Rant about the 2013 TONY nominations here — Page 10
Posted: 4/30/13 at 11:22pm
Posted: 4/30/13 at 11:26pm
Posted: 4/30/13 at 11:57pm
Updated On: 5/1/13 at 11:57 PM
Posted: 5/1/13 at 12:45am
Posted: 5/1/13 at 11:12am
So was I. I've no doubt there are people who know it. But none of the songs have pervaded into pop culture or repetition the way the other shows have. I doubt there is any Rodgers and Hammerstein score more recognized than Sound of Music. Cinderella has a lovely score and I love it, but it did't yield any songs that were enduring classics. Hell, even Flower Drum Song had I Enjoy Being a Girl.
Posted: 5/1/13 at 12:15pm
I'd disagree (pretty strongly), but I may be of a different generation.
When I was growing up, the Lesly Ann Warren version of Cinderella was shown on TV every year, similarly to how The Sound of Music shows up every Christmas. (The b/w TV version of Mary Martin in Peter Pan was the other "biggie".) Songs like "In My Own Little Corner", "Impossible", "The Stepsisters' Lament" and "Do I Love You.." are songs that people my age know like the backs of our hands.
If Jay Leno were to do one of his ambush street interviews, asking the question, "Where did the song In My Own Little Corner come from?" people my age would probably say, Cinderella immediately. (If the question were reversed to ask, "Name a song from Cinderella", people would either respond with "In My Own Little Corner" or "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" (but that's the question's fault!).
Another factor for people of my generation (I think) has to do with music education in public schools.
Incorporating "popular" music into a grade school music program usually didn't include a lot of music heard on the radio. On the whole, the lyrics were not acceptable for an elementary public school setting, but even more importantly, nearly ALL music heard on the radio at that time used electric guitars and drums accompaniments that could not be duplicated effectively in a classroom using just a spinet piano.
"Folk music" (i.e. "Puff the Magic Dragon", "If I Had a Hammer", etc.) was a popular style of music considered "safe" enough to supplement the American folk songs ("Clementine", "I Been Workin' On The Railroad", etc.) that were printed in our music books.
The other "safe" source for popular music was Broadway - especially when selecting songs to include in an elementary school concert. R + H's catalog of songs was SO vast (and they were still alive!), that their music appeared in every school concert during my elementary school years. Another song that seemed to appear in every concert was, "They Call the Wind Mariah"... but I digress! "In My Own Little Corner" and "Impossible" were the most popular songs from Cinderella
Additionally, my family had the LP of the Julie Andrews version in our home, which got a LOT of play. Between the yearly TV broadcasts, the LP, and my elementary school music program, the entire score of Cinderella is burned into memory and a pretty important part of my childhood.
...but I'm old.
_________________
As an aside, Lesley Ann Warren was so popular as Cinderella on TV that it was pretty much her signature role for quite a while. I know that I was not alone in being (just slightly!) taken aback when she appeared in the movie version of Victor/Victoria. It just seemed a little "off" to see Cinderella being so bawdy...
Updated On: 5/1/13 at 12:15 PM
Posted: 5/1/13 at 12:24pm
From the dictionary:
1-a : to lose the remembrance of : be unable to think of or recall (I forget his name)
b : obsolete : to cease from doing
2: to treat with inattention or disregard (forgot their old friends)
3-a : to disregard intentionally : overlook
Your definition of "forgotten" is not the one being used in those articles. They don't mean the Tony committee literally has no recollection of these shows existing.
Updated On: 5/1/13 at 12:24 PM
Posted: 5/1/13 at 1:02pm
Songs like "In My Own Little Corner", "Impossible", "The Stepsisters' Lament" and "Do I Love You.." are songs that people my age know like the backs of our hands.
I don't doubt that you and others do, but like I said, my mother WAS the Cinderella generation, having watched the first two broadcasts when they aired. But she wasn't taught the songs in school and they did not become a staple in her household (though Hair, Fiddler on the Roof and My Fair Lady were staples in my household growing up). Her favorite was the 60s version with Warren and it was indeed broadcast annually for 9 years. It was widely watched and popular then, but did the score endure in the classic vein of the other shows? I think it's extremely hard to find any evidence to believe so, but maybe it's just me and everyone else knows all the songs at the drop of a hat. I certainly haven't met anyone who knows them outside of musical theatre enthusiasts.
In my school music program, the popular songs in our class were "Don Gato" and "The Rattlin' Bog", but I don't assume they are the most recognized songs of any specific genre.
Sing-a-Long-a-Sound of Music
Posted: 5/1/13 at 1:34pm
OTOH, I know exactly where I was and what I was wearing when Paul McCartney sang "Yesterday" on the Ed Sullivan show.
Posted: 5/3/13 at 12:21am
the glads:
I am glad that Lila Crawford who misses more performances than she is in did not get a nomination. Nothing from the tepid production of Annie deserved to be nominated.
I am glad that the overrated Jessie Mueller did not get a nomination and no I did not like her in Carousel either.
I am glad that Alan Cummings did not get a nomination for one of the most dull productions of macbeth ever. Playing all the roles? Indeed. Very hard to sit through.
Victoria Clark? Really?
the sads:
I think Ann Harada was the best thing about Cinderella. Why wasn't she nominated?
I thought Rachel Bay Jones deserved a nomination for Pippin.
