Simple versions of big musicals?

Do you have any examples of big musicals done small and barebones?
(i.e. John Doyle's Sweeney Todd)

There was a very scaled down, almost Brechtian version of My Fair Lady that made the rounds of the regional circuit a few years back that was directed by Amanda Dehnert. It was a two piano arrangement with, if I remember hearing correctly, the pianos onstage and the action taking place around them.

I think that's the one I saw at the McCarter in 2004, with Michael Cumpsty as Higgins.

I'd actually forgotten that it was just the two pianos until now. So I guess I didn't have a problem with it (though I also don't remember much else about it).

Wasn't the reduction something Loewe approved a while ago? Or am I thinking of something else completely?

It's possible, newintown. I just remember that the one that friends of mine worked on at the Cleveland Playhouse back in 2006 or so, and that was a co-production with, I think, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, was directed by Amanda Dehnert. I don't know which came first, Griffin's two piano production or Dehnert's, but, from what I recall hearing, Dehnert took the small-scale concept much further than Griffin, giving the show a very Brechtian feel; no set, costume changes happening on stage in view of the audience by adding pieces that were scattered around the stage, that sort of thing.

I'll also add that Susan Schulman also did a stripped down Sweeney Todd some fifteen years before Doyle did his own small-scale take on the show.

ETA - a quick Google search shows that Amanda Dehnert has been mounting this production at least as early as 2000 (at the Trinity Rep) and it is part of this upcoming season at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. So there must be something to it if so many companies are willing to keep mounting it.

Updated On: 1/18/13 at 02:14 PM

There is a reworked small cast version of "The Rothschilds" that is available to license.

From this New York Times article on the McCarter production (which was Griffin's) it sounds like while his and Dehnert's share the two piano and no chorus idea the style seems to be different. It doesn't seem like Griffin's is quite as stripped to the bare bones as Dehnert's production is.

The article also states that the two piano arrangement, at least the one used for Griffin's production, was created in the 50s by Trude Rittman, at the request of Loewe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/movies/my-fair-lady-in-miniature.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Well the two piano orchestrations were actually written back in the 50s for touring productions in small houses. So that is not Amanda's creation. But the bare bones, pared down production of the show itself, with pianos on stage, etc, was developed by Amanda. I'm not sure what Griffin's production was like...if he just used the orchestrations and created his own pared down version, or if he was "inspired" in any way by Amanda's production.

ETA: you beat me to it AEA.

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Updated On: 1/18/13 at 02:54 PM

Dependent on your definition of "simple" whether it is in relation to the original production or limited to no set and orchestra. If it is the former than I defintly think that the 2009 revival of Ragtime qualifies. Their outlined set worked billiantly. I definitly did not miss the fireworks and replica Model T. Its set helped make the production about the characters rather than the spectacle of a set. Honestly if the original production used the revival's somewhat minimalist concept it might of beat Lion King for best production, since it too would of had some sort of inventive spectacle, adding to its already more solid book and score.

Well the two piano orchestrations were actually written back in the 50s for touring productions in small houses.

Yes. I was going to add that summer stock houses in the "provinces" (as well as off-off-Broadway theaters) have been doing reduced-size productions with single or double-piano orchestras (with or without approval) since time immemorial.

I spent the summer of 1975 performing THE SOUND OF MUSIC in a seven-row theater in Appalachia. I played *all* the Nazis and we found a full contingent of von Trapp children in the local Baptist choir.

Updated On: 1/18/13 at 07:08 PM