Seth Rudetsky’s “Stars In The House”- Page 10

[Damiensta]

Posted: 7/20/20 at 12:39am

I would  pay if they had a Steel Magnolia movie reunion. Imagine all those ladies together. Just in case they read this 🤣🤣

[ACL2006]

Posted: 7/20/20 at 8:51am

I do wonder how long they'll be able to continue to do the show. Seth does have a lot of connections, but when they did the FRASIER reunion, it was mostly David Hyde Pierce who got everyone together.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 7/20/20 at 9:10am

Seth has mentioned about several reunions in the works.

A Chorus Line OBC

A Chorus Line revival OBC

Spamalot OBC

Disaster OBC

Chicago Velma reunion

Chicago Roxie reunion

Spelling Bee OBC reunion

Book of Mormon OBC reunion

[uncageg]

Posted: 7/20/20 at 9:11am

mcsquared said: "SweetLips22 said: "
The admiration is abundant in what they are doing and money raised and my related question is---those two can't possibly know all their guests so who approaches who to appear, who organises the set ups and who does all the research. There must be quite a team behind the 2 guys suggesting ideas/groupings etc.
"

I get the impression that Seth is old buddies with all the big Broadway people from his experience in the biz as well as his Seth Speaks show. I'm less certain about all the Hollywood reunions he's had--they show big shows that I could easily see them brainstorming to approach though now that they've cut back, maybe they're running out of ideas. They show credits at the end of the show."

Seth and James' experiences span outside the theatre community. Seth has writer for and worked in tv. I am sure that if they don't know someone directly, they can make a few calls. They are pretty well connected. Seth also used to have a show at Don't Tell Mama's called "Seth's Chatterbox. I attended it once before it ended. It was an interview show with actors and people in the theater.

 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 7/23/20 at 6:28pm

The A Chorus Line reunion is happening this Saturday at 8pm. You all know I'll be watching.

[uncageg]

Posted: 7/24/20 at 5:43pm

ACL2006 said: "The A Chorus Line reunion is happening this Saturday at 8pm. You all know I'll be watching."

I am really looking forward to this one also. I can never get enough of talk about the original production.

The FAME movie reunion last night was really good.

 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 7/24/20 at 6:08pm

8pm ET: 

A CHORUS LINE Reunion with Kay Cole (Maggie), Ronald Dennis (Richie), Trish Garland (Judy), Nancy Lane (Bebe), Baayork Lee (Connie), Robert LuPone (Zach), Donna McKechnie (Cassie), and Don Percassi (Al).  They will also be joined by Fran Leibergall (pianist).

​

I CAN NOT WAIT!!!

[Tag]

Posted: 8/11/20 at 8:32pm

The 3 Chers have been bumped to tomorrow (Wednesday) night, as there apparently have been troubles with YouTube for the past 2 days.

Also of note, a CARRIE reunion on Saturday night!!!

[morosco]

Posted: 8/11/20 at 11:04pm

Has there been any rumors of a DREAMGIRLS (original production) reunion broadcast?

The CARRIE reunion should be a blast. Betty Buckley is always a great and very candid guest.

[KJ4]

Posted: 8/14/20 at 7:57am

Today's reunion of Newsies episode was wonderful! I enjoy it a lot.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/14/20 at 11:00am

Looking at the schedule, it appears that “plays in the house” is no more.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 8/14/20 at 3:04pm

Seth said last night during the Newsies reunion that they have a lot of reunions coming up.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 8/14/20 at 3:05pm

Seth said last night during the Newsies reunion that they have a lot of reunions coming up.

[uncageg]

Posted: 8/15/20 at 3:42pm

Tag said: "The 3 Chers have been bumped to tomorrow (Wednesday) night, as thereapparently have beentroubles with YouTube for the past 2 days.

Also of note, a CARRIE reunion on Saturday night!!!"

I am so ready for this one!

 

[uncageg]

Posted: 8/15/20 at 9:56pm

Loved the "Carrie" reunion. Didn't know the story about the producer who skipped town.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 9:31am

uncageg said: "Loved the "Carrie" reunion. Didn't know the story about the producer who skipped town."

Yup.  This CARRIE reunion is literally a documentation for the history books.  The creative trio and the cast pretty much covered all the urban legend surrounding the show.  

A simple breakdown: the creative trio were each having enormous career successes at the time so they basically half-assed putting CARRIE together. They solely focused hard on Act 1 then whipped up Act 2 when the show got going.  Musical was written with Buckley in mind, she was interested, negotiations fell thru, in came Barbara Cook who had a hard time with the material and the physicality of the show.  Creatives were presented with the renown director Terry Hands so they took him on though his track record for musicals was horrible (they even hated his work).  They couldn't find any backers/producers, so when a German producer showed interest, they snatched him up.  Creatives were young at the time and just half-assed getting CARRIE off-the-ground.  Barbara Cook ends her commitment after Stratford (England), Buckley agrees to do Broadway run so creatives make Broadway happen.  Show begins previews to sold-out audiences; nightly standing ovations; audiences "get" the show.  Show opens on Thursday, one bad review but lots of mixes so it wasn't unanimously panned.  Saturday matinee the creatives learn German producer closed up the show's bank account and closed up his NY office and left the U.S.  The creatives quickly start hustling looking for a quick backer with no luck.  Saturday night cast is told show is closing the next day: Sunday.  German producer took all the resource funds to keep CARRIE running at least a few more months as it was doing decent ticket sales.  Zero access to payroll money, creatives realize CARRIE is done.  Loved Linzi Hateley's assessment of the show's misses which the creatives agree with as well, including Buckley.  

