SIDE SHOW revival?

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 1/14/12 at 4:18pm

I remember hearing a while back (2008, perhaps) of an opposed SIDE SHOW revival. Does anyone know why it fell through? I'm in love with the cast recording and would love to see it back on Bway

[CapnHook]

Posted: 1/14/12 at 4:56pm

Various reasons, and then the director moved onto other projects.

[Starcarolina]

Posted: 1/14/12 at 6:46pm

I loved SIDE SHOW! Would love to see a revival...

[egghumor]

Posted: 1/14/12 at 9:25pm

I'm a huge fan of SIDE SHOW but I can't imagine it receiving a first-class, high-profile revival anytime soon. Perhaps 20+ years from now...

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/14/12 at 10:07pm

"I remember hearing a while back (2008 perhaps) of an opposed SIDE SHOW revival."

That was me. I opposed a revival of SIDE SHOW in 2008, and for many years before then. I solemnly reaffirmed my opposition in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. And will do so unrelentingly in every future year as well.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 9:56am

Great show but do not see many investors lining up to revive a flop. It is still a hard sell subject matter wise.

[random person 112]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 10:13am

Wouldn't it be best off broadway like carrie?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 11:16am

Curious how many champions of a revival have actually seen SIDE SHOW.

[Cape Twirl of Doom]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 1:43pm

I'd love to see a fully staged revival. I did not see the original live (though I did watch it at the Lincoln Center archives) but I did see the Off-Off(?) Broadway revival that played for a short time several years ago.

[egghumor]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 3:10pm

I think you make a very good point, henrik. I saw SIDE SHOW and was not all that enthralled with it until the cast album was released. Because it's so well produced and executed it allowed me to re-examine the show and develop a much stronger appreciation and eventual love for it. Most other people I know who saw SIDE SHOW did not care for it. It's amazing how cast recordings can often make a show sound/appear stronger than it actually is.

To this day, I think the original recording of COMPANY is one of the all-time great cast albums. When I finally saw the show (very soon after second cast went in) I was supremely disappointed. COMPANY is one of my very favorite scores, but definitely not one of my favorite shows, and I have seen several productions and various approaches to staging it.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 4:55pm

Egghumor, you make very good points as well. First of all, I apologize to everyone for being so surly on this thread, but I really don't like this show. So much so that I never even listened to the recording in spite of my admiration for both Alice and Emily and their work in the show.

Second, many musicals have great scores but are not great musicals. For a long time I too found Company not only flat and unimpressive but also badly dated (not that it was so good to begin with), but recently it has grown on me. Esparza almost made me love it, but not quite. It was the recent Philharmonic production that finally won me over. I still think the show has problems but for me Price broke the code, directed the scenes to perfection (musically the production may have run the gamut, but that's another story completely). It still has problems, but I can now finally see that there is something of real value there, beyond the first rate songs.

Finally, when we hear a great score of a show we have not seen, we can't help but imagine all the wonderful ways it might connect seamlessly with an equally strong libretto and be brought to life through all the magic of theater. Hope springs eternal and sometimes our expectations are matched or even surpassed. Other times, not so much or quite the contrary.

Listening to Mack and Mabel at home it is easy to imagine it being as or nearly as good as On The Twentieth Century. But I think it's safe to say that most who've actually seen both shows would agree that On The Twentieth Century is a first rate musical and Mack and Mabel is a major disappointment.





Updated On: 1/15/12 at 04:55 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 1/15/12 at 5:14pm

To Henrikegerman

I did see the show. While a revival would be nice I doubt it would happen. Add to that, you would have to do a herculean effort to top the original cast especially Norm Lewis & Emily & Alice

[egghumor]

Posted: 1/16/12 at 10:14am

It just occurred to me that some readers might not know there was actually another musical about Violet and Daisy Hilton that opened in New York prior to SIDE SHOW. With a different composer/lyricist and book team, the show opened at the WPA Theater in 1989 and ran for 35 performances (likely a limited run -- but not optioned for commercial run). It was called TWENTY FINGERS, TWENTY TOES. I recall the critics were not too fond of it. I think SIDE SHOW probably did a much better job of making Daisy and Violet fully realized, three-dimensional characters.

By the way, when I was a child, I had a few encounters with the real Daisy and Violet Hilton. In their post-Hollywood years, they settled in my hometown of Charlotte, NC (I have no idea why). They would make appearances at some of the local drive-in movie theaters at the time to sign autographs. They made their daily living weighing produce at local supermarket, where I saw them on occasion. Naturally, as a young child, I was awe of them.

[denali.fire]

Posted: 1/16/12 at 10:36am

If they have cancelled Funny Girl as a revival for $ reasons in the current economic climate I cant see the bucks coming up for Side Show. BTW, I did see the show and enjoyed it but now it is in a "no fly zone"

[denali.fire]

Posted: 1/16/12 at 10:36am

If they have cancelled Funny Girl as a revival for $ reasons in the current economic climate I cant see the bucks coming up for Side Show. BTW, I did see the show and enjoyed it but now it is in a "no fly zone"

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 12:39pm

Does anyone know what songs were cut/added for the 2008 reading? I also heard there were new characters?

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 12:45pm

I saw Side Show and really loved it. It remains a favorite cast album of mine. I was very sorry to see it close as early as it did. I even remember the volunteers walking Times Square trying to drum up business for the show!

[Owen22]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 1:06pm

Aside from some impressive musical moments, that show was SUCH a mess...I've often called it the new "Carrie" because it was such a disaster but had a couple sublime/horrible moments (I don't think I'll ever forget that "Tunnel of Love" scene...what WAS that???) and has this alarmingly large fan base that every-so-often rears its head in a "Side Show Revival" post...

Updated On: 2/21/12 at 01:06 PM

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 1:25pm

Owen22...LOL I am not going to be rearing my head to revive Side Show...enjoyed it for what it was, like the CD, would see it if it was around but not creating a Facebook page for it. I really think Alice, Emily, Hugh and Norm sound great together on the CD. The songs are a bit corny but whatever...it was supposed to be a freak show! haha

Yes - the Tunnel of Love was...interesting to say the least. Haven't a few shows after that sort of do the same thing by raising the cast members and boxing them off? Vaguely I think this was the case for the car chase scene in Sunset Blvd? Possibly even in the recently 'deceased' Bonnie and Clyde car scene in the beginning and end?

I remember Side Show's crazy Egyptian number. Wonder how many epileptics were lost during that number with the strobe lights?

[morosco]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 1:25pm

That set. That set was ugly!

[once a month]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 1:57pm

Sideshow was a favorite of mine when it opened and was lucky to have caught the original cast with no understudies from the first row (center) a day or two before opening. It blew me away, 99% due to Alice/Emily belting out those tunes.

Glad I saw it but see no reason to attend a revival. It may work off-Broadway in an intimate setting but to be honest, I had trouble sitting through a copy of the production years later.

Been there, done that, no longer interested, BUT I had a great time at Carrie...

[Renart]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 3:48pm

I did not see the original Broadway production but I did see the 2002 Park Square Theater (St Paul, MN) production directed by Bill Russell (the lyricist and author). Maybe he made better directorial choices than were made on Broadway, but we didn't see anything like the trainwreck others are describing. I thought it was done quite well.

Updated On: 2/22/12 at 03:48 PM

[ElphabaGoodman]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 3:51pm

Not a full production, but I did hear that there are talks to have a 15th anniversary concert reuniting some of the original cast members (Alice Ripley, Emily Skinner, Norm Lewis, etc.) in the fall. I would be very excited for that.