Unnecessary Revivals

Two immediately come to mind...

The 2009 revival of GUYS AND DOLLS (17 years after the last revival)

The 2012 revival of ANNIE (15 years after the revival before it)

And another MUSIC MAN revival is expected to hit the stage approx. 20 years after the last one.

I don't know the percentage of rivals that are considered flops, but I'm sure the number is pretty high. Did the producers of the 2009 or 2012 revivals noted above REALLY think people would be flocking in droves to see a new staging of 'Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat,' or yet ANOTHER staging of ANNIE? I think most of on this chat board could have predicted these would have been flops. Are investors that naive?

Though I never saw it I heard the 2005(?) revival of Les kid was pointless. And many were unchanged by the 2014 revival. I saw it and for me it was nothing groundbreaking not like the turntable original.

The cats revival had promised to be an event and it really wasn’t.
I wish the 2012 superstar has latched on it was incredibly performed I thought.
The 2012 evita was solely based on Ricky Martin.
The last Annie was painful.
As was the guys and dolls flop.
Miss Saigon though I personally loved it. But it was also my first experience with it
Rent off Broadway. Though I never understood how it went from being the it show to camp and lulled
As much as I love some shows there has to be a real need to revive it or it just seems forced and boring.

Theatrefanboy1 said: "Though I never saw it I heard the 2005(?) revival of Les kid was pointless. And many were unchanged by the 2014 revival. I saw it and for me it was nothing groundbreaking not like the turntable original.

Les Miz isn't referred to as "the world's most popular musical" for nothing. The 2006 revival was really a return of the original production with some luxury casting in the lead roles. What was supposed to be a limited run ran nearly 500 performances.

The 2014 production, I admit, isn't groundbreaking. But that production on Broadway ran over 1000 performances. Here in Philly, that tour has come through multiple times, and every time, it sells extremely well. In fact, it was meant to play here in March, (rescheduled for January 2021) and many performances sold out. At high prices!

Bottom line, Les Miz, coud come back every 2 - 3 years, and I think it'd sell.

The most recent Les Miserables revival immediately comes to mind. The whole thing was tacky, cheap, garish, and miscast beyond belief. Don't even get me started on the new design and direction...

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The Sam Gold revival of The Glass Menagerie that came like 3 years after the previous, better received one.

I agree with what JBroadway has said, especially in the three metrics of a revival. While I think that coming to the material with a fresh interpretation is always more exciting, there are so many shows that I never had the chance to see that I'd love a replica revival of just to see it (whether those shows need to be on Broadway is probably a different story). For shows like the recent Daniel Fish Oklahoma, it seemed that it would be difficult to understand the scope of what that show was trying to do without knowing what the baseline for a "traditional" revival would be (I ended up watching the Hugh Jackman version before attending and liked it much better than my friend who had no experience with Oklahoma).

Of course there are sometimes takes on a specific show that don't work (I don't think I've heard anything good about the latest Guys and Dolls revival), so I guess those could be considered "unnecessary" in terms of possibly misconstruing the original material without even adding an insightful look to it. Carousel also comes to mind for this, as the Jack O'Brien revival was considered pretty misguided, but to be fair, that was also my first experience with the show and I ended up loving the music afterwards, so I suppose there's always something.

In in the vain of whether a revival was worthwhile, I would say the 1996 production of Once Upon a Mattress qualifies (at least for me, my companions, and the people who sat around me who were also disappointed after the curtain call). It was my first and last experience with the property.

I also didn't think the 1981 revival of My Fair Lady was anything magnificent, but it was nice to see Rex Harrison recreate his role of Higgins and Cathleen Nesbitt recreate her role of Mrs. Higgins. It was my first experience with the property. The 1994 revival with Richard Chamberlain was unremarkable, but it did introduce me to Melissa Errico. Given these two experiences, I had low expectations of the recent LCT production, but it was the first production I enjoyed.

Updated On: 5/25/20 at 08:03 PM

What Dramarama and JBroadway said.

Malinda5000 said: "La Cage Aux Folles 2004

La Cage Aux Folles 2010"

both of these were totally needed!

They both took the Tony in their year for best revival