Taboo 'Postmortem'- Page 2

[LC]

Posted: 1/16/04 at 1:54pm

She's already learned some lessons. Rosies' next musical project, Find Me, will open out of town, then on Broadway for a limited run, which is not what she was saying about it earlier this year. Unfortunately, a wonderful score had to be sacrificed in the process of learning these lessons.

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 1/16/04 at 1:55pm

Is this new Rosie project "Find Me" gonna be based on her book of the same name? About her taking a multiple personality sufferer under her wing? WTF?

[LC]

Posted: 1/16/04 at 1:57pm

I believe so. Cyndi Lauper is writing the music.

[lc1965]

Posted: 1/16/04 at 2:04pm

To LC & Mister Matt: I'm not disagreeing w/ you at all. I was just pointing out that I disagreed w/ the people who read only attacks on Rosie in Riedel's column because I read some support there, however weak. As for moving Riedel from the entertainment section, I'll assume you're joking! Whether something is hard news or only partial hard news/mostly gossip does not dictate where it goes in the rag, um, paper.

[AugustBurns2]

Posted: 1/16/04 at 6:47pm

Someone who reads the Post online sent the article to me.

I found this article to be completely fascinating.

If it is true about Renshaw, then I feel so sorry about the whole production and Rosie as a producer. I agree with LC who said:

"If she decided against replacing Renshaw, for fear of upsetting BG, then that's her weakness as a producer. She stated on the Taboo forum, that she didn't want to delay the opening, partly due to Liz McCartneys' scheduled maternity leave."

A book on the making of the Broadway production would be a must read for me. I love the backstage stories of the artistic struggles.

From experience, they can be so frightening and annoying at the same time. People can be so erratic when they feel that their artistic view is being compromised. I know I was upset when 2 lines were cut from a short film due to an actress who thought that calling her character a prostitute meant that she would be personally labeled that. So dumb!

Anyway...fascinating article!

PS. I am book writer/lyricist searching for a composer. Read my posting in this message board for more info! Thanks, Christopher

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 12:29am

A book about the journey and end to Taboo would be interesting. A similar book about Big the musical is a fantastic read--it takes you on a very detailed process through the creation of a new musical. Reading it felt like going through an internship.

[Sunfish]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 12:35am

It couldn't really be candid, though, and of course that is what would be interesting about it!

[Belter]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 2:52am

Rosie is often very candid, to the point of making people dislike her for stating her opinions. There are people who think if you say what you really think, you're also saying "and my opinion counts more than other people's" ... whereas I always take someone saying what they really think as a great opportunity to say what I really think.

But how many times have you seen people say "let's keep it nice" "Please don't just post you 'love it' or the thread will be too long!" or "There are people who disagree with you (you're in the minority, you don't know what you're talking about, etc.)" .....

That these things are also opinions seems to escape the people posting them. Some people just need to police or to make policy (the common latin root must mean something) .... because they feel the lack of being able to express their own opinion and put too much stock in "winning" ...

the end note for me is, I don't let your opinion bring my opinion down. I allow you yours, I expect and insist on mine. But ultimately, I believe we all have the right to express whatever we want to. There's room for everyone. Even the Reidels of the world. If people who hate what he says give him power, there's the mistake. ... IMHO, natch.


BTW, I loved Taboo and will continue to love it. I hope to see it at least twice more before it closes, as I found it to be a great evening of theatre, with an all around captivating cast and great music and costumes. I do not think it was in the wrong venue, as the Plymouth is an intimate space. The designation of "Broadway" was important to the producer, and I don't endow Broadway with much more legitimacy compared to Off-Broadway that I felt it was wrong for it to be there. I think it's a subtle way to make a dig at the show, to suggest it should have been off or off-off or in a warehouse. There are people who get caught up in "WHAT BROADWAY IS" and think it's written in stone. It's not.

But what are the things that should decide if a show is on Broadway or is Off, or is Off-Off?? Can the producer afford the space? Is there enough interest in the show? Is it something that will get press and/or enhance the community's reputation in the national press and make people want to come to NYC? .... . At least on two of these, the answer was yes. It's the third that killed it. There wasn't enough interest in the show. Though, IMO, all subject matters should be allowed on Bdway, you'll never convince those subscription holders (who are a certain populace) to see a show like Taboo, unless it has GLOWING reviews, and even then it'd be tough. Rent crossed into that realm and survived .... but some brillant shows with good press (even) could not, so they did not survive.

Ya gotta appeal to the little old ladies and other subscription holders to make it a long time on Bdwy. It's just the nature of this particular beast. But it has NOTHING to do with if the show is good, or if the cast is talented, or if the score or book is well written.

Well, this was a meandering post and I've no where else to go.

[Sunfish]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 3:49pm

Belterbabe, I agree with much of what you have to say. I too loved Taboo.

