Shows that shouldn't/won't be revived- Page 3

[Tchi4Lif188]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 10:04am

LESTAT

[MrsVampyre]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 10:11am

They would have to revamp/update the story line for Hair to be sucessful.

Remember, at the end of the show... the main character ends up conforming, and going into the military.

Thinking about it.. if the draft was ever reinstated for the "war on terror"... it may work.

But, wouldn't a revival of Johnny got his gun be more the point, and topical? As it shows ths real horrors of war.

[G_Schlozinski2]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 10:23am

No reason both couldn't work. I'd suggest though, that Johnny should be done in a small theatre (at least from the producer's perspective); Hair has name recognition and hummable tunes.

But if you've read my posts re: musicals based on movies (which are usually based on books or shows... LOL), i like the challenge of starting with something impossible and making it possible... Politics and theatre* both challenge the creative spirit to take up the 'art of the possible.'

* "Also opera. Also rodeos,
carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal
dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man
band - all Theater. Wherever there's
magic and make-believe and an audience - there's Theater. Donald Duck, Ibsen,
and The Lone Ranger, Sarah Bernhardt,
Poodles Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne,
Betty Grable, Rex and Wild, and
Eleanora Duse. You don't understand
them all, you don't like them all,
why should you? The Theater's for
everybody - you included, but not
exclusively - so don't approve or
disapprove. It may not be your
Theater, but it's Theater of somebody,
somewhere."

EVE
I just asked a simple question.

[MrsVampyre]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 10:45am

This is true.

Agree about needing a small theatre for Johnny.. something like the Booth would work, and that could potentially be a little large for such a heavy drama.

Hair would do much better. It is more known (saddly) and the music was popular when it first ran. It was always an Off Broadway proudction..wasn't it??

I'm going to have to read your other posts now :0

Theatre and politcals should challenge the creative spirt. Both should make you think, and question the current state of affairs.
With the theatre and politics one person can truly make a difference.

Your statement of "The Theater's for
everybody - you included, but not
exclusively - so don't approve or
disapprove. It may not be your
Theater, but it's Theater of somebody,
somewhere."
is right on the mark. Theatre is a very personal experience for the cast, crew, writers.... and the audience. Everyone takes home something special from the experience.

[G_Schlozinski2]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 10:58am

HAIR was the A CHORUS LINE of its day...
NYSF ---------> Broadway

thanks for the compliment re: the comment about theate, but the words are Mankiewicz' not mine. (Bill Richards quoted them to me in Margo's dressing room that fateful night...)

I'm wondering where you think 'theatre' in its purer form, is headed. I keep recalling the scene from the film, "Fahrenheit 451," in which Julie Christie sits in front of the wall-sized television participating in the dialogue on an interactive program... When called upon to perform, of course, she can't even come up with the answer to the simplest question, but it's her '15 seconds of fame' (cf. my comments about Grey Gardens and 'fame' v. 'infamy - LOL), so it's really, really BAD theatre.

... I'm going to have to re-read Sennet's "the fall of public man" and "the conscience of the eye" to see if there are clues there.

(blowing my own little horn here, to satisfy my ego and maybe help consider a career move, don't you think i'd make an interesting and challenging interactive 'professor of theatre arts?')

[G_Schlozinski2]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 11:01am

ugh! can you believe all the BOOKS Schlozinski is making us read!

whatever!

(no, the proper reading of that line is... 'whatever!')

[Tom148502]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 11:12am

Mrs. Vampyre asked about HAIR

"It was always an Off Broadway proudction..wasn't it??"

Certainly not, after playing the Public Theatre and a mid-town nightclub called Cheetah, it opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway on April 29, 1968 and played for 1,750 performances.

FYI, HAIR opens at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, NY this week.

[MrsVampyre]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 11:17am

Thanks.. I wasn't sure if Hair was off or on Broadway.

Hummm.. Theatre in it's prue form is having a hard time. It's so expsensive to put on a totally new production. Finacially, revivals are safer bets.

New fresh plays that make people think are getting rarer. Also, a play writer can make so much more money in Hollywood. Fewer people are writing just for the stage.

Mammet's new play November sounds very promising. People tend to be more comfortable with comedies, and musicals when trying to get a point/message across.

I'd like to see a show done based on the wrtings of Jorge Luis Borges. But, I don't think that would have much draw..

Yes, I can totally see you as a professor of theatre arts, or at the very least writing a column on the history and state of the theatre. Something should be out there for people to access to learn more about the theatre.

