Royal Caribbean International to feature 90-minute truncated musical CHICAGO on newest cruise ship

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 10:12am

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/139349-Condensed-Version-of-Chicago-to-Play-New-Cruise-Ship-Allure-of-the-Seas

Thoughts?

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 10:15am

I think this is a very interesting idea. I mean, stage musicals work on the Disney Cruises, why not here? I do understand the content maybe a little "inappropriate" for younger children, but hey! Go for it!

[dramamama611]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 10:20am

My initial reaciton was cool! I'd take that in if I were on a Cruise.

But...how many times can they perform that for the same passengers in a week? I know very little about what the performing life of a cruise entertainer. How many different things would they need to learn to perform in a single week to justify a "real" salary?

Hmm....

[smodel11]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 10:36am

I'm pretty sure there will be other shows as well. I know that the Oasis of the Seas (the current "newest" Royal Caribbean ship has versions of Hairspray and Come Fly With Me. In a typical 7 day cruise, the entertainers will do 3 different shows, usually with different themes. I worked for Jean Ann Ryan on Norwegian Cruise Lines for a long time and we had a Broadway show, a "pop" show, and Cirque-style show on each ship. We did the shows twice a night, as they were only 45 minutes long. I'm assuming since RCCL is doing 90-minute shows that they will only be done once a night. Your basic schedule as a performer is one show day, one day off, show day, day off, etc. There is always a runthru of a given show on that day, so show days are really taken up. It's a really great, easy performance schedule, though :)

[bjh2114]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 10:42am

I was on the Oasis in January. They only did Hairspray for the first 3 days of the cruise before switching over to "Come Fly Away"... a show having NOTHING to do with the Broadway show. It was all aerial acrobatics.

[smodel11]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 12:51pm

Oops, sorry, my mistake. Got the titles of the shows confused...my brain kept saying "come fly away" but I didn't think I was right about that. I guess that's how Royal Caribbean is doing the shows if they are doing 90 minute versions. Several days of one show, and then several days of another. I guess it makes sense to run it several days in a row because 90 minutes is kind of a big time commitment for an evening on a cruise ship (dinner can take hours sometimes) and running it for a few days would give more people an opportunity to check it out.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 12:54pm

Can't be any weirder than that cruise ship version of A Chorus Line. There was a video of Cheryl Clark doing "Music and the Mirror" on YT once, and boy...it was odd.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 2:50pm

For the record, it wasn't only during dinner time. They had matinee performances too. The new class of Royal Caribbean ships run the shows on a standard theatre schedule and not a dinner theatre schedule like most ships.

[singtopher]

Posted: 5/7/10 at 4:09pm

I just got off an 11 day cruise on the Disney Magic. There were 6 different stage shows (and we didn't see all of them) as well as three guest acts. Each had two performances each night about 45 min. long.