Setting a play/musical in a different time period.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/3/06 at 7:40pm

I was watching clips of a revival of SHE LOVES ME staged at the Ahmanson Theatre a number of years ago and was intrigued that, instead of setting the show in the 1930s as written, they chose instead to set it turn of the century (Somebody must have had some MUSIC MAN costumes they wanted to re-use).

Now, I suppose there is no real reason why SHE LOVES ME wouldn't work in that time period, or if set in the 50s or even modern day (though it would certainly feel strange if they did that) and I was curious if anybody has had any experience with productions that have done something like this: taken a play or musical and set them in a different time period from which they were originally written.

Shakespeare and the classics, of course, don't count. And obviously, when changing the time period affects the text and becomes a legality doesn't cout either.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 10/3/06 at 10:16pm

I've done a few of those, but one of my favourites was a production of PICNIC by Inge, which was moved to the Florida Coast and set in the early 60s, about a decade later and 1500 miles east of what Inge wanted. It worked pretty darn well. But things like this have to be approached carefully and thoroughly; as I used to tell my design students, you can set KING LEAR on the Msrs, but you *have* to make sure you've thought it all the way through.

[OtherDaryl]

Posted: 10/3/06 at 10:26pm

I once did a 1950's-ish She Loves Me in Summer Stock that worked out well - Dior's New Look and all. Our Amalia choked on plastic snow in the Christmas number and all the keys had to be lowered! The Maitre'D was played as a Marlene Dietrich type in a tux by Ellen Dolan, more recently of The Guiding Light. She was faaaabulous.

Since Dolly's been on a few threads lately, I'll admit I always thought it might be fun to update that to the 20's with a Charleston contest at the Harmonia Gardens and such. I wonder what Mr. Herman would think of that? A bit Mame-ish, I'll admit.

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 10/3/06 at 10:44pm

Hah, we seem to have this debate a LOT in my Set Design class.

Akiva

[dkonbroadway]

Posted: 10/3/06 at 10:49pm

my school is doing As You Like It set in 1969....

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:20am

So did the Stratford Festival last season...with music by the Bare Naked Ladies. One of my design profs raved about how well it worked.

Akiva

[kyle.]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 5:21am

I thought it was awful, although I did see it in previews. How many times are we going to see AYLI done in the 60s/70s?

[StageManager2]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 6:58am

Ad infinitum.

[Jon]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 7:37am

In 1971, my junior high school did BYE BYE BIRDIE and set it in 1971. That was fine - there still was an Ed Sullivan Show and there still was a military draft.

I worked opn an updated BELLS ARE RINGING in the late 1970's. There still were answering services at the time. The Marlon Brando-wannabe actor became a DeNiro-wannabe, and we had fun updating the lyrics to "Drop That Name". "Mu-Cha-Cha" brecame a disco number.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 9:31am

If you ever want to see some fascinating time trips, check out Peter Sellars' work (the director, not the actor) on Mozart's "Da Ponte" trio -- MARRIGE OF FIGARO set in the Trump Tower, DON GIOVANNI in Spanish Harlem, and COSI FAN TUTTE in a Coney Island diner. He takes some wild liberties, but they work splendidly.

[Pippin]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 10:28am

I did a production last year of "Lucky Stiff" and it was a show within a show concept set in the 1950's.

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 10:34am

I saw a high school production of YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU set in the 1990s, complete with Clinton references and all.

It was abismal.

Updated On: 10/4/06 at 10:34 AM

[Jon]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:01pm

I always felt LUCKY STIFF had a 50's/60's feel to it. All you have to change is making the tape recorder with the dead uncle's instructions a reel-to-reel instead of a casette.

[Pippin]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:31pm

why, Jon, that's exactly what we did.

are you my director in disguise??

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 4:09pm

New York City Opera did this with La Traviata in the late 80s/early 90s and set it in the present. It wasn't until a couple of years later that it looked really dated. It really wasn't very good, though somehow the managed to work a male stripper into the proceedings (I kid you not).

Wasn't one of Gilbert & Sullivan pieces (can't remember exactly which one) set in the 20s (can't remember who did this production).

[joshy]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 4:54pm

There was a fabulous As You Like It set in the 30s last year in London with Helen McRory and Sienna Miller.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 4:56pm

That's the Stratford's Brighton Beach black and white version of THE MIKADO -- and great fun it is, too.

Yeah, that TRAVIATA just went nowhere fast. The guy wasnt a stripper, actually -- he was supposed to represent her conscience (I think -- it was all terribly murky).

I'm still waiting on someone to do a Kabuki version of the RING cycle.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 4:59pm

SeanMartin, thanks for clearing that up. I could have sworn he disrobed, or maybe that was my imagination!! I remember not being terribly moved by that particular production of La Traviata.

[singingwendy]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 7:37pm

Baz Luhrman's "La Boheme" moved the setting to 1950's Paris. I thought it worked.

While in college, the theatre department did a production of "The MIkado" which was set in a fantasy world rather than Japan. The women all wore babydoll dresses. Everyone who was "important" wore and Elizabethan ruffled collar, and the more important you were, the bigger your collar....thus the Mikado's collar was HUGE. Oh...and all the characters wore different colored Chuck Taylor high tops.

[Jon]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 8:14pm

Peter Sellars directed a production of MIKADO set in modern Tokyo, with the set full of neon signs. The "Gentlemen of Japan" were in business suits with briefcases, and instead of fans, they waved yellow legal pads. Needless to say, the Three Little Maids were in sexy schoolgirl outfits.