Everyone needs to watch this CARRIE reunion.  I only touched on the basics.  So much more was discussed.  Wow!  My head is still blown.  

 

[binau]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 10:48am

I still find the revisionist narrative that the show was doing good business and sold out during previews to be a bit of disingenuous face-saving. The public record clearly shows the show was not close to selling out for most performances and was selling tickets at a value much lower than blockbusters at the time.

[pmensky]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 11:07am

qolbinau said: "I still find the revisionist narrative that the show was doing good business and sold out during previews to be a bit of disingenuous face-saving. The public record clearly shows the show was not close to selling out for most performances and was selling tickets at a value much lower than blockbusters at the time."

Exactly. If the shows were sold out and the box office was strong, the producer wouldn’t have run away. I’m not saying the work wasn’t good. The producer just saw the writing on the wall.

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 11:18am

I'm still kicking myself for not having seen the show at Stratford, though I had girlfriends, even then who went and saw the production 2-3 times. It definitely was a show that found a cult following pretty quickly.

I think you are all being a little literal minded about the semantics of the ticket sales in New York. Plenty of shows start previews with discounts available and then build an audience and start selling out. "Dear Evan Hansen" comes to mind. I didn't interpret what the team was saying last night as that the show was a sold out hit - rather than it began to find a following and began selling out based on word of mouth - which is likely true.  That doesn't mean people weren't still buying tickets at TKTS. 

And the point about the German producer wasn't that he saw the writing on the wall  - of course he did - but that he was willfully disingenuous in his actions by telling everyone involved in the show he would keep it open when behind closed doors he was clearly taking steps to close.  He had never produced on Broadway before and was understandably freaking out but what he did was ****e.

At any rate, I really enjoyed the panel discussion -- the Los Angeles production of Carrie is still one of the best productions I've seen in the last few years.  The show can work when done right.

[binau]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 11:36am

I agree that was probably the connotation of one of the creatives (I can’t remember who said it), but I’m quite sure Buckley or someone else said it was hard to get a ticket. And it’s not the first time this has come up.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 11:45am

qolbinau said: "I agree that was probably the connotation of one of the creatives (I can’t remember who said it), but I’m quite sure Buckley or someone else said it was hard to get a ticket. And it’s not the first time this has come up. "

Buckley stated that. 

 

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 11:50am

I think Buckley was also inferring the final performance -- I think where she was going with her story was that her brother flew in for the final performance [and that it was difficult for him to get a ticket because the show was sold out.]

[Mitch101]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 11:57am

Carrie reunion was amazing, especially Linzie saying
How cathartic it was for her after all these years. A few thoughts:
1. Dean Pitchford had a terrible face lift, I thought.
2. The authors never talked about being locked out of the rehearsals and the show getting rewritten without them. They touched on it for a millisecond when Michael said the reason it took him so long to write Sues new song was because he hid under the covers for two weeks.
3. They all seemed to agree not to blame Debbie Allen for anything. It was all the directors fault. This was a cruel thing to do. Debbie had a lot to do with out misconceived the high school scenes were. A lot!
4. I wish they had talked about the audience reaction when the ceiling came down revealing the heavenly staircase. The night I was there (with a song cut during previews called “Somebody Should Have Told Her” about having a period), someone yelled “Betty Buckley, come on down!” As if she was the next contestant on The Price is Right. The audience laughed quite loudly. Did the actors not her this at all? I can’t imagine considering how the audience reacted.
5. For those who caught Linzies comment at the beginning about the audience going nuts when the lights went out. That was true the night I was there. The interior of the theatre had been painted all black. The overture began with a loud explosion of synth music and the House lights bumped to black so the audience was in total blackness. It was exactly what horror fans wanted. They roared with approval and excitement. But as soon as the curtain rose on the chorus all in white gym outfits right out of a Vegas show surrounded by mirrored walls, the audience started to laugh hysterically. But the cast could not hear that over the orchestra playing.
6. For all their belief it could have become like Rocky Horror (a delusional comment, I think), neither the site specific production in LA (in a run down theater) or the off-broadway revision led to anything even remotely like a cult following. In the end, the authors have a version of the script they always intended (and used to happily say was the problem with the Broadway production)- they wanted their version of “Grease.”

[morosco]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 1:36pm

It was very funny the couple of times Betty Buckley pointed out that it wasn't her visually in the bootlegs. (The bootleg videos had been bootlegged to synchronize Barbara Cook's visuals with Betty Buckley's vocals.)

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/16/20 at 1:47pm

morosco said: "It was very funny the couple of times Betty Buckley pointed out that it wasn't her visually in the bootlegs. (The bootleg videos had been bootlegged to synchronize Barbara Cook's visuals with Betty Buckley's vocals.)"

For years Seth has shown footage of Scott Wise's Act 1 Only bootleg on his show whenever he's had a guest that appeared in CARRIE so he's fully aware of the difference in that bootleg and the Stratford one. Also, those Stratford clips with Buckley's vocals synced to Barbara Cook's footage is clearly emphasized on the YouTube posting he's using so him "acting" like he was unaware the footage wasn't Buckley was annoying.   

Since the Stratford footage is so much clearer, he was trying to pass off the footage he was showing as CARRIE on Broadway.  Even Charlotte d'Amboise pointed out that her solo in "In" on the clip he was showing wasn't from the Broadway run.  

As much as Seth is so savvy, he truly doesn't know his facts.  He kept stating on the ONE DAY AT A TIME reunion that Bonnie Franklin won a Tony Award for APPLAUSE - she was nominated, as Valerie Bertinelli pointed out though he corrected her saying Bonnie won the Tony.  No, Seth.  She did not.