Posted: 8/27/22 at 10:22pm
Elton’s been working on the Tammy Faye musical for five years and it’s had small but consistent press attention here in the UK for at least three years. It hasn’t just come out of nowhere.
Posted: 8/28/22 at 2:32pm
Robbie2 said: "Prada's done! What happend in Chicago will stay there.
Eltons' busy with other things...
Elton John and Britney Spears Release a New Dance Single
https://time.com/6209093/britney-spears-elton-john-new-song/"
Because artists have NEVER worked on different projects at the same time...
Posted: 8/28/22 at 3:18pm
RippedMan said: "Robbie2 said: "Prada's done! What happend in Chicago will stay there.
Eltons' busy with other things...
Elton John and Britney Spears Release a New Dance Single
https://time.com/6209093/britney-spears-elton-john-new-song/"
Because artists have NEVER worked on different projects at the same time..."
Elton John and Jake Shears' Tammy Faye Bakker Musical to Hit the West End in Fall 2022
The production is set to be directed by Rupert Goold, who previously helmed a workshop of the show in 2020.
Posted: 8/28/22 at 3:24pm
Robbie2 said: "RippedMan said: "Robbie2 said: "Prada's done! What happend in Chicago will stay there.
Eltons' busy with other things...
Elton John and Britney Spears Release a New Dance Single
https://time.com/6209093/britney-spears-elton-john-new-song/"
Because artists have NEVER worked on different projects at the same time..."
Elton John and Jake Shears' Tammy Faye Bakker Musical to Hit the West End in Fall 2022
The production is set to be directed by Rupert Goold, who previously helmed a workshop of the show in 2020."
Your point?
Posted: 9/8/22 at 8:33am
On BBC Radio 2 Elton just said that the show is not ready and will likely need another year before hitting the stage again
Updated On: 9/8/22 at 08:33 AM
Posted: 9/8/22 at 9:09am
GOOD. I’m glad they’re not rushing this mess to Broadway.
Posted: 9/8/22 at 9:18am
imeldasturn said: "On BBC Radio 2 Elton just said that the show is not ready and will likely need another year before hitting the stage again"
Well I'm glad he recognizes that. Still very curious about what they do (and who they add/remove from the equation) to make this palatable for Broadway –– entertaining and coherent, if not brilliant.
Posted: 9/8/22 at 9:40am
Posted: 9/8/22 at 9:54am
imeldasturn said: "On BBC Radio 2 Elton just said that the show is not ready and will likely need another year before hitting the stage again"
In other news, water is wet.
Posted: 9/8/22 at 10:12am
I enjoyed the show for what it was when I saw it, but it is 100% NOT Broadway ready. EVERYTHING needs to be higher caliber - the direction, design, book, and score. The whole show felt like a cheap knock off of what could have/should have been a high brow and glossy show..
Posted: 9/8/22 at 10:39am
If it's a whole year away - and sounds like they want the LUNT so they're likely waiting for Sweeney - so sounds like some book overhauls, hopefully. I wish they'd work with the originally writer and come up with a story that hues closely to the original, but still some new original moments/lines.
Posted: 9/8/22 at 11:07am
Well, let's hope he puts in the work that it will take for it to be "ready."
Posted: 9/8/22 at 11:46am
Posted: 9/8/22 at 12:21pm
It seems like it sold very well in Chicago? I would think that would at least given investors some hopefulness.
Posted: 11/3/22 at 10:26pm
Has a 'pre-Broadway' show ever completely cut certain wholes of the production? I'm just thinking but imagine if this show took a couple years and came back with an ENTIRELY new score for example— everything Elton did gone. Not that that would/should actually happen but I feel like modern commercial movie/musical tryouts are so prone to 'change one or two songs' and then that's as far as the envelope is pushed.
That isn't to say I think the issues exclusively lay in the score, I'm just curious if there is a precedent for that having happened before. Maybe it needs a Spiderman to Spiderman 2.0 level overhaul. This of course is not factoring in the astronomical costs that would come with those sorts of changes, just a thought.