I don't understand Will Chase's nomination-- he wasn't very good in Drrod and I've heard "a man can go quite mad" performed better in musical theatre class
Posted: 5/3/13 at 6:45am
It didn't need any new life. The original orchestrations were wonderful, and far better than the new ones, which in my opinion, did not do justice to the score. So too was the original book light years superior to the farrago wrought by Douglas Carter Beane.
A lesson to all: Don't mess around with perfection.
Or is it, really, since both the messed up book and orchestrations received Tony nominations.
Revised lesson: Mess around with perfection, in fact, make a mess of it. You'll be amply rewarded!
Posted: 5/3/13 at 7:18am
Michelle,
You are absolutely right. We who live, love, and breathe theatre may be surprised to find just how little the " outside world " knows about things we take for granted. I have a funny feeling that many people under thirty not only do not know the songs from South Pacific or Carousel, but can't name any that Kern, Porter, or Berlin wrote. Ask a random young person what show "A Cockeyed Optomist" comes from, or who wrote "From this Moment On." Or if they've even heard or heard of either.
Posted: 5/3/13 at 9:43am
It pains me to see how sorely underused she is in SMASH, too. I loved her work in Avenue Q. It's hard to watch her function as pretty much a piece of set dressing on TV.
> "The original orchestrations were wonderful, and far better than the new ones, which in my opinion, did not do justice to the score. So too was the original book light years superior to the farrago wrought by Douglas Carter Beane.
I'm grateful that KirbyCat created the "first listen" thread. I was surprised though, to read so many superlatives about the orchestrations.
On one hand, I can give credit for creating the reduction as best as one could. I'm sure it was a very difficult task to take those lush, full orchestrations and reduce them down to what sounds like a minimal "pit band". It saddens me to think that the decision to do so was probably forced, for financial reasons.
In doing so (I feel), some of the magic of the show got lost. This *is* R+H after all, and the orchestrations bring as much character and life to the show as the vocals.
The most disappointing number for me is Waltz for a Ball (now, renamed to Cinderella Waltz). All the romance has been deflated from the number. Here's the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQRshwdhd4M
One case where an orchestral reduction worked well to make a show even better (IMO) was Parade. Although the original orchestrations on the Broadway version of the CD are great, reducing them for the Donmar Warehouse production (starring the fabulous Bertie Carvel
...Not so much the case for Cinderella.
Regarding the new book, I'm also as disappointed as you. I get the feeling that the impetus behind such a drastic change in plot (rather than fleshing out the existing book) was so that like other Broadway shows in the past, Cinderella could be considered a "new work", and thus be considered for a Tony at a "higher" level (i.e. "Best Musical"). Didn't work out that way, though.
Updated On: 5/3/13 at 09:43 AM
Posted: 5/3/13 at 10:38am
I also must respectfully disagree about the orchestrations by Danny Troob, if you go to the Sh Ka Boom Records website and find the samples to Cinderella, they sound MUCH better than the Entertainment Weekly article. John Adams, I don't think the romance is ENTIRELY gone from that number from what I heard of the first listen. It sure makes other orchestrations from recent musicals look like a four person band.
But hey you all have your opinions and I have mine. I for one cannot wait to see Cinderella for the treatment of Rodgers and Hammerstein's lovely songs and the cast seems to be great.
Carry on gentlemen.
Updated On: 5/3/13 at 10:38 AM
Posted: 5/3/13 at 10:54am
Yeah, perhaps. Where you and I are on the same plane I think, is that we can both agree on one point: When you love something, you want the best for it.
We just approach that objective from differing angles.
Posted: 5/3/13 at 11:23am
Updated On: 5/3/13 at 11:23 AM
Posted: 5/3/13 at 12:47pm
Are old shows ever re-nominated? e.g. I still find that Wicked is one of the best overall shows in terms of score, story, costumes, etc...but yet it wouldn't be a Tony nominee at this point.
Posted: 5/3/13 at 6:42pm
I'll thank you not to refer to me as a Debbie Downer. Truth is, I am just the opposite, always chasing rainbows. It's this Cinderella that's the downer.
"I want Cinderella to at least have a stronger motivation other than the prince."
We are all free to want what we want. And authors are free to want what they write.
I don't want Lt. Cable to die in South Pacific. But Oscar Hammerstein did, and that's what makes South Pacific South Pacific.
Oscar Hammerstein did not write a social activist Cinderella, despite what you may want. I want the Cinderella Oscar Hammerstein wrote, the Cinderella we know and love.
You say his book was " thin?" Well, give me a "thin" book filled with wonderment, charm, and yes, humor, over the snarky, woebegone, charmless mess devised by Douglas Carter Beane.
Posted: 5/3/13 at 6:53pm
And it was entirely because of the revisions. The Rodgers & Hammerstein show and story, as written, are lovely.
Updated On: 5/3/13 at 06:53 PM
Posted: 5/3/13 at 8:17pm
When I see this show, if I ever get the chance, I will appreciate what has been made of this show whenever the good or bad aspects of it.
That is all..
Updated On: 5/3/13 at 08:17 PM
Posted: 5/3/13 at 8:48pm
No, a long running show is not eligible to be re-nominated.
Posted: 5/3/13 at 11:16pm
Updated On: 5/3/13 at 11:16 PM
Posted: 5/3/13 at 11:45pm
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