Steel Pier

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Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:22am

What was wrong with this show? I'm curious.

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re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:26am

Me too. I saw it and loved it. A few weeks later, it has closed.

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re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:28am

A beautiful production with some great numbers but the critics mauled it. I loved the whole piece. and listen to it very often. Great cast, just look at the names!

A young actress with Noel coward after a dreadful opening night performance said to him 'Well, i knew my lines backwards this morning!'' Noels fast reply was ''Yes dear, and thats exactly how you said them tonight'!'

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:29am

This exact same inquiry was covered extensively on a thread started on 3/16/07:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=928809#2884457

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:31am

I enjoy the CD, but found the show on-stage to be weak. I blame the failure primarily on the book... but I also heard (and maybe someone can verify this for me) that one of the stars of the show -- Gregory Harrison, I think -- had some money in the show. He wasn't a lead producer but had enough invested that he could make suggestions and that was one of the downfalls of the show. Of course I could be totally wrong and just started another rumor, but that's what I heard after the show had closed.

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:34am

Dont read this one then!

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:42am

I was in the show over the summer and I really had a lot of fun with it. I think that most of the problem with it was probably in the book, as the critics said, but it really wasn't anything that couldn't have been fixed, and it's really a shame that it closed as soon as it did. Karen Ziemba and Debra Monk are fantastic on the CR and of course, Kristin Chenoweth made her Broadway debut in it, and all in all, it really had tons of potential. It's just too bad =(

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 11:56am

This was one of the first shows I saw when I moved out here. I remember sitting in the rear balcony and ther ewas MAYBE 10 people in the entire balcony, so we all moved to the 1st row. I liked the show, Debra Monk was FANTASTIC! But I still remember my ex boyfriend totally falling asleep along with about 4 other people sitting next to us.

Jack: For your information, most people who meet me do not know that I am gay. Will: Jack, blind and deaf people know you're gay. Dead people know you're gay. Jack: Grace, when you first met me, did you know I was gay? Grace: My dog knew.

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 12:36pm

What is wrong with the book specifically?

#10

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 12:41pm

Again...its covered here:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardid=1&boardname=bway&thread=928809#2884457

#11

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 12:46pm

Cant you just ignore and pass by a threat you dont want to read?

#12

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 1:00pm

What is wrong with the book specifically?

#13

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 1:04pm

LOVE THIS SHOW!

Isn't it basically a rip off of "They Shoot Horses..." but they couldn't get the rights?

I would have gone with someone other than Ziemba, though, she is at her least annoying here.

#14

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 3:19pm

Well, the simple fact is, Kander & Ebb wrote the show specifically for KZ - so blame them.

Briliant score, great choreography*, great cast. LOUSY book, LOUSY direction. David Thompson and Scott Ellis proved that they are good at adapting old shows, but cannot create an original work.

*except for the section of "Running in Place" where poor KZ had to spin around on a flagpole like a stripper.

#15

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/12/08 at 3:25pm

Oh I have a long list of people I blame for the casting of Zzzzzzzzzzzziemba in many-a-production.

#16

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/13/08 at 7:23am

In his book The Happiest Corpse I've Ever Seen,
Ethan Mordden chooses it as one of the few interesting shows of the 1990's. It was not a disaster as you can probably tell from the OCR.

The main reason it closed so quickly is that producer Roger Berlind was also co-producer on THE LIFE. Both shows were struggling at the box office but THE LIFE won 2 Tonys and STEEL PIER got none. So he decided to put his promotional effort behind THE LIFE and pulled the plug on STEEL PIER.

It's a show I expect will be reworked and brought back at some point.

Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!

I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com

#17

re: Steel Pier

Posted: 1/13/08 at 12:03pm

It's fascinating that someone with Sutton Foster as an av dares to criticize Karen Ziemba.

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