For everything I didn't like about the musical, I love the source material too much to not still be excited about either what I saw in Chicago or what is going to come of it. Very curious as to what is happening right now.
Posted: 11/4/22 at 12:07am
DiscoCrows said: " Maybe it needs a Spiderman to Spiderman 2.0 level overhaul."
Lol both were awful.
Posted: 11/4/22 at 12:10am
I don’t know if this counts, but there were a couple iterations of Finding Neverland.
Posted: 11/4/22 at 12:36am
NEVERLAND was Harvey Weinstein operating by the rules of Hollywood; that was a costly move and I don't know if it ever really paid off.
At the end of the day, PRADA does not need to be brilliant. It just needs to be coherent and entertaining, with a couple of good songs to advertise and an energetic cast. At this point McCollum would probably be thrilled if it was of MEAN GIRLS quality.
My assumption with PRADA is Elton = unfireable. So, the goal probably needs to be fixing the book (probably with a new bookwriter) and getting Elton to churn out a few better songs. But then there's the direction & physical production, which was bad by all accounts. Anna Shapiro leaving completely means you either have to start again from scratch, or hire someone with the understanding that they're working within the very specific confines of what's already been created, and you can't make many wholistic changes. Modify the set & costumes but keep like 65% of each.
Depending on who is being let go and replaced, there will be inevitable optics issues, causing a Twitter mob and some bad-will. The choreographer is a trans women; the director is a woman; the design team is mostly women; the lyricist & bookwriter are women.
Posted: 11/4/22 at 5:17am
At the rate Musk appears to be destroying Twitter, one cam imagine mob momentum to be somewhat less in the future.
Posted: 11/4/22 at 8:01am
I agree with the post that claims the show doesn't need to be a game changing adaptation, just good enough. But with one caveat: that they find a star to play Miranda. Leavel is a superb triple-threat B'way lead, but not the show is in the shadow of the Streep-centric film, and needs a comparable presence, a glamourous tent pole that makes the unfortunately only semi-interesting protagonist's journey one worth taking. Zorba is really about young Nikos, who carries the plot proper; but the star is the title character. This show should be viewed and cast similarly. It needs a box office name -- a Nicole Kidman would be ideal -- who has 2 decent numbers, the film's best lines, and 25 costumes.
Posted: 11/4/22 at 9:20am
You are not going to get a star for Miranda. You just aren’t. No sane actress (and their agent) would want to follow in the footsteps of what Streep did unless it was radically different — which isn’t what the audience wants. It’s like trying to hire someone notable to replace Hugh Jackman or Jeff Daniels or any number of star performers. And then you run into that problem AGAIN when the star leaves after 9 or 12 months.
My previous pitch: get a regal thespian who would view this as a career boost. MAYBE you get someone on the level of Lindsay Duncan or Janet McTeer. In the most perfect pipedream world: Christine Baranski (a friend of Streep, which could help or hurt). But whoever plays this part is going to be compared to Streep.
It’s a different world & mindset now than when Bacall starred in APPLAUSE and WOMAN OF THE YEAR and Lansbury did MAME, following in the footsteps of the great dames who played those parts on screen.
Updated On: 11/4/22 at 09:20 AM
Posted: 11/4/22 at 10:28am
As Bette would say, "Why bother?" Let it go, it is just not worth it. As Dot would say, "Move on!"
Posted: 1/28/23 at 4:47pm
Any inside scoop on what's up with this? (Beyond Elton saying the show needed work after Chicago + the NY Post report.) Has anyone been "let go" from it yet? I'm kind of assuming it's not dead since the title holds so much promise...
Posted: 1/28/23 at 6:04pm
I hope something comes of this. I would hate for another Elton John score to be lost and unreleased.
Posted: 1/28/23 at 7:45pm
It would be odd if they don’t at least TRY to make it work for New York, it was sold out in Chicago and I believe grossed over 5 million dollars. It’s not like it was a first wives club and was a loss from the get go. If they feel the need to replace Shapiro they should tap her Steppenwolf colleague Tina Landau. I think McCollum owes it to his investors to try to make this work.
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