The numbers concerning "A Tale of Two Cities " are scary — Page 2

"This thread really smells of agenda to me. Eagleman."

And that smacks of paranoia to me.

What agenda could I have and if I had one why would I use it on a forum that can have no appreciable effect on the show's success--or failure. Whatever I've opined about the show is sugary compared to a lot of the bile I read on this forum.

Yes, I still think it was ill-advised to initially allow people to hear much of the score on a website.

No, I wouldn't invest in a show with a first-time composer/lyricist, and a first-time director unless, let's say, I had a veteran producer watching over things.

Yes, I till would want an out-of-town run in Toronto, Boston, or Chicago first
and no I would not change my mind about cutting "Until Tomorrow" because it's ammo for the criitcs.

And for one last "no", I don't think, considering the above, that it was the wisest choice, to let Miss S. sink or swim on her own with a project this huge.

It's realllllllly hard to get one person to get one of the three right (book, music, lyrics) to have someone have to do all three is really asking a lot.

For what it's worth, you could take every reference to this show I made and it wouldn't add up to 1/10th of one of the "First preview 'reviews' " that have really blasted this thing.

Agenda?

I think it's time to adjust your thorazine drip.

And you might nose around and see if you can ask the backers of the show if they're not just a little worried about the $3,000,000 advance.

If I have an agenda it would be against the high rollers at Disney who can sink $20,000,000 into a show like Tarzan and if it busts they just go back to plan b--it wouldn't be against a woman who has almost, and yet may still beat incredible odds.

Updated On: 8/24/08 at 02:49 PM

The scary thing about these recent failed epics is that they had inexperienced producers that many will say killed the show( Pirate Queen anyone?). In the the case of Tale they not only have inexperienced producers, there main creative team is all inexperienced (not including the design team). Pirate Queen however had a famous songwriting pair and a tony winning director and still flopped. That was an advantage they had that Two Cities does not have. However it is really making a web presence and seems to have an excellent publicity team. And judging from what the reviews on this board are saying it is way better than the Pirate Queen and it seems it is getting great buzz during the intermissions. Like many posters have already said word of mouth can make a show sky rocket. I know i am only comparing Two Cities to Pirate Queen but I feel these two are very similar in budget and in the sense of the historical drama genre they both are linked too. I predict Tale will do better because of word of mouth and the fact that it is such a famous novel. And You never know what the critics will say. Does anybody know what Billy Elliot's budget is?

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The director in Florida was the artistic director at Asolo Rep- Michael D Edwards. I imagine that a contractual clause led to him directing it, and I can definitely see why he wouldn't come to New York- he has a steady job and a theatre in Sarasota that he needs to take care of.

One of the problems that a musical such as ""A Tale of Two Cities" faces is that to date one reads of conflicting feelings about the show. Robert finds it a wonderful musical; a second attendee at a premier walks out at intermission.

We do have a very small sample here but small samples sometimes correlate to the results of much larger ones. (We've all sat in front of televisions on election night and heard "With 10% of precincts reporting we are declaring Tom Ridge the winner in Pennsylvania--and he does win.)

It seems...seems...there is a chance that critics may be similarly predisposed and come in with "mixed reviews". Independent of word or mouth, once critics weigh in with a split decision, to counter the deleterious effect of negative reviews, a larger
part of the revenues from ticket sales have to be put into advertising, which has a
trickle down effect, the most problematic is that theater owners can be incredibly impatient.

Mary Zimmerman's Tony winning "Metamorphoses" had earned out, paid it's investors back in an incredibly short time, was playing to full houses in January, but was still closed when the theater owner exercised a contractual right to do so if the
production missed selling the pre-agreed number of ticket for ONE WEEK --which it did in January after the holiday crush. The theater owner thought he was sitting on a hotter property written by the master-playwright-du-jour which would star Helen
Hunt.

Zimmerman's critical and popular hit was closed and as suspected the Gods of the Street bodyslammed the theater owner by making quick work of the hit-that-never-was.

As ludicrous as it may sound, it takes more than superb writing, great performances, and stunning sets, to give a show a shot. There are primary, secondary, and tertiary variables in the equation, many of which cannot be anticipated.

It's my understanding the man and woman who were the principle catalsyts of this show met while performing in Les Miserables. "A Tale of Two Cities", if I'm correct, is there first Broadway production. It's tough enough for a guy like Cameron McIntosh to get it right but every now and then someone comes from out of nowhere and gets it right ("The Drowsy Chaperone", "Crazy for You"). There's just enough smoke here to reasonably conjecture that there may be a few hot coals ready to ignite.

If I were to give an objective synopsis of what I've HEARD so far, I'd have to say more than a few people are really high on the show, others not so much, and that could mean something but the only way one could know for themselves is by buying a ticket.

Updated On: 8/23/08 at 08:35 PM

And look what happened to LIFE (x) 3.

That's horrible about Metamorphoses! And what happened to LIFE?

> We do have a very small sample here but small samples sometimes correlate to the results of much larger ones. (We've all sat in front of televisions on election night and heard "With 10% of precincts reporting we are declaring Tom Ridge the winner in Pennsylvania--and he does win.)

sorry, man ... that's just sloppy math.

if by "small sample" you mean "statistically invalid sample", then a representative result is a coincidence, not a correlation.

when a news organization projects a winner, they are basing their projection on their day's worth of statistically valid (or so they hope!) exit polling, not on a small (read: statistically invalid) percentage of returns reported after polls close.

