ROGER BART TO JOIN CAST OF 'THE FROGS' AT LINCOLN CENTER THEATER - — Page 2

And to think, I JUST saw the show again on Saturday night (MUCH improved it was, even though Kattan was still the weak link)...now I'll be "forced" to see it AGAIN! Ha HA!

Even though I have tickets for September, I want to see Roger as soon as possible!! :)

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Updated On: 7/12/04 at 01:02 AM

take heart - the understudy is supposed to be quite good

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LOL - NO COMMENT!

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Twas misinformation. Broadway.com lied on that bit of info. I asked Roger at the stage door of Producers one day, and he told me.

Sigh. Ah well. 'least he's in this now, so I'm happy.

Thanks , margo. I found this passage from the Daily News esp. interesting ...

"On online chat sites, theatergoers have expressed similar sentiments. One commented that Kattan appeared "lost" and another called him "the weakest link." (In fairness, concerns also have been raised about the show's book, set and songs.)"

Could they be talking about BWW.com?

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I hate to burst our bubble but, as someone who posts and reads both boards, I DID see the weakest link comment on ATC before I saw it here...I may have actually used those very words myself.

Oh MY GOD...I'm a STAR!!!!!!

Seriously, isn't it sad that the News and Post are now reading theater boards to get info for their columns?

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I think the way in which this was apparently handled was pretty bad. I mean you invite roger bart to the performance, and after he accepts tell Chris that he is fired from the show. Kind off seems wrong, but i love them both so there is my two cents.

Thanks,
Grant

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I'm crossing my fingers for Roger tonight -- I'm sure he'll be great (I can only imagine the ad-libbing that'll go on between he and Nathan).

In today's column, Liz Smith features an interview with Kattan regarding his dismissal from the show:

"CHRIS KATTAN, let go from the Broadway-bound Stephen Sond heim-Nathan Lane venture "The Frogs," is out but hardly down.

Kattan, sounding a little tired, told us, "OK, I'll admit it, the phone call came as a bit of a shock. You usually know there's something wrong with a relationship before they serve you with divorce papers!" What, he had no inkling? "Well, I wasn't altogether happy. I thought a lot of the funny bits that I loved doing were getting cut; I was standing around a lot. I thought I'd been brought in as the wild card, the risk, to get the big laughs. But it seemed to me there was less and less a partnership, less of a connection. I wasn't from the theater, and they knew that, and I wasn't trained to project to the balcony. I wanted to connect to Nathan!

"But look, these things really do happen — and not just in show business. And I'm sitting here, and it's over, and I'm thinking, you know, this is not so bad. I still had this incredible experience. Susan Stroman [the director] and Nathan are amazing. I would work with them again in a minute. I have learned about the language of the theater, and I hope to learn more. And I still love the show. I'll go see it for sure!"

Next for Kattan, who found fame on "Saturday Night Live"? He says, "There are movies, 'El Romantico' and 'Adam and Steve,' in the works, but I'm going right out to L.A. to get together with Fox Searchlight, planning a TV series — I would have been doing that anyway, in October, so this just speeds it up. I'm very excited. I think I'll call it 'The Untitled Chris Kattan Project.' "

Theater mavens may not agree, but there is life after Broadway takes back its "Welcome to the theater."

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I don't think it's sad at all, SamIAm. If they want to know what theatergoers, and not just the creative team, think of a show, they could either try to interview people as they walk out the door (bad form), or they can look at postings here and on ATC.

However, I do think it's a bad thing- you shouldn't publish reviews of a show at all until it opens. The Frogs is a work in progress, and publishing reviews of it in a mainstream paper before it's frozen is unfair.

It may just be face-saving at work but Kattan comes off as completely gracious in the Liz Smith interview. I haven't seen FROGS (yet) but I suspect Kattan is not entirely at fault. Like Boris Aronson show warned (in a heavy Russian accent), "Every show has a wictim. Don't be the wictim." Kattan, a theatre newbie, just might be FROGS' wictim.

Updated On: 7/15/04 at 06:39 PM

Or maybe, just maybe, he's a mensch. Nothing about his demeanor or mien suggests "sour grapes." He could have avoided saying anything but went out of his way to be complimentary (hardly 'contractual'). And if the show is any good, it doesn't need protection.

*headdesk*