What I meant about "not being candid" is that the only way to get a real view of the "making of Taboo" would be to talk to all of the players and get candid comments and assessments from them. I'm sure many would have different perspectives of the problems. And although Rosie may be powerful enough to be totally candid, I think some of the others, creative team, cast, crew, would not be comfortable saying what they tell their S.O.'s at home at night. It could adversely affect their careers, now or later. So the TRUE story will never be told, with all of it's inconsistencies, about Taboo or probably any other show.

[AugustBurns2]

Posted: 1/17/04 at 7:53pm

Yes!

I highly recommend the the making of Big book too. Amazing to learn the backstage stories.

I never saw the Broadway production, but the last stop on a national tour. This production used cut songs instead of some of the Broadway score and they worked so much better.

Maybe, Taboo can be resurrected in some way in regional theaters. Side Show has done well beyond Broadway in local theaters. Maybe Taboo will see another day.

[etoile]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 1:09am

Why would anyone think that a suggestion of an Off Broadway mounting would in any way be a sublte dig? Sounded like a smart economical move. Seems someone had their own notion of "what Broadway is" written in her own stone when she brought the show to a Broadway house. A baby needs to learn to crawl before it can walk. And even then there's nothing wrong with taking baby steps.

And what's the deal with subscription holders? This wasn't a show in a subcription series. There's no need to target the masses. Where's the correlation? Several shows, on and off B'way have had long lives appealing to a limited audience. But it's a matter of knowing your market. That didn't seem to happen.

[newyorkuniq]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 2:44pm

Rosie say's on the Taboo boards that the cast album will be out in the spring. Cyndi Lauper??? What is it with this 80's kick she's on?

[Maggie]

Posted: 1/18/04 at 3:20pm

Cyndi's back and better than ever!!

[Belter]

Posted: 1/19/04 at 3:46am

The suggestion that Taboo should have been Off-Broadway or even in a warehouse was a dig because it wasn't in those places -- so it was second guessing, saying "if you'd listened to us, or even asked us, we know better" .... and also "You're not first rate enough, to be on Broadway"

And they're saying it doesn't work in that venue, when it does, frankly.

Talking about taking it out of town ....it played in London for over a year. It had tryouts. A lot of shows come directly from London, and most have changes before they do. Obviously, Rosie agrees with that assessment, however, as she's said she'll take her next show out of town first. But I think part of that is just her saying "You guys will destroy my efforts if I don't make concessions to your way of doing things, so I'll make this concession."

And what is up with subscription holders? Do you understand how many seats there are to fill per week? No show can survive without appealing to the LARGE base of regular theatre-goers who live close enough to come and see a show. You do have to have appeal for those people, and IMO Taboo did not. And a lot of those people are subscription holders ... So whether the show was subscription listed or not, you need those people to have some interest -- esp. in the winter when the tourist trade is down.

[etoile]

Posted: 1/19/04 at 5:16am

Yes. I understand how many seats there are to fill per week. Obviously you are missing the point that this is exactly why a small theater (with fewer seats) would have been, again, an obviously viable course of action. If it doesn't appeal to a wider market, you won't fill a larger theater. Forget about these subscription holders to a non-subscription show. Here again, one erroneously seems to think that subscription holders to one series are the same demographics for all series. Or that subscription holders drastically, nay magically, can change a limited run production (the time frame that their subscription covers) and through sheer goodwill and warm wishes make it an open ended production.

And I take exception at anyone who believes the lie that something Off-Broadway isn't good enough to cross the street. Where would anyone come up the absurd notion that everything on Broadway is good. Yet alone good enough. The quality of the material is so often NOT what determines if a show is on or off.
Many of the excellent plays I've seen Off-Broadway have put the *star* driven Broadway shows to shame.

There's such a defensiveness about this show that logic seems to have flown out the window for the sake of ego. That shouldn't be blamed on Riedel.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/19/04 at 10:08am

AugustBurns2 - "I highly recommend the the making of Big book too. Amazing to learn the backstage stories."

I didn't know that book existed. Is it still in print?

"I never saw the Broadway production, but the last stop on a national tour. This production used cut songs instead of some of the Broadway score and they worked so much better."

I saw both and the tour was infinitely worse. The changes in the score did not work at all. Most of the changes involved cutting the songs that involved the children's chorus as they only toured with 4 kids. The opening was much weaker, the da-glo sets were much uglier, the scaled-down FAO Schwartz looked horrible (two slides and the keyboard doth not an FAZ Schwartz make), the song "Fun" meter change to 3/4 did nothing to add to the song (and the cut of all the ensemble with the exception of the two men just made it dull), and the song "My Secretary's in Love" made absolutely no sense and told us nothing about the character. I had seen the Broadway production and then took a friend to the tour because I had liked it so much. I was deeply embarassed by what I saw and could not understand why they did what they did.

I've seen the same fate happen to Jekyll and Hyde when it transferred to Broadway, the rewrites of Pimpernel and the tour of Seussical. It is so sad to see goods shows get hacked to bits because the producers have no faith in their projects. Rather than chop them up, why don't they invest in promoting them?