Soul Doctor re-opening Off-Broadway Dec. 1 at Actors Temple Theatre

[AntV]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 8:29pm

https://www.telecharge.com/eventoverview.aspx?cityName=NY%20City%20Area&productId=10412

Who's excited to see this again!!???

[blaxx]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 8:37pm

[JBroadway]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 9:09pm

I know I'm in minority but i really liked this show! glad it's getting to live on (hopefully they'll make a cast recording!)

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 9:10pm

It reminds me of a 50's movie where the monster keeps on coming back in the next movie even after it was killed off in the previous one.

[rjm516]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 9:19pm

I missed a lot of the discussion when this show came out, but I saw this on the telecharge page:

""Unabashedly celebratory! A fascinating story with beautiful music.” – The New York Times "

True? Was this a good review from NYT? I thought it was supposed to be awful.

[brdway411]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 10:33pm

WHY???

[haterobics]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 10:43pm

All those words do appear in the Times review, which ends: "I found it disappointing that this intriguing figure came across as a bland, bromide-spouting relic of the hippie era, albeit one tie-dyed in classic Jewish guilt. Sometimes the most interesting and inspiring lives are the most difficult to dramatize."

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 10:56pm

No. Way.

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 11:06pm

They probably figured they wanted to make sure they took advantage of that great post Tony Awards buzz.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 11:11pm

Oy.

When I saw this at NYTW I thought it was in pretty rough shape, but he did lead an interesting life and his relationship with Nina Simone could be the basis for a good musical/play with music. The runtime of 3 hours was a killer, and with so much extraneous material I felt it was safe to assume the creators would refocus the show solely on Shlomo and Simone and the next incarnation would be much better.

The Broadway version was the exact same show that it was at NYTW. They didn't fix anything! What's the point of doing a try-out if you don't work on the piece? Clearly the creators couldn't see the problems with the piece and were unwilling (or unable) to make the necessary changes.

Truly, that night of the Broadway production was one of the most torturous I've spent watching a live musical. I've seen a few worse NYMF and Fringe shows, but you can't compare something at that level with a piece deemed fit for the Broadway stage. There was this sense of dread the night might never end and I would be forced to spend the rest of eternity in the Circle in the Square with Shlomo.

I wonder if this new production will be a remounting of the old one or if they FINALLY made the changes they should have made years ago. I have a relatively high threshold for pain, but I don't know if I'm enough of a masochist to find out.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 11:43pm

[brdway411]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 11:49pm

If they were going to bring back a show from last season, how about Bridges.

[macnyc]

Posted: 6/9/14 at 11:53pm

Bridges would be very nice on a smaller stage. But I would suggest a better actual bridge.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 12:00am

Whizzer, I saw it on Broadway after it had opened, and the running time was about 2:30, so they apparently did make significant cuts to it since the preview that you saw. I didn't find it earth-shattering or one of my 30 favorites or anything like that, but i thought that it was cute and pleasant and I was glad that I had seen it once though i did not feel any impulse to see it again during its run.

Maybe Off Broadway isn't a bad home for it. It is certainly better than one of the other productions at that same theatre, Honestly Abe. Honestly Abe was one of the most boring, inane, poorly written, poorly performed, dragging pieces that i had ever seen, and the only thing that kept me from walking out mid-show was that there were only 6 audience members and the actors kept making eye contact so i would have felt bad for them. In comparison, Soul Doctor will be the masterpiece playing at that theatre.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 11:54am

It did so well on Broadway and received such universal praise that I'm not surprised by this news at all.

[Vespertine1228]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 11:55am

All the other shows at the Actors' Temple are non-equity. I assume they're completely recasting it then? It's a total dump of a space.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 12:04pm

Oh yes, that place is an absolute dump.

Adam, I heard that they did eventually do some trimming, but it was too little too late. They should have cut that 30 minutes between off-Broadway and Broadway, not wait until the hostile reception on Broadway.

The idea of a rabbi trying to bring his music to the masses and his lifelong friendship with Nina Simone is a great basis for a musical. Unfortunately they left this storyline as a mere subplot of his life, and anytime it veered away from this it was a mess.

Did they still leave in that hippie orgy at the top of act two? That should have been the first sequence to go!

[Kad]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 12:10pm

Can't wait to turn down a comp offer for it!

Updated On: 6/10/14 at 12:10 PM

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 12:33pm

Only 6 audience members in attendance?!!?
The show must go on I guess.

Maybe they are bringing it back because they need another tax deduction?

[hi127]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 12:50pm

It's having the regional premiere in Montreal at the Segal Centre.
http://www.segalcentre.org/whats-on/upcoming-events/theatre-3/segal-theatre/soul-doctor/

I can imagine they will be trimming and fine tuning more after this production.

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 12:54pm

This gives me hope we'll see Bronx Bombers again.

[FloydJoe2]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 1:14pm

I'm looking at the performance schedule for this and it has a performance every single day. Not one day off. Though I see that Fridays are at 2 PM and no night show, Is this performance schedule allowed?

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 2:08pm

Though it sounds like it will be a non-equity production, even if it was equity, my understanding is that as long as they are not exceeding 8 shows in a given week, they can schedule them any damn time they please. Those of you with definitive knowledge, feel free to state if this is not correct. They are not performing Friday evenings because of the Jewish Sabbath, a group they figure to be their key target demographic if anyone is going to come at all.

Updated On: 6/10/14 at 02:08 PM

[Vespertine1228]

Posted: 6/10/14 at 2:16pm

This is not correct. There are all sorts of rules about when shows can be scheduled on an Equity contract.

It depends on the contract, but the general rule is that there must be at least one day off per week. There also cannot be more than five performances in a three-day span. There are also rules about the length of time required between performances on two-show days. If it's a long show and it plays at 2 and 7, for example, the producers are required to feed the crew and sometimes even the actors.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 6/11/14 at 5:02am

Whizzer, I vaguely remember something like a hippie orgy-like scene, though it was about 6 months ago now and my memory of the show is fairly fuzzy.


Yeah, the 6 audience members (in a room with about a hundred or so chairs) is the smallest audience that I have ever been in. And after (or rather, while) seeing the show, I understood why no one came, and just wished that I had gotten the memo beforehand.