[G_Schlozinski2]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 11:31am

... we'll see where it goes.
after 35 years, i'm anxious to live somewhere i'm not 7 stories off the ground.
metaphorically, of course, i'll never be anywhere but 7 stories off the ground... even my nursery school teachers were frustrated when everyone was singing, 'if you're happy and you know it clap your hands...' and i had to stop to consider the question...
but it would be nice to live at the beach for a change.

[MrsVampyre]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 11:43am

I still think it's a good idea, and would like to know what you decide.. I'd take the course, or read the column. ;0

Change can be good for the soul, even it's not a huge change, or taken in smaller steps.

We are like.. my teachers used to tell me.. just take it on faith.. don't question so much!

Living in a city is more stimulating, and interesting than the county. Where I am, it's the land of "soccer moms" and silos of thought. No one questions anything. It's a land of sheep blindly following the leader. And yes.. it's at the beach... well lake actually.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 11:46am

When I was in Toronto a year ago last March, there was talk about a first-class, bound-for-NY revival of HAIR that was starting in TO. Anyone know what happened to it? I think it was scheduled to open in May 2006.

[whatever2]

Posted: 7/14/07 at 3:36pm

aren't there supposed to be free concert performances of Hair this fall, sponsored (i think) by the Public?

[MrsVampyre]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 3:52pm

I actually looked, as I would like to see how Hair would be treated in today's enviroment. Would they update the storyline to some extent??

Saddly, all I could find was a production scheduled for the West End. Perhaps, it will come to NYC in the future.

[BroadwayEnthusiast2]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 3:55pm

I want Ragtime to be revived. Legally Blonde- will never be revived. I don't know if Hairspray would every be revived because the original prosution is just so perfect.

[G_Schlozinski2]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 7:43pm

hmmm... i wonder if anyone thought, "they'll never be able to revive Oklahoma! the production is just too perfect... and there'll never be anyone who'd be able to re-stage Agnes' coreography..."


Updated On: 7/15/07 at 07:43 PM

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Posted: 7/15/07 at 8:31pm

My rule is "never say never" -- at some point people have an odd fascination with resurrecting things for better (or worse). Personally, I would much rather see very few revivals and mostly all new productions.

That sad, here are shows I would prefer to not be revived:
Cats
A Chorus Line
Les Miserables
The Woman in White
Rent
Spring Awakening
Tommy
Bye Bye Byrdie
Annie

Shows I would like to see re-assessed for revival perhaps, or perhaps just limited engagements. Not immediately necessarily (most of them in fact I would like to wait at least 10 years) but reshown in some form at some point:
- King David
- Miss Saigon
- Sunset Boulevard
- Cabaret
- Ragtime

[G_Schlozinski2]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 10:38pm

Do you think Jane Mast's play, "Sex," will ever be revived?

[BDavis0092]

Posted: 7/15/07 at 11:10pm

I really hope Cats never comes back. It wouldn't last. There was something special about it's original run which made it last so long. It would never make it today.

[TapTapTapioca]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 1:33am

The Wiz... well, I hoped the LaJolla production would transfer, but now that that's petered out, any other production of the show certainly looks unlikely for Bway.


It's your lucky day!

The La Jolla production is not going to be transfered but the San Fran one will!

[mll85]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 1:54am

The La Jolla production is not going to be transfered but the San Fran one will!

The Wiz scheduled to play in San Francisco summer 2008 is the version that was produced in LaJolla, although I'm guessing they tweaked it since then. But last I heard, that's its pre-broadway run.

[MrsVampyre]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 2:10am

They are seriously going to revive The Wiz?? I know it was popular in it's day. But when you really look the production, it's lacking in the storyline, and character development.

Do you know if they are revamping it all??

[jordanromero2]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 9:10am

My picks are Mamma Mia and The Full Monty. It's not that I don't like these shows, I just can't picture them as revivals.

[Den]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 11:23am

With regards to "Hair" in Toronto last year:

It was put on by CanStage but was trashed by critics. I never heard anything about intentions to send it to New York.

(Weird coincidence: I saw it the day before seeing Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me and wouldn't have understood the Hair parody in that show otherwise.)

[danielloz]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 6:48pm

I am looking at my liener(sp?) notes and aparently Hair already had a revival.
Says: "By the time Hair ended it's run on Broadway, on July 1, 1972, it had become a casualty of changing trends, a show so identified with its own time that a revival, in October 1977, failed even to raise an eyebrow in an otherwise busy Broadway season and closed after only 43 performances"
They would obviously have to revamp/ rewrite it to do well

[danielloz]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 6:50pm

sorry, lienier notes to Hair Broadway Delexe Collectors Edition