Shows HURT by later revisions- Page 2

[roseaddams]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 11:27am

I don't like the revisions to The Mystery of Edwin Drood post-Broadway. I prefer most of the original songs to their replacements (Settling Up the Score over A Private Investigation, Ceylon over A British Subject) and don't think A Man Could Go Quite Mad should have been cut from the first act. It sets up Jasper's character and helps to justify the way he acts throughout the show.

I think the restructuring hurts it also. The Name of Love and Moonfall reprise is a far more impressive act break than Off to the Races.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 12:20pm

Chess.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 12:44pm

devonian, I was just going to say Chess!

So I'll say another:

The Fix! It was better in London.

[Holbee]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 1:16pm

Chess??? Chess??? The original London Chess??? With a half hour of over-rhymed and smug chorus songs at the beginning that have nothing to do the three characters we are supposed to be following???

Chess on Broadway, with a relevant and youthful (though not entirely successful) book by Richard Nelson SOOOOOOO improved upon the ****e Trevor Nunn was forced to direct on the West End.

Yes, it ran much longer in London where they have less need for a finely structured musical (as long as they have a moving chess board, quite) but the result was the same. Both productions lost money, some say the London lost its entire investment (as did the B'way).
Updated On: 10/4/10 at 01:16 PM

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 1:34pm

West Side Story

[Famebroadway2]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 3:04pm

BIG- The tour and published version of the show are terrible compared to the Broadway version.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 4:08pm

Little Me - the Martin Short-Faith Prince took a vaudeville-burlesque comedy edge out and put in nothing to really take their place. Also combining Young Belle and Older Belle into one character did no one any favors and turned a second act showstopper of a duet of the two Belles into a dull opening number.

Annie Get Your Gun - every time the rewrites kicked in the show slowed and sometimes stopped. They just took the fun out.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 4:12pm

One of the things I find most interesting about this chat board are the differing opinions on the same show. I've always used Longbottom's direction of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL as a perfect example of how a new director's vision of the same show could improve it so dramatically. It seemed everything I thought needed changing in the show was addressed and changed for the better by him. The show I saw in previews just before opening night was long, old fashioned and boring. Though I enjoyed Christine Andreas's singing, Rachael York and Rex Smith were wonderful in its' last incarnation. The evening flew by and the show succeeded in ways it hadn't before.

Also have to agree with JEKYLL AND HYDE. I first saw it in Seattle on its' pre Broadway run. The sets were amazing and the show impressed me. What I saw later in NY was a chamber type musical scaled down for a smaller stage. The wonderful laboratory set was completely gone. What I disliked the most though was how dimly lit the stage was. Though I imagine the powers that be thought it added an atmopheric quality to the show it made me long for the out of town production's staging even more.

Listening to the cast album of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS it sounds like the out of town production titled HOLLY GOLIGHTLY was a lot more fun than the never to open Edward Albee version in New York that closed abruptly in previews.

[camncal]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 5:00pm

Lestat.

[Cape Twirl of Doom]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 5:29pm

^^You beat me to it, I was just about to say LESTAT. While the songs were better in NY, the staging and plot were even worse than before. At least in San Francisco that show made sense and was kinda fun. The NY version (except for a few of the songs) was just dull.

[bk]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 5:58pm

"I know 9 to 5 had issues.. but It was a HIT in LA.... Maybe some of the changes hindered the Broadway Show?"

Everything is a "HIT" in LA - it's a joke. Minsky's was a HIT in LA. Leap of Faith will be a HIT in LA.

And what changes do you suppose were made in 9 to 5? Very few, I can assure you. Which is the problem. Any NY producers/creators who become complacent after LA are fools.

Tom Jones has revised both 110 In The Shade and I Do! I Do!, both for the worse. And I love Tom Jones, and I love Harvey Schmidt even more (he's a dear friend), and I certainly have told them this to their faces. Only one of them agrees with me, however. :)

[ElphabaRose]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 6:12pm

High Fidelity.

It went through drastic changes in Boston (at least in my eyes, there were two very clear incarnations during that run). The second Boston version was far better than what showed up in NYC. It still wasn't great, but it was a lot more fun and had a couple of songs that were replaced by far worse ones when it arrived in NY.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 7:17pm

I actually disagree with Big's nay-sayers. I think the tour version is a VAST improvement.

I still think the show is missing a key thing...an 11'o clock number for Josh.

[Midnight Radio]

Posted: 10/4/10 at 8:46pm

I know I am in the extreme minority, but I loathe the addition of "Something Just Broke" to Assassins...

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 10/5/10 at 1:24am

this may be just a personal preference... but I prefer the original Martin Guerre that opened in London... the tour wasn't all that great... now i never saw the original live but i did see it...

and while I agree with the sentiment about everything in LA being a hit... I saw the Martin Guerre tour almost ten years ago and that was definitely NOT a hit! the ahmanson was practically empty and a lot of people left after the first act! and the tour was canned after LA i think

[bk]

Posted: 10/5/10 at 2:05am

That was ten years ago - it's a different theater world in LA now. The only shows the critics seem to really go after, ironically, are tours. Anything that's trying out here, even when the reviews are tepid, seem to get some sort of pass, as if the reviewers are afraid to call it the way it is - because then LA might not get so many tryouts. If one goes to the Ahmanson to see any tryout these days, the LA audiences act as if they're seeing the best thing since white bread - it's really astonishing.

[westycenterstagejack]

Posted: 10/6/10 at 7:46pm

SEUSSICAL for sure.

I hate that Frank Galati seemed to just completely misinterpret the entire essence of the show. I hate that MOST directors just completely don't understand the emotional aspect of the show as well as the silly. It really should be a cheap as HELL show to put on, because it really is more impressionistic than most make it out to be.

Also, no matter what, I find myself missing some of the songs from NEXT TO NORMAL that existed Off-Broadway and no longer do (Growing Up Unstable mainly), as well as some of the reprises that heftied up the second act of SPRING AWAKENING Off-Broadway. But both of those were very minor things that effected the show neither negatively or positively.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 10/6/10 at 8:16pm

"SEUSSICAL for sure.

I hate that Frank Galati seemed to just completely misinterpret the entire essence of the show. I hate that MOST directors just completely don't understand the emotional aspect of the show as well as the silly. It really should be a cheap as HELL show to put on, because it really is more impressionistic than most make it out to be."

The Theatreworks production that Marcia Milgrom-Dodge staged showed how simple Seussical can be. Theatreworks bills it as their largest show, but that is purely based on cast size. The set itself is on the smaller side compared to some of their other shows (Click, Clack, Moo and Junie B. Jones both have larger physical productions).

This may sound cheesy, but the opening number provides a perfect guideline for any director taking on the show: "Oh, the Thinks You Can Think." Use that to create a world where you ask your audience to use their imagination and actually THINK about what they are seeing. It's amazing how many kids become completely enthralled during the Theatreworks production. They completely accept the use of everyday items as the props and don't question it for an instance; for instance, Mayzie's nest and egg is simply a basketball in an inflatable pool intertube, the clover is a bath poof, and the Pill-Berry Bush is a gumball machine.

Now not every show needs, or would benefit from, this kind of paring down, but there are definitely some that can.

[quizking101]

Posted: 10/6/10 at 8:25pm

I'm surprised nobody said TABOO....wasn't it a hit in london and then when charles Busch rewrote the entire book for Broadway, it slaughtered the show completely.

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 10/6/10 at 8:51pm

9 To 5. I saw it in L.A. and thought it had the Tony in the bag! Guess not...

[bandit964]

Posted: 10/7/10 at 8:02am

Tanz der Vampire