Taboo 'Postmortem' — Page 2

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?

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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?

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.

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?

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