Touring Miss Saigon In San Francisco

Just returned from my theatre group outing to Miss Saigon at San Francisco's Orpheum theatre and was VERY impressed. Across the board excellent. Sets, choreography, orchestrations, cast, et al. Only quibble was the sound mix was out-of-balance now and then (we had excellent seats in the first and second rows of the loge). Several MS ''virgins" were in the group and they were very excited about the production. Having seen the original production many moons ago I felt that this iteration was the stronger of the two.Â

POSSIBLE SPOILER: Also loved that the final bow was given not to the characters of Kim or The Engineer, but to Tam. The child actor, Justin Chen was wonderful in the non-speaking/singing role.Â

Sho-Tunes-R-Us said: "

POSSIBLE SPOILER: Also loved that the final bow was given not to the characters of Kim or The Engineer, but to Tam. The child actor, Justin Chen was wonderful in the non-speaking/singing role.Â"



Tam has gotten the last bow from the beginning, in the original production.

carolinaguy said: "Lot666 said: "I saw the Broadway revival twice and enjoyed it. I wish they'd announce the rest of the tour stops."

Here are the dates through August:

Miss Saigon tour

Whether there are actually more dates to come depends on how the first year goes I guess."

That yellow "More Dates Coming Soon" banner at the bottom of the list has been there for as long as I can remember.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I saw the recent revival twice and loved it. Also saw it back in 1989 in London when it first opened and 1991 when it first opened in NYC. I bought my NYC tickets a year before it opened, and then it was cancelled. Remember all that?

Yes, it's a great moment when the final bow is given to Tam. I remember that from 1989 and 1991. The audience roars with approval. Looking forward to seeing it again when it comes here to LA next year.

My quibble with this revival remains to be the the many lyric changes, most of which are pedestrian, and the horrendous new song for Ellen. I actually thought the physical production was pretty good. Definitely grittier than its predecessor design from the non-Equity tour from the beginning of this century.

antonijan said: "Was there a Mormon missionary in the previous productions?"

I don't think so, but if there was, it certainly wasn't a Book of Mormon-ish type Mormon who said, "HELLO!"

Sally Burns said: "antonijan said: "Was there a Mormon missionary in the previous productions?"

I don't think so, but if there was, it certainly wasn't a Book of Mormon-ish type Mormon who said, "HELLO!""

He was in the revival and he was definitely a Book Of Mormon type yelling hello all through What A Waste.

Sorry, I was referring to the original production not having a Mormon (not the subsequent revival/tour).

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/please-no-more-miss-saigon

"There’s Kim (Emily Bautista), an innocent Vietnamese village girl turned prostitute — both virgin and not — who doesn’t get to speak until she catches the eye of a white American GI, as if it’s not till then she matters or even exists. She’s so selflessly, slavishly devoted to him, even after he leaves her, that she kills herself over him. She has to die; as far as the musical can see, it’s the only possible ending for the crime of mixed-race copulation."

Updated On: 5/8/19 at 12:38 PM

LizzieCurry said: "https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/please-no-more-miss-saigon

"There’s Kim (Emily Bautista), an innocent Vietnamese village girl turned prostitute — both virgin and not — who doesn’t get to speak until she catches the eye of a white American GI, as if it’s not till then she matters or even exists. She’s so selflessly, slavishly devoted to him, even after he leaves her, that she kills herself over him. She has to die; as far as the musical can see, it’s the only possible ending for the crime of mixed-race copulation.""

That's a rather, "interesting" interpretation of the plot. You can always tell when a reviewer has a bias (Hedy Weiss, formerly of the Chicago Sun-Times, passed off an anti-French rant as a review of the non-Equity tour years ago).

Updated On: 5/8/19 at 01:40 PM

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/please-no-more-miss-saigon

"There’s Kim (Emily Bautista), an innocent Vietnamese village girl turned prostitute — both virgin and whore — who doesn’t get to speak until she catches the eye of a white American GI, as if it’s not till then she matters or even exists. She’s so selflessly, slavishly devoted to him, even after he leaves her, that she kills herself over him. She has to die; as far as the musical can see, it’s the only possible ending for the crime of mixed-race copulation."

She should be fired for that alone, but the rest of her immature rant and biased revision of the plot and score is just as bad, if not worse:

After Kim tells him her “village was burned,” that her “family was blasted away,” Chris’ only response is more arousal: “Can I see you tonight?”

She's cherry-picking lyrics out of context and adding her own false narrative. It's a shame she was given a job that could have gone to a million other more competent writers (which would include most BWW members). <<edited by BWW staff>>.

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to check out the cast on the website. Has anyone else checked out the cast page? WTF is going on with headshots nowadays? I don't recall seeing so many bizarre and unflattering headshots for one production before. I'm still looking forward to seeing the tour, but Jesus, I don't understand what half this cast was thinking when they selected their photos.

Updated On: 10/16/18 at 05:51 PM