THE WIZ: 2015 NBC LIVE MUSICAL- Page 66

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 6:50pm

Stephanie Mills just announced on Radio Andy that she's most likely reprising her role in the Broadway revival!

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 6:52pm

She was wonderful.

[SmokeyLady]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:03pm

She really was wonderful.  And a good actress.  I hope she gets more work out of this exposure. 

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:15pm

Meron and Zadan announced in the Hollywood Reporter that every performer has been invited back for the Broadway production. That's awesome! I wonder who will accept the offer. I would not be surprised to see Mary J. Blige make her Broadway debut in a safe and small role that worked well for her.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/wiz-producers-how-oscars-turned-845893

 

[Nefertiti]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:18pm

I know and admire the way some went crazy about this show. But the question is, was it really a success?

Both Meron and Zadan states that the show itself is cultural for the African American community and it even got major support from high profile people, coming from the same community (and that is understandable). My point is that two million viewers more than Pan, which was also a ratings smash for NBC, is not immense, considering this is a population of at least 41.7 million people. And the show was also supposed to get attention from fans of Frank Baum novel. NO I am not a racist, but I do not believe that this particular performance was in any way of what it maybe considered a phenomenon. Despite other plans, I did tune in, but turned away an hour later since watching a show with an interval every five minutes made me bored and feel tired.

Shanice is a great performer but I do hope she will move on from The Wiz and go to other things.

Updated On: 12/4/15 at 07:18 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:21pm

Nefertiti said: "I know and admire the way some went crazy about this show. But the question is, was it really a success?

 

Yes

[MikeInTheDistrict]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:28pm

Yeah, for a live musical (which is definitely a niche market) running alongside Thursday Night Football on a major network (the game was on CBS last night, as opposed to cable), this was definitely a success. FWIW, the ratings are comparable to the season finale of Empire, if we're going to talk about attracting a black audience.

[Nefertiti]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:28pm

You need to face reality dear. It was not.

[MikeInTheDistrict]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:41pm

^You're moving the goalpost to some arbitrary, hypothetical criterion for what would have constituted a "success" based on... what? Nothing but your own asinine conjecture. Musical theatre is a niche market. Not everyone is going to go for something like this. Even at its height, Glee only pulled around 12 million.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 7:57pm

Heifertittites, you are wrong. 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 8:16pm

It did well for a network event in 2015. I also wonder if more eyeballs were watching than reported for this particular year. Neilsen ratings are notoriously under-representative of black households, and the show's Facebook page is flush with posts about people holding viewing parties in their homes (I think lots of folks watched TOGETHER). Read two articles about how unprecedented the live social media presence was for a non-sports program. Not that it makes any difference to the network or advertisers; just a thought. 

Updated On: 12/4/15 at 08:16 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 8:31pm

I don't disagree with any of the criticisms of the last few pages, but I still thought it was better than SOM or PETER PAN. I've never thought THE WIZ was a great show (and I saw the original production many times because, for awhile, it was the only "big, Broadway musical" that met the expectations of first-time visitors to NYC), but it does have a half-dozen or so lively numbers and those did not disappoint.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:21pm

A half dozen lively, hummable numbers is hell of a lot better then many shows I have seen on Broadway. I saw the original many times as well. Took the children in the residence I worked at after put on a musical of our own, took my niece and a few out of towners. It was wonderful, there was so much raw energy on stage that it was infectious. Made up for the shortcomings of the book.

 I liked last nights performance. For Prime Time Network television it was more then adequate. I did feel it lacked some of the energy that it should have had. I think they need a better Television director. His calls were all off. I believe part of the problem was there were 12 cameras so they couldn't go wide as much as they could have because you would have caught them.

 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:37pm

Snafu, I was wondering about the number of cameras impacting the show too. I kept wanting to see the whole stage, or more of it, and realized it probably wasn't happening because I had just seen four close-ups in short order. It seems like a lot of work went into stuff I didn't see at all. 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:38pm

Maybe they were also skewing conservative  with the calls because a camera got into the frame real big within like 90 seconds of the show...?

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:39pm

I know a lot of people taped it to view later. It was definetly a success. I don't think they would be re-broadcasting it if it wasn't.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:40pm

I wondered if that was a technical error or if Shanice missed her mark. 

[Nefertiti]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:51pm

uncageg said: "I know a lot of people taped it to view later. It was definetly a success. I don't think they would be re-broadcasting it if it wasn't.

Both Peter Pan and Sound of Music got re-broadcasts, as a matter of fact The Sound of Music twice.

So you are saying that Glee which was a series pulled in 12 million viewers, which is a lot more than most shows get these days. I still think that it could have done way a lot better.

 

"

 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:55pm

Everything could conceivably do way a lot better.  Except Hamilton.

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:57pm

"active constipation."

Sabrelady said "Jane, isn't that a reverse construct?"

 

Sabrelady, you picked up on that! Yes, your'e right. Or an oxymoron. The reason I left it that way was because I meant that he was actively suffering the constipation, hence the grimaces!

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 9:58pm

OK, I am sure it's in this thread or somewhere, but is the upcoming Broadway production scheduled to be a strictly limited run or has that not been decided?

[gypsy101]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 10:00pm

Glee reached its ratings height right at the mid-season premiere of season 1, and then again the premiere of season 2, with a total of 5 episodes with over 12-million viewers (and now that I'm looking at the numbers again after all these years, the rest of season 1 and most of season 2 had around 10 million viewers per episode). Season 3 they began to drop little by little, season 4 a little more and by early season 5 some episodes were under 3 million viewers (with the finale of season 5 having a stunning then-series low of 1.87 million). 12 million viewers is a lot of viewers for most regular TV shows, but I kind of agree that "holiday events" probably should reach more to be viewed as successful and worth doing more of. At this point I'm kind of surprised this "tradition" (as it was referred to by NBC last night) is still going on and I'm not sure it should continue.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 10:04pm

52 million people watched the last episode of Friends. 

[gypsy101]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 10:05pm

Phyllis Rogers Stone said: "52 million people watched the last episode of Friends. "

 

Holy shït, now that's a television event.

Updated On: 12/4/15 at 10:05 PM

[Danster]

Posted: 12/4/15 at 10:05pm

I thought this musical was horribly boring, and the music insipid. I turned it off after 45 minutes or so. Give me the original Wizard of Oz, or even Wicked over this snoozefest.