The Weinstein Effect- Page 4

[valeposh]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:01pm

"I haven't liked Harvey for years, I think he's a bully and doesn't actually care about his projects beyond how much they can make him, but honestly, I think Weinstein hate is being used as a scape goat, instead of admitting, hey, maybe this show wasn't nomination worthy in a season with so many other stand out productions. It's easy to say that the nominators were being petty and that's the only reason they weren't nominated, that way the people who did enjoy the show and the ones who were a part of it, including Harvey himself, don't have to admit to the flaws in it."

 I'll see Fun Home in a week, so I can't speak personally about it, but I'm sure that or An American in Paris are more deserving. However, I feel like the ZERO nominations for FN speaks more to Weinstein than anything else. I also think Matt Morrison deserved a nomination spot (Watanabe? Seriously?)

Anyway, what's done is done. 

[tazber]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:04pm

"I thought this was a broadway website. Not a financial website."

So don't read this thread.

 And that Riedel piece is incredibly wrong.

Updated On: 4/29/15 at 03:04 PM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:15pm

I don't believe Morrison deserved a nomination. Jeremy Jordan and Diane Paulus did all the heavy lifting with that role in terms of crafting something that would work in a fully staged production outside of workshops. Morrison just picked up where Jordan left off. All the hard stuff had already been worked out for him. Had he been nominated it would have likely just been for the role and not really his performance.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:15pm

jackstheatrescene: Obviously I did not like it, and I am not going to lie, I did go in with certain perceptions, I've been working in and going to the Theatre for over 50 years, I go to every show with pre-conceived ideas from reading and hearing "buzz". I would challenge anyone who says they go to every show with an "open" mind.  But if the show is good and I enjoy it, so be it.  But there was so much wrong with this show I found it hard to enjoy anything, even the excellent performers.  Does anyone think the nominators were blaming the Producers on every show that received no noms?  And that cake thing is a lame apology for the stuff Harvey has done on this production.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:20pm

I can't even read that cake. Is that the point of it?

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:25pm

You can call me Jack if you want to... but my name's Jeff.

 

Good for you for 50 years of theatre-going.  I'm not far behind you!  So we don't agree about FN.  Good for us!  I was teasing you with my previous question, hence the smiley face at the end.  No hard feelings intended.

[tazber]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:28pm

Wait, Harvey sent that cake? It looks like something rushed out of the grocery store bakery. And it's tiny.

Man, he really must be losing money on this.

[Sunny11]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:33pm

 At least the cast did where recognised by other awards. 

Drama league award nominations; Kelsey Grammer & Matthew Morrison

Drama Desk nominations; Carolee Carmello & Matthew Mortison 

 a lot of the critics still praised the performances even if they panned the show as a whole.

[NJ_BroadwayGirl]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 3:36pm

"Wait, Harvey sent that cake? It looks like something rushed out of the grocery store bakery. And it's tiny.
Man, he really must be losing money on this."

 Seriously. If he paid for that cake he should get his money back. It's horrible looking.

[notalwaysontime]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 8:04pm

""I haven't liked Harvey for years, I think he's a bully and doesn't actually care about his projects beyond how much they can make him, but honestly, I think Weinstein hate is being used as a scape goat, instead of admitting, hey, maybe this show wasn't nomination worthy in a season with so many other stand out productions. It's easy to say that the nominators were being petty and that's the only reason they weren't nominated, that way the people who did enjoy the show and the ones who were a part of it, including Harvey himself, don't have to admit to the flaws in it."

 I'll see Fun Home in a week, so I can't speak personally about it, but I'm sure that or An American in Paris are more deserving. However, I feel like the ZERO nominations for FN speaks more to Weinstein than anything else. I also think Matt Morrison deserved a nomination spot (Watanabe? Seriously?)
Anyway, what's done is done. "

 To be perfectly honest, and this is coming from someone who really does love Matt, I was always one of the few defending him and Mr. Schue in the Glee fandom, and I love his voice, and think he is a very talented and capable performer, that being said though, in this one, I feel like instead of "Matthew Morrison playing J.M. Barrie" it's coming across more like "Matthew Morrison playing Matthew Morrison in his return to Broadway in the role of J.M. Barrie" I've yet to feel like he has an actual connection to the part beyond this being a way of getting himself back on the Broadway stage, which I don't feel makes him worthy of a nomination. That doesn't mean I think he's terrible in the part, it just makes it not a Tony worthy performance. Of course though, this is just my opinion. 

 

Updated On: 4/29/15 at 08:04 PM

[theatreguy12]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 8:22pm

Interesting take.  I feel the same way about certain actors in Hollywood when I see them in films.  

The first who comes to mind is Meryl Streep.  She has become such an iconic actress that when I see her in a movie, all I see is Meryl Streep pretending to be this character or that.  I can't see beyond her fame, and I can't suspend that disbelief with her anymore.

I know that professionally Morrison isn't in the same place that Streep is, but do you think his connection to a popular character on TV has something to do with the inability to see him as convincing in FN?

Personally I've never seen Glee….so I wasn't making that connection throughout the show at all.  It was easier for me to just enjoy his character, I guess.

