give to anyone who is interested.

Personally, I can't listen to those soundboards of Follies. I make allowances for the crappy videos because they're the only visual record of this visually remarkable production. But the soundboard audios are like nails on chalkboard to me.

As far as I can tell the entire August 2, 1971 soundboard is too fast. The prologue is too fast, the voices are higher pitched than they were onstage (or are on the OBCR) and all the intros to the songs are way too fast.

And that LA soundboard is the opposite: it's too slow!

Posted: 5/12/11 at 11:02pm

I hate how some of these and demos get the speeds messed up over time and become slower or faster (and lower or higher pitched). I think it simply would be such a legal hassle, and would never happen--it wouldn't justify the price, until ages from now when all copyright, etc, is gone from these. Look at the fiasco that happened with Broadway's Lost Treasures and those were legal tv airings... It would prob be even more likely to see videos from the Lincoln Center Archive (God how I wanna see their Company Tour video) released, before these, and you knwo that will never happen...

Are there two for Follies? I seem to have a Boston and a New York one but am not sure if both are sound board recordings... I haven't listened in a while (my recordings are actually still on casettes I got as a teen) but I remember having the exact same prob with pitch and speed as PJ mentions.

I find the out of town ones especially fascinating--I'd love to find one for Company when Happily Ever After was still in, a song I've yet to hear recorded with its Tunick orchestrations... (Thank god we have some legal recordings of some such cut songs--like the original Frid doing Silly People with full orchestration on the "Scrabble" album even though it was cut out of town... On the same recording it always makes me mad that Larry Kert does so little of Happily Ever After before it goes into Being Alive, although that's just with piano anyway, and he obviously wasn't Bobby out of town).

*ahem* Sorry another ramble... But yeah, I doubt this could ever happen, unlike the Sondheim sung demos--would just be too much money and too many issues to deal with.

"I always wonder why the theatre community isn't as 'on top of' older bootleg recordings as the general music world. "

Quite simply I think it's largely because it's much easier to either get clearance, or sneak through a bootleg of a five member band, often the band doesn't even mind, than dealing with a cast and orchestra of 30-50+ people, plus composers and book writers, all represented by rather intense unions.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 5/13/11 at 2:38am

I love the "Sweeney Todd" opening night. The joy you hear during a little priest is magical.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/13/11 at 9:22am

Eric,
I believe including the Los Angeles production there are 4 FOLLIES.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 5/13/11 at 9:59am

Jordan-
I thought it was 5?
Boston highlights
Late Previews
December
April
Los Angeles

And I have on good word, although I do not have it, that there is another Boston Follies and a Boston Company with the original Tick Tock and Happily Ever After.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/13/11 at 11:56am

Imagine in the theatre future, how different our perspective on history and the great performances of the past will be. We hold Edwin Booth and his ilk to be the greatest actors of all time, simply on word of mouth and reputation. A hundred years from now, performers debating the merits of the actors of our time will have a wide variety of videos and audio footage to show how they "really were," not just the edited and often sanitized cast recordings.

Also, consider how different the process of recreating the original staging of "Oklahoma" would have been if there were audios and videos from that time period.

[newintown]

Posted: 5/13/11 at 12:58pm

Rock/pop artists get rich enough to ignore bootlegs; opera stars are smart enough to know that they become gods and goddesses by letting the greatest number hear them; actors and theatre writers however, poor as church-mice, shoot themselves in the foot by refusing to let their work live on in posterity unless they are paid for it.

A piece of theatre is ephemeral; I would imagine any actor and writer would want their work preserved for those who came after or couldn't come to the piece when it was being done. Sadly, such is not the case.

JOak - there was once a semi-commercial release of Drat the Cat, and the quality is remarkably good.

Posted: 5/13/11 at 8:52pm

Husk way back when I paid a lot more attention to, *ahem* less than legal recordings, I remember being told about a Boston Company with the pre Shire Tick Tock and Happily as well, but I never have managed to track it down... I think you just got me to start looking again, lol.

[tellybox]

Posted: 5/13/11 at 11:02pm

Husk, what's this other version of Tick Tock you speak of?

Posted: 5/13/11 at 11:13pm

Tick Tock was finalized at the last minute when they brought in David Shire to do it with themes from the score. No one was much satisfied with the earlier versions (which McKechnie incidentally danced in bras and underwear back then).

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 8/16/17 at 1:11am

BUMPING This because I want to know if anyone can share any of the Follies soundboards from the original production. It would be much appreciated 

[mshetina]

Posted: 2/1/25 at 7:52am

Bumping. If anyone has information, please PM me. The users who used to have all the inside knowledge on Follies, Pal Joey and Phyllis Rogers Stone, no longer post here.