Steel Pier Question
Steel Pier Question
Steel Pier Question#1
Posted: 4/11/11 at 9:01pmI made this account to ask this one question. I have never seen Steel Pier but I own the soundtrack. I was wondering is it sung-through? Because when I look for the script I only find the complete song lyrics. If it isn't could someone send me the script? Also was it really that bad?
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
Steel Pier Question#2
Posted: 4/11/11 at 9:53pm
I can only answer the last question
It was not that bad. I enjoyed it . Unfortunately the theme made it a hard sell (depression era dance marathons)
It also was not sung thru. It had a book.
Steel Pier Question#2
Posted: 4/11/11 at 10:21pm
You can purchase the script through Samuel French. Here's the link
http://www.samuelfrench.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/2764
Steel Pier Question#3
Posted: 4/12/11 at 12:18am
This show was written because they couldn't get the rights to "They Shoot Horses Don't They?" It sort of ended up being an "uh oh, we didn't get the rights, so what do we do now?"
The show was deadly dull. It was so slow paced. The only time the audience responded during Act 1 was during Debra Monk's "Anybody's Girl". And Karen Ziemba didn't have it in her to rise above the material.
Perhaps if the show had a better director, it might have come out better. But Ellis couldn't push Kander/Ebb to crank out better songs.
Overall, it was just a dull night in the theater when people expected razzle dazzle.
Steel Pier Question#4
Posted: 4/12/11 at 1:08amCan cast albums legitimitely be called soundtracks?
Steel Pier Question#5
Posted: 4/12/11 at 2:49am^ Only the cast album for Contact which is technically also a Broadway soundtrack. There might be a few others.
Steel Pier Question#6
Posted: 4/12/11 at 10:22am
It was a really nonsensical, rather stupid show. As noted above, Monk's "Everybody's Girl" woke the audience up, but only because it was surprisingly loud and vulgar - if you gave it a moment's thought, though, the song made no sense. It was supposed to be sung on a radio program, but the lyrics were far too vulgar to have ever been allowed on radio at the time.
The abusive husband aspect of the Harrison/Ziemba storyline was pointlessly grim and came out of nowhere, but it was high art compared with the insane storyline of the dead pilot coming back from the beyond merely to convince Ziemba to leave her husband.
The Act I finale during which the ghost made everyone run backwards to rewind time was astonishingly (and inadvertently) ridiculous.
Steel Pier Question#7
Posted: 4/12/11 at 10:30am
Does the artwork for the recording remind anyone else of Family Guy? xD
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
Steel Pier Question#8
Posted: 4/12/11 at 10:39am
The dance music and other instrumental passages were better than the actual songs, but the whole "sound" was wrong for the period and setting. A real dance marathon would never have had that lush, big band with strings. The score shold have sounded more like "Chicago" with a low-down jazz band. KZ's big 11 o'clock number, "Running in Place" sounded more like late 1940's jazz - like a reject from "City of Angels", than like 1933. Plus, Stroman had poor KZ pole dancing like a cheap stripper.
Horrible book. One dimensional characters. Horrible direction.
Steel Pier Question#9
Posted: 4/12/11 at 11:05am
"The Act I finale during which the ghost made everyone run backwards to rewind time was astonishingly (and inadvertently) ridiculous."
Curse you! I had effectively blocked that from my memory and now you've brought it back. That was one of the worst Act 1 finales I've ever seen.
It ranks right up there with "Nick & Nora". In that show, a murder had been committed. In one song, the entire cast had to repeat the murder several times with each suspect doing the murder. The audience had to listen to Faith Prince's recorded manical laugh about 8 times. It was dreadful.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
Steel Pier Question#11
Posted: 4/12/11 at 11:49amAnd yet.... it's one of my most-played cast recordings. As a score - I never saw the show - I would rate it among Kander and Ebb's best.
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Steel Pier Question#12
Posted: 4/12/11 at 12:50pm
Aww...I love the story of Steel Pier. I love that there were people ballsy enough to stage a straight-up ghost story on Broadway that wasn't a high camp farce. Well...not intentionally. It's hard to Superman II a dead end plot point and not get laughs.
It's the anachronistic music that ruins the feel for me. I like the score as its own entity. It's just really wrong for this show. All it needs is different orchestration to reflect the time setting of the musical and maybe even a grittier feel. Atlantic City has always had a darker underbelly and these dance marathons weren't exactly high class affairs.
Steel Pier Question#13
Posted: 4/12/11 at 4:27pm
I can't believe someone is maligning Michael Gibson's beautiful orchestrations for this show which are absolutely appropriate to the period.
You may want something grittier but to call the sound of the show anachronistic is inaccurate. The musical model for Kander and Ebb and for Michael Gibson is clearly George Gershwin. What could be more 30's?
Steel Pier Question#14
Posted: 4/12/11 at 5:21pmI think that a dance marathon idea was good. But how in the world did you not find the way they executed it? no offense I just don't get it. I do just want to hear your side. :)
Steel Pier Question#15
Posted: 4/12/11 at 5:29pm
Does the artwork for the recording remind anyone else of Family Guy?
Not anyone with the gift of sight.
Steel Pier Question#16
Posted: 4/12/11 at 6:24pm
"Not anyone with the gift of sight."
Hate to break it to you, but I'm fortunate enough to be blessed with this most wonderful of gifts. And still see it.
Steel Pier Question#17
Posted: 4/12/11 at 6:32pm
Can cast albums legitimately be called soundtracks?
