Thoroughly Modern Millie

I had heard that the rewrites that were planned for the now-canceled Encores production were being implemented for the licensed version. 

Jordan Catalano said: "Didn’t Encores say they were still committed to doing that show?"

Last I heard from people closely involved with Encores, it is not on the table at the moment.

 

Three years with no productions of Millie? High school girls with strong tap skills are weeping.

I don't think this show can be performed anymore.

Grateful how far we have come. 

JSquared2 said: "BETTY22 said: "I don't think this show can be performed anymore.

Nonsense."


- The existing show depicts a white woman running a sex-trafficking business, posing as an Asian-American woman, and everyone believes that she's indeed Asian. The trafficking business is not treated with the weight or seriousness that such things should be given.

- The portrayals of Ching Ho and Bun Foo are deeply uncomfortable and problematic.

- Millie joins Sincere Trust with the goal of marrying its boss for wealth. Most of the young women in the show are depicted as man-hungry, money-hungry, and flighty with not a ton of agency.

- beyond that, there are simply clunky and overly corny elements to the book and lyrics.

The show has been an embarrassment since it first premiered. Beyond Sutton's performance, it still boggles the mind that it won Best Musical. It needs to be revised before anyone performs it again –– whether that revision premieres at Encores or elsewhere. Simply casting an Asian-American actress as Mrs. Meers won't cut it, I don't think. I think anyone who can find fault in TOOTSIE or SOME LIKE IT HOT or MORMON should be able to find triple the problems in MILLIE.

But if a coalition of Asian-American female critics & theatre artists feel the show is defensible as-is, I'd be glad to read that argument.

Updated On: 1/17/23 at 02:07 PM

JSquared2 said: "Nonsense."

 

Nonsense? Hardly. And for all the reasons already cited by others in the above two well-articulated responses. This show would need a top-to-bottom overhaul, if that's even possible.

 

I don't intend to defend the property, but I don't care for the implication that the show or writers are racist because of their adaptation of material that was already problematic in the first place. Francis Jue had some complimentary opinions of the material in 2018.

https://playbill.com/article/why-this-original-thoroughly-modern-millie-actor-says-mrs-meers-and-henchmen-were-revolutionary

I'm aware that Millie was based on prexisting material but we all do realize that makes it *worse* not better, right? They all saw that racist material built-in to the structure and thought "good old fashioned fun!" 

Ke3 said: "I'm aware that Millie was based on prexisting material but we all do realize that makes it *worse* not better, right? They all saw that racist material built-in to the structure and thought "good old fashioned fun!""

Ok, but the writers departed from some of the more problematic aspects of the film (including that Dorothy chooses Ching over Trevor).  Clearly not enough for many.

In the original book of the stage show, Mrs. Meers’ decision to present herself, in yellow face, as a Chinese woman talking in pigeon English is entirely inexplicable and never really addressed. She’s given a backstory as a failed actress, and her henchmen are given a bit of sympathetic fleshing out, but her racist disguise is kind of just there as a comedic character gimmick. 

Yeah, they are certainly backed into a corner with the character. Even if you make Mrs. Meers legitimately Chinese, who code-shifts in public to play on the white characters' expectations, you're then left with... well, a scheming, predatory Chinese dragon lady stereotype. 

If you drop the Chinese plotlines entirely, and change the nature of Meers's disguise, what do you do with her henchmen? They don't really make sense if you have Mrs. Meers disguise herself as some other identity- and you've eliminated the 2  actual Asian characters in the show. And having her just be a woman with an Orientalist bent, as in the movie, it's still uncomfortable - even if Orientalism was very much in fashion at the time and another 20s trope the musical can send up. 

The potential Encores revision with Ashley Park seemed to suggest that having more Asian performers in the show may help smooth this over, but that is certainly very tbd since nobody's seen that version. 

Updated On: 8/22/25 at 11:22 AM

I can't confirm first hand but Hannah Solow had an instagram story the other day saying something like hearing Micaela Diamond sing "Gimme Gimme" was amazing so I assume Micaela was Millie and Hannah was either Mrs Meers or Miss Flannery. Anna Zavelson could be Millie or Dorothy but that would mean another character sings Gimme Gimme.

I've always thought you could easily swap Meer's disguise to be anything over the top and kooky such as a Swedish Chef accent, a thick Scottish brogue, an absurd Monty Python style French accent, etc etc removing the racial aspect entirely (and the character can be cast as any race). The point of the "disguise" to me is she can more easily charm and/or brow beat people into doing what she says and frankly, nobody takes eccentric kooky people seriously. I could be entirely wrong and it would still come across uncomfortable no matter what, but I would think it would be worth doing in a reading to see.