SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS with Raul Esparza @ Lincoln Center

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 12:27pm

I love this score and movie but have never seen it live!

Raul will be amazing in the John Lithgow role, and this will be a very different role for Lizzy McAlpine who was great in Floyd Collins. Wonder who is playing Sydney Falco (the Brian D’Arcy James role)?

Master Voices is producing it for 3 performances November 21-22 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in the Time Warner Center. The two living authors are revising it.

https://www.instagram.com/mastervoicesny/p/DN0uzRrwIwR/

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 12:28pm

WHY. WHY do I live across the country?

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 12:29pm

Wow. This will be phenomenal.

[uncageg]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 1:05pm

So of course this is happening a few weeks after my planned visit there. 

[barcelona20]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 1:10pm

Lizzy is going to sing the Kelli O'Hara part? How?

[JSquared2]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 1:20pm

barcelona20 said: "Lizzy is going to sing the Kelli O'Hara part? How?"

Why "how"?  It's a relatively small role.  The character has only 2 songs plus a reprise. O'Hara was an unknown on Broadway at the time.

[barcelona20]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 1:28pm

JSquared2 said: "barcelona20 said: "Lizzy is going to sing the Kelli O'Hara part? How?"

Why "how"? It's a relatively small role. The character has only 2 songs plus a reprise. O'Hara was an unknown on Broadway at the time."

I thought she was perfect in Floyd Collins, but I just can't see her singing the Sweet Smell songs. Hope to be proven wrong.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 1:51pm

The role is much less soprano-y than Kelli’s later leading roles, though it’s a very different style of music than Floyd Collins. 

[Ke3]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 4:39pm

Wow, so Lizzy is really going full force with this Broadway expansion. Cool!

The internet has offered up some interesting paths for theatre with one of them being this kind of casting. In this era where anybody can be a star to a small but not insignificant amount of people, can you use that for a sales boost? How do you determine if it worked? These kind of middle tier names don't offer the assured hit that a Denzel or Clooney does but can casting someone with 10 million monthly listeners on Spotify or a couple million tik tok followers come with enough attention to push you just slightly ahead of shows with no names at all? Very interesting prospect.

I was thinking about this with the Glee cast or someone like Jojo in Moulin Rogue. 6/7 years ago many people would've dismissed the idea that you could successfully "star cast" with these people because they kinda failed to become stars but the internet gave a tangible place to see how popular these people remained with certain audiences after their time in the sun was done. This all coincides with their original audiences getting old enough to have disposable income to spend on theatre tickets. Obviously Lea in Funny Girl had some very specific things going for it but overall it reflects a possible change to the theatre operating system. Because now Lea is considered someone you can bank on to launch a show largely off the strength of her last show not music fame or film fame or her own TV fame from a decade ago. Really Funny Girl and therefore Broadway "brought her back" Is the internet, in a roundabout way, creating a world where we see the return of theatre stars? 

We've been in the internet era so long but it really feels like we're justtttt now really landing in a place where traditional media is understanding how to use it. Even five years ago they were casting Cameron Dallas in Mean Girls, something I don't think would happen today, as you can much more easily find some guy on tik tok who's known for singing into his camera to do the job for less money and with less backlash. 

Obviously these are all things we'll only see play out over time and everything could be completely different 5 years from now but it's all very interesting to me to consider. Especially for me as I was born in the waning years of the monoculture which Broadway has been immensely affected by.

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 4:47pm

I wonder how much tickets will be for that.

[mshalo18]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 5:19pm

CoffeeBreak said: "I wonder how much tickets will be for that."

I’m considering purchasing the $50 MasterVoices membership for early access and a 15% discount. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 6:50pm

Ke3 said: "The internet has offered up some interesting paths for theatre with one of them being this kind of casting. In this era where anybody can be a star to a small but not insignificant amount of people, can you use that for a sales boost? How do you determine if it worked?"

FLOYD was no runaway hit for LCT, financially speaking. They were papering by the end. But this is 3 nights…between her, Raul, and the curiosity factor of the property they should have no problem selling. 

Updated On: 8/26/25 at 06:50 PM

[Birdie Boy]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 10:01pm

Hopefully this goes better for them than that concert of A Little Night Music. It was okay, Cynthia Erivo was the best part. Thankfully I only spent 50 dollars on a ticket I bought just before the show. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 10:07pm

Birdie Boy said: "Hopefully this goes better for them than that concert of A Little Night Music. It was okay, Cynthia Erivo was the best part. Thankfully I only spent 50 dollars on a ticket I bought just before the show."

Different producer. That concert was a commercial production by Jeff Berger (a talent manager), largely featuring his miscast clients, and maybe the world’s greatest octogenarian orchestrator shouldn’t have been the one conducting.

This is produced by Master Voices which has done shows like The Frogs with Doug Sills, Anyone Can Whistle with Vanessa Williams, and Lady in the Dark at City Center. Their work can be hit or miss. Ted Sperling (MD of a lot of LCT musicals) is the artistic director.

[Birdie Boy]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 10:11pm

Oh how nice.  I would love to see them do a concert of The Bridges of Madison County with Kelli and Steven reprising their roles. Is Master Voices the ones who did that Carousel concert?  And the Sweeney Todd and Candide concerts?

[TheatreMonkey]

Posted: 8/26/25 at 11:13pm

Birdie Boy said: "Oh how nice. I would love to see them do a concert of The Bridges of Madison County with Kelli and Steven reprising their roles. Is Master Voices the ones who did that Carousel concert? And the Sweeney Todd and Candide concerts?"

If the Carousel, Sweeney Todd, and Candide ( with Chenowith) productions you're thinking of were filmed and released on TV, those where from the NY Philharmonic -- a totally different group than MasterVoices.

[uncageg]

Posted: 8/27/25 at 1:02am

I know Raul is singing the part of J.J., but I would kill to hear him sing "At The Fountain" live. I hope whoever they cast sings the heck out of it.

[inception]

Posted: 8/27/25 at 7:55am

I'm curious, isn't Master Voices a choral group?  Is there much music for a chorus in this piece?

Updated On: 8/27/25 at 07:55 AM

[Birdie Boy]

Posted: 8/27/25 at 12:35pm

Will tickets be expensive for this?

[darquegk]

Posted: 8/27/25 at 1:47pm

When the musical came out, the common criticism was that no one wanted to watch a show that was so dark and cynical, about antiheroes being terrible to themselves and each other.

Twenty-five years later, post Peak TV's embrace of the grim antihero dramedy, will "Sweet Smell of Success" resonate now that we've learned to speak its language more? Or is the cynicism, the grooming, the implication of incest STILL too much for people to swallow in a musical?