 

Updated On: 5/2/15 at 08:22 PM

[skeetshooter]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 11:39pm

"He will start his own award show. It will be called the Harvey's and in its first year FN will be nominated for everything - even best revival - and will win every award handed out. The after awards will be held at Joe Allens"

Haha!

I too was thinking that's a tiny cake for a large cast.  Maybe each could cut off a teeny slice to put under their pillow.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/30/15 at 10:14am

Sorry Jeff.

As Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake!"

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 4/30/15 at 11:06am

Off with their heads!  

 

I made another "conspiracy theory" connection to FN's lack of nominations in my blog today... TheatreScene Thursday  

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/30/15 at 11:23am

Jeff, your vlog is sweet!  Don't agree with everything but it sure is fun and packed with hotties.

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 4/30/15 at 11:28am

Thanks!  Yes, I love me some Broadway hotness!  I hope you'll read it more in the future.  (I just started back this week after taking off 5 months...)

 

You think it is clear enough that my other "conspiracy theories" are jokingly intended?

[skeetshooter]

Posted: 5/1/15 at 4:24pm

Just think of how much money the show is saving by not having to provide free tickets to all those Tony voters.

Enough to buy a bigger cake, a tub of ice cream, and kleenex.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 5/1/15 at 5:08pm

"Just think of how much money the show is saving by not having to provide free tickets to all those Tony voters.
Enough to buy a bigger cake, a tub of ice cream, and kleenex."

Oh God. I can picture Harvey sitting in his fancy chair eating that stuff while crying his butt off.

Good grief.

[skies]

Posted: 5/1/15 at 5:40pm

Well Harvey has been a silent or minor partner/producer of other shows on BW, it's just that FN was stamped as his "baby" from the getgo.

It seemed there was just so many PR snafus  from the start, including the way they got a production number on air in the last TONY Awards and the dick way Jeremy Jordan was shown the exit.

While the NY Post or NY Times can give their opinion why FN  was shut out and point to Harvey, I just find that it's awkward  for Harvey himself to publicly state that as the reason for zero Tony nods.  

 

 

[HamBiggar]

Posted: 5/1/15 at 8:26pm

It's not Harvey; every single component of the musical is crap.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/1/15 at 8:49pm

^ In your opinion.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 5/1/15 at 10:03pm

I get why people may not like the show but in my honest opinion I love it. Like so much. It's liking making a great movie a million times better. Yes that may not be the consensus of all but I do believe the music fits well with the type of show. And no offense I just love it. I love the actors and pretty much everything about it.

[JaglinSays]

Posted: 5/2/15 at 1:04am

The nominators don't confer with each other.  Ergo, there is no conspiracy.

It is clear that most of the nominators, as well as the critics, think it is a piece of junk.

Like this one from the Washington Post, which is especially damning:

 

Still, I’d gladly sit again through “It Shoulda Been You” or “Something Rotten!” if it meant never having to hear another word about “Finding Neverland,” the spectacularly noisy and awkward misfire at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Based on a Miramax movie that starred Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, playwright of “Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” the charmless musical posits “Glee’s” Matthew Morrison as the tortured Barrie, who rediscovers his talent through his association with a family of fatherless boys.

Any of the lump-in-your-throat potential of “Finding Neverland” is squandered by director Diane Paulus in the show’s miscalculated fireworks. (Among the casualties: Kelsey Grammer, in a doubling as Barrie’s producer and more bizarrely, as an inspirational version of Captain Hook, who stirs Barrie’s imagination.) The score by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, meanwhile, is a nest of thin tunes and near-rhymes — “truth” and “use,” “earth” and “hurt” — that grows ever more grating as the evening wears on.

 

[theatreguy12]

Posted: 5/2/15 at 4:29am

Yes, we get it.  The critics didn't like it.   And the show got zero Tony nominations.  It's time to move on.

[Back Row]

Posted: 5/2/15 at 8:28am

It's hard to determine just how much personalities and preconceptions affect the nominating process, but even those who liked this show (and I was one of them) would have a difficult time defending a choice of Finding Neverland in most categories this season. So, I don't think "The Weinstein Effect" was as significant as many might think. There is no category for best ensemble, and I thought the ensemble was the heart and soul of the show when I saw it in Cambridge. They don't break out a category for staging a single number either, so a couple of breathtaking moments have to be considered along with the pluses and minuses of the overall direction. Was the direction top five worthy this year? The choreography? Score? Book? The list goes on, and the answers are usually the same: there were too many other shows that were simply better in those categories. Neither the book nor the score gave any actor playing the Barrie character much opportunity to set himself apart from other potential nominees. That was true for Morrison, and it would have been true for Jordan. Only one featured role was significant enough to be considered for a nomination, and Grammer simply didn't make the cut. Finding Neverland's best shot at a nomination may have been for Best Musical, because it is a show that, despite what the critics say, has found an audience that appreciates it. It could have been determined that it is greater than the sum of its parts. But that didn't happen either. Perhaps if Weinstein had not taken the "bull in a china shop" approach to producing, the show might have managed to eke out  two or three nominations, but when you look at it objectively, nominations for this show in most categories this season were not in the cards, even under the best of circumstances.