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Don't have much to say on this subject, but want to just tip my hat to Eagleman. You're a great writer and reason-er.

"sorry, man ... that's just sloppy math."

Oh, for Christ's sake. If it's not some anal-retentive reading a post with a red pencil to tick off a spelling error it's another one treating a post like he's editing a peer-reviewed journal.

Here's the bottom line: certain observations have been made about the show by a
small group. The essential question is, "Will there be a critical difference in
what has been observed (mixed reviews) and what one can reasonably expect will be the case with the critics: mixed reviews?

It's called probability THEORY for a reason.

Hypothetically, the show could have to date played to only one person and that person could come away with a view that ultimately reflects the opinions of thousands,

And insofar as your rebuttal of the election night early call goes, try peddling that
to John Kerry. They were popping champagne corks at his headquarters by three in the afternoon.

Nothing in your Beltway beancounting changes the facts: the show has elicited markedly different opinions from the five or 10 people on this board who have seen it, and has already, for one reason or another, caused similar conflicting feelings about going to see the show in a similar number of people who haven't.

It is reasonable to assume--and one doesn't need to crunch numbers to do this--to suggest, based on the ambivalence expressed on this board, that the critics will probably reflect the opinions of those have seen it in previews.

Precedent, not coefficients of correlation, Z-scores, or Chi Square tests, is going to dictate the future of this show and the well-established precedent is that theater owners are going to want advanced ticket sales for this show much farther north of
$3,000,000--and pretty soon.

Marry Zimmerman had won the MacArthur Award, the buzz was thunderous, and those who had seen it Off-Broadway rhapsodized about "Metamorphoses". Even
having the numbers couldn't help the show because of one lousy, predictable week
that hurt every show but "Mamma Mia".'

It didn't matter that the theater accountant looked up from his adding machine and said, "We'll make real money on this thing." All the theater owner saw was Helen Hunt who he thought could make more for him than Mary.

Perhaps you should ditch the photorealism and look at this situation a little bit more impressionistically.

How many times are you going to say "early death" ???

this consistent defending is getting old, winston. this is why I view you as a SCHILL for this show... you just don't give up!

"so let me be sure i understand this: anyone who disagrees with eagleman is either paranoid, anal-retentive, or hyper-technical? "

Of course not. Only those individuals who are paranoid or anal-retentive. I'm not sure what hyper-technical is.

In the former group would be those pathetic individuals, for instance, who point a bony finger and bellow "shill", without any evidence whatsoever, whenever someone who is a first-time poster, or with only a few posts, rhapsodizes about a production that many do not like.

In the second group I would place those people who, not knowing even if English is a person's first language, or whether or not they may be visually handicapped or for any other reason, jump on spelling mistakes or malapropisms and give the poster the cyber equivalent of a rap on the knuckles with a ruler.

Then, there is the a third group not mentioned by you: the hypocritical: those are individuals who curiously silent and who wink at vicious diatribes of the show that declare it "beyond mediocrity...truly bad...", (and that) "their act one finale is a cheesy, second-rate ripoff... " but who find it odious when other posters point out
certain things that could be injurious to the show's health.

You did not find such comments offensive or "aggressive"?

How about the people who piled on the poster who asked a simple question about the playbill--or the condescension of the person who suggested to another poster that they were musically illiterate by not understanding the meaning of
"crescendo?"

Where was your righteous indignation, then? Or are ad hominem attacks made on
posters who ask specific questions genuinely seeking information waved off as good fun?

When "Jill S" called me out for unfairly attributing the word "nihilistic" for the reason she abandoned "Wuthering Heights", I apologized, my response was measured and
respectful. I went so far as telling her that at the end of the day, I hope ATOTC is the feel-good story of the season and that I was pulling for her--in my own way, rather than for Elton John whose life at this point would not change one way or the other if "Billy elliot" wasn't the blockbuster it has been in the U.K.

This has been a too-long way of saying, "Spare me your exasperation."--at least until I see you express at least a modicum of disdain for those who really thrust the dagger deep into the show (or other poster's lack of knowledge) and seem to do so
while taking pleasure in it.

Until then, I'll just assume your consternation is not business, Santino, it's personal.

Updated On: 8/26/08 at 12:24 PM

Jill, I sincerely regret the presumptiousness I've displayed about your show and your collaborators. It's a trait I'd like to drop. I forget that because I require people I work with to be almost mercilessly candid about my work, that when criticism is unsolicited, more times than not it smacks of arrogance and can be just plain mean.

I'll try again.

If ATOTC is a grand success it could be a seminal moment on Broadway.

It will encourage all the "Davids" trying to match strides with the Golaiths that have dominated Broadway for decades. It will be a teaching tale of the scale of Jonathan Larson's accomplishment with "Rent". As importantly, it will validate something F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in "The Great Gatsby" as the narrator approached Manhattan:

“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge; anything at all."

Good luck,

E--

Updated On: 8/24/08 at 02:33 PM

I'm thinking audiences are beginning, or have already, had enough of sung-through
musicals. Dialogue can be every bit as riveting as music or dance.

I also believe there is an entire generation of theater goers who never saw "Les Miserables" and so there will be no basis for comparison". It's been 23 years since it opened in New York.

I'm always surprised when I talk to high school kids just beginning their love with theater that classics like "The Man of La Mancha", "Le Cage Aux Folles", and "Fiddler on the Roof" are completely unknown to them.

If you stop to think about it, how many musicals running right now are adaptations of classics.

My guess is there will be a vast audience that has not seen Les Miserables or a staging of this kind.