Riedel: Refunds Rampant after GREASE Finale — Page 3

a $9 million advance is nothing to sneeze at though, no? I mean I can understand not liking the show, I absolutely hated it and only was able to make it thru the first episode and then just watched bits and pieces of it from there.

I'm coming in December and my friend wants to watch this, I'm kinda hoping this closes before then but the 9 million dollar figure made me lose that hope. Guess I'm watching this.

It's announced for the Atkinson.

You must have missed that.

Chino, I'm kind of with you---I'm finding the incessant Grease-bashing to get a little tiresome. Let's wait until the show opens before getting all snarky. They might actually surprise us.

Mr. Tuttle--a very astute observation!

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"His words about the winners being "nobodies" makes me angry - I think it's EXCELLENT that the production isn't relying on names to get people in the seats."

They are using names, thats the point, they are now names from the reality show.

Look at the sound of music over here in the UK, the ticket sales were high due to the fact people wanted to see Connie in the show forcing the original(and better) lead who was sharing the role to quit.

I hate this idea that TV studios are now looking to Broadway and The West End for there cheap reality shows.
Connie came out and said she could do every performance of the sound of music(low and behold shes finding it tough and been off ill)
People who are not trained properly for theatre cant sustain doing 8 shows a week, there voices just don't seem to hold out.

We now have a Joseph reality show and a Grease one starting here in the UK and i cant think of anything worse.

And the fact they use the worst shows like Grease and Joseph is a joke(Grease never stops touring in the UK and Joseph is always touring as well as having a flop run in london only a couple of years ago).

Make it Stop

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The thing is this. People were going to try to get a refund if it wasn't the pair THEY wanted. I am not suprised that people are gegging for refunds. Personally, I don't know why they went with a grease reality show at all. I am sure the whole idea looked good on paper but when they got down to it and started to actually do the damn show it looked like crap.

And I couldn't agree more about the fact that the dude who created the show is still holding on to it. He had one good show and that was it. He is lucky that the show turned into one that has/had an almost cult following to it. I give it three months before it closes.

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I'd hardly call Grease a show with a "cult following." It's a huge, huge, huge mainstream success that ran for YEARS, spawned one of the more successful movie musicals in history, and had a long-running revival despite the readily available film and thousands of community, school, and semi-professional productions every year.

That having been said, I hate it.

If it bombs its their own fault. That's what happens when you play to the philistine Funyun-eaters.

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At least there will be plenty of fodder for the "bad audience behavior" threads come late summer.

For what its worth - GREASE did get good reviews when it first opened on Broadway. I think critics will only tear it apart if Marshall takes the Jeff Calhoun approach to the material. If she tries to replicate something more along the lines of the original productions feel/tone - the show, I think, could actually get decent reviews.

How can they get their money back? There were no promised starring names when the people bought the tickets.
If Glenn Close was out of Sunset one night, then you could get a refund because they advertised that Glenn would be there.

JV - I mean that Riedel, fully aware of Broadways box office return policy is rather silly to do an article on the supposed demand for refunds - though again the article is clearly slanted to insinuate that the supposed "cry" for refunds is actually affecting the box office.

If he were interested in reporting facts, he'd be forced to mention that supposed 9 million advance - a couple of million of have been banked after the finale (and the winning stars announced).

The last revival of GREASE ran four years. I think 2 years is a more than reasonable estimate given that healthy advance and that the show is booked into the small Brooks Atkinson theatre. If the producers do some star-replacements - I think the show could easily run longer.

I actually think Max is very attractive.

But that's besides the point. Nothing new is being said here. Same old, same old. I also actually thought that besides Jenny Powers, the rest of the Broadway cast looked like a major bore. At least Max and Laura had amazing energy.

I am not a fan of Grease, but I have opening night tickets because I think Max and Laura are great talents.

=)