NO! But...soundtracks can legitimately be called "cast albums" since they feature the movie casts of the show.
If one is unsure which term to use it is always the lesser evil to use "cast album."
I saw STEEL PIER (along with other Best Musical nominees in June 1997) and compared with TITANIC. THE LIFE, it had sparkle the others all lacked. Can't fairly comment on JUAN DARIAN: A CARNIVAL MASS as it was long gone by the time of the Tony Awards.
I did not find STEEL PIER dull at all. The major flaw was the time the book wasted trying to build up the secondary characters (the other marathon dancers.) I enjoyed the way David Thompson reworked the standard ghost story format to work in this show. Some argued that it was revealed too early (in the first scene in fact) that he was a ghost but some audiences still didn't get it and were puzzled by his ability to "rewind" time at the climax of Act One.
For the record the reviews for STEEL PIER were far better than the other shows that opened that spring:
STEEL PIER 5 Favorable reviews, 6 Negatives and 8 mixed. (Of the mixed reviews 2 were leaning negative, 2 on the fence, 2 leaning positive)
TITANIC: 1 favorable review, 9 negatives, 5 mixed (all the mixed reviews were leaning negative)
THE LIFE: 4 favorable reviews, 7 negatives and 6 mixed (2 leaning positive, 2 on the fence and 2 leaning negative)
JEKYLL & HYDE also opened the same week - it was not nominated as Best Musical - to 4 Favorable notices, 6 negatives and 4 mixed leaning negative.
With STEEL PIER even critics who did not like the show praised the score. STEEL PIER led the pack with Tony nominations (10 in all) but failed to win any category, and was being touted to win as it was considered Kander and Ebb's year with the revival of CHICAGO having opened a few months earlier. (CHICAGO had to vacate the Richard Rodgers Theatre to make way for PIER and moved to the Shubert.)
After the awards business fell at STEEL PIER (and picked up dramatically at TITANIC) and the producers decided to close the show rather than risk a summer run. One of the lead producers was also a producer of THE LIFE and explained to Variety at the time that with two of the performers having won Tony Awards for THE LIFE it made more sense to concentrate promotional efforts on that show rather than split between two struggling musicals. THE LIFE ultimately ran a year but still closed with a loss. TITANIC also closed with a loss, as did the long running JEKYLL AND HYDE.
Someone above commented that the orchestrations were wrong in STEEL PIER. Not really: The era of "Big Band/Swing" really came along later in the 1930s - around 1937. The sound of the early 30's was more of smaller "hotel orchestras" and much of STEEL PIER's score captures that flavor. (The show is set in 1933.) Best example: "The Last Girl/Dance with me"
I think RCA Victor did an outstanding job capturing the essence of the show on CD, with dialogue segments and sound effects used judiciously.
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
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
Steel Pier Question#18
Posted: 4/12/11 at 8:19pmEven though I liked J/H, I was surprised to hear it got any good notices.
Steel Pier Question#20
Posted: 4/13/11 at 1:58amSome book revisions may help but I don't know about a new book...I am not a believer in taking an existing score an writing a new book aroudn it. It can work (CRAZY FOR YOU did all right) but mostly the new book becomes a series of obvious song cues. Regional Theatres may have better luck with producing STEEL PIER.
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
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
Steel Pier Question#21
Posted: 4/13/11 at 8:52amTitanic, Steel Pier and The Life were all equally bad, but Titanic was just so damned BIG! That's why it won the Tony.
Steel Pier Question#22
Posted: 4/13/11 at 9:19am"Steel Pier" was one of more dreary evenings of confused writing, directing, and staging I'd seen in a long time, way back when. I saw it a night or two before one of the early previews of "Titanic". As messy as THAT was, the Opening 12 minutes of "Titanic" blew the roof of the theatre on a cold Monday night when a lot of theatre colleagues were in the house, and enjoyed the amazing work of the cast and band. (Or course, by the time the show finished that night, there was ZERO applause.) But "Steel Pier", which was also in previews -- though closer to opening -- was a clueless mess. Even Debra Monk's number, which she did brilliantly, wasn't connecting too well, because it wasn't HER CHARACTER singing it...it was introduced as "well, I used to sing this in a show..." [maybe it was "on the radio"...] but it distanced us from HER. And, as previously mentioned, poor Karen Ziemba doing a frigging POLE DANCE on a really ugly rooftop set.... which somehow belied the "creative" team's choice to have a PERIOD AIRPLANE FACING THE AUDIENCE with dancers ON THE WINGS... all for a story about a dead pilot. Dead Pilot. Shoulda been the title.
Steel Pier Question#23
Posted: 4/15/11 at 3:44pm
I saw this show and really thought it could have worked with a few changes..Karen Ziemba as good as she was had no "star" presence in it and Kristin Chenowith had to be the most annoying secondary character ever...she sounded like Minnie Mouse throughout. Greg Harrison was actualy solid and the score was good (it didnt really fit the era though) and the Debra Monk number while it woke the audience up I agree it would never have been a song sung on the radio at that time..
After the show I was outside talking with one of the dancers..a really nice kid...and he said he thought the show was missing something and he could figure out what( and he was in it)
I love Karen Ziemba but she is a great bway performer and not really a star and I think that didnt help the show
Updated On: 4/15/11 at 03:44 PM
Steel Pier Question#24
Posted: 5/6/11 at 7:27pmMy dad saw it and said Kristin Chenoweth and Debra Monk out shined Karen Ziemba so much. He said you could tell Kristin was the next big thing and definitely wasn't annoying. His words not mine.
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