Steel Pier

No no no! This is our HAPPY time!! No Steel Pier talk when Curtains is about to open!!

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"Ziemba couldn't really carry the show..."

Bullsh*t. She was one of the few aspects that worked.

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I saw the show twice. Loved everything about it and Stroman once again surpassed herself with her sensational choreography. Wow!

I feel it didn't find an audience. Marketing on the show was lackluster (almost non-existant).

Interesting statement about Liza, CPD, as this was written with the intention of making Ziemba into Kander and Ebb's next "Liza."

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The book did have issues, but I really loved the score and the show (in general). I disagree about the choreography being some of Strohman's strongest -- it was good, but not her best. I'd say Contact was probably her strongest and Crazy For You wasn't too shabby either. Ziemba was (IMO) the strongest female performance of the season. She gave EVERYTHING in Steel Pier and really took the audience on a journey. I can't remember seeing a show where I was pulling so strongly for a character to take that final step and change their life. Unfortunately, Chicago revival happened the same season and snapped up several of the awards that would have normally gone to other shows/performers. Add to that the turning of the tides in Titanic's favor and Steel Pier missed out on all of its awards and, ultimately, closed. Had it picked up a performance award or choreography, it might have lasted longer. IMO, it deserved best score and show over Titanic (which deserved scenic design and orchestrations).

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Updated On: 3/16/07 at 02:08 PM

i liked it.

It was dark and desperate all right.

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Oh, I forgot about that pole dance, that was pretty bad.

But I loved the group dances.

I don't have much of a memory of the score (never bought the cast album -- little of it made much of an impression on me in the theater anyway -- and frankly I don't ever want to be reminded of the experience of sitting through it ever again), but I found the show to be both annoying and a numbing repetitive bore to sit through.

I can rarely remember being so utterly uninterested in a collection of characters as I was with those in this show -- I didn't care about ANYBODY up there. The choreography and staging were flat, redundant (by the end I felt as if I'd actually sat through a 60 day dance marathon) and pedestrian (Ziemba's big solo dance number looked like she was expending a whole lot of energy for zero impact -- it never took off and just sorta sat there). The cast was, by turns either bland and plastic (Harrison, McDonald, Wright) or over-the top and trying WAAAAY too hard to make an impression (Chenoweth grated on me and Monk seemed to be channeling Ethel Merman's louder, brassier, more annoying sister -- she chewed so much scenery during "Everybody's Girl" at one point I thought that she might swallow the mic whole; I've never seen someone work so hard to try to stop a show and fail so miserably -- at a certain point I just wanted her to stop and get off the stage, but the damn thing went on for another 3 interminable verses).

The whole mess somehow managed to almost put me to sleep AND give me a throbbing headache. HATE that show.

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Updated On: 3/16/07 at 03:58 PM

I loved the show. I found it extremely moving and felt that Ziemba gave a remarkably fine performance.

Still, neither the writing nor the production was 100 percent there. And while I had no problem with the mystical side of it, clearly many people did and that may have have been an impossible hurdle for many audiences.

Btw, apart from the fact that the title song is not meant to be a song written with a high level of sophistication so it would make sense if a word was misused, the first meanings of uproarious are "in an uproar, tumultuous," or "noisy." Which would certainly describe the steel pier, where so much was always going on.

Updated On: 3/16/07 at 04:51 PM

I enjoyed it as well

Too bad so many did not like it

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I'm sorry to ask, but what is the meaning of the title. I only know the basics of the show, and the title has always confused me.