Unsinkable Molly Brown reading w/ Sutton Foste- Page 2

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/3/10 at 4:20pm

It's a remarkably full score, with all kinds of numbers. In fact, to my thinking, the score is so rich, it suggests a far better musical. Therein lies the problem. I believe the book was too thin to support some of Willson's more charming work. Personally, I love one of the excised (from the under-sung film) "Are You Sure," which builds to a gorgeous crescendo.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/3/10 at 4:58pm

I'd rather see Anything Goes.

Posted: 5/3/10 at 5:00pm

Can't we have BOTH Mr. Matt?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/3/10 at 5:01pm

A 2 character version sounds like an attempt at a new I DO, I DO with "colorful" characters. Since Molly and Johnny sing most of their better material to others, or from afar, there will need to be some major configuring.

How will "I Ain't Down, Yet" "Belly Up" or many others fit into a narrow focus?

[rorschach37]

Posted: 5/3/10 at 10:41pm

Why don't they just scrap the Molly Brown idea and do a reading of The Music Man? Now THAT is Willson at his finest.

[skszp292]

Posted: 5/3/10 at 11:55pm

I feel like I should clarify since this "2 character" idea seems to be distressing folks. This will not be a 2-actor show; there is in fact a cast beyond Sutton Foster and Craig Bierko. While I can't claim to know anything about the structure or content of Scanlan's new book, the line in the article about eliminating "all of the other characters except for the two leads" is somewhat misleading - as I understand it, these eliminated characters will actually be replaced by new ones.

[bk]

Posted: 5/4/10 at 3:35am

"I'm not surprised you remember the two guys in "I Ain't Down" as her brothers, but the characters are not her brothers, just local boys. "

Say what? Do you just like to post to see yourself post and just say any old incorrect thing that you feel like - and amazingly no one corrects you? The "two guys" in I Ain't Down Yet are local boys? Having played one of those THREE (not two) boys a very long time ago in an LA production, I am here to tell you they are most assuredly her bothers. Molly is Molly Tobin. From the script:

I Ain't Down Yet Molly and her brothers

Michael, Patrick, and Aloysius TOBIN. So, you really must be new in town. I gotta tell you.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/4/10 at 11:05am

So now it'll be

"Molly and 3 travelling salesmen."

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/4/10 at 11:36am

I did an interview with Randy Weeks, President of the DCPA (Denver Center for the Performing Arts) shortly after the "..Molly Brown" reading here. In part 2 of the inrerview, he discussed it. Here is what he said. Some info on the development is included.

On the new Adaptation of the musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown": (My question to Mr. Weeks about the new adaptation was if it was possible that Denver would get the out of town try-out/world premiere)

That's basically the position that we took. We don't have any current rights to the material. The rights are controlled, first and foremost, by the Willson Estate. And Mrs. Meredith Willson, Mr. Willson's widow, is alive and well. She was here for the reading at the New Play Summit. Wonderful lady! After the reading I got her to tell me some stories about living in Hollywood back in the 50's and 60's on and that was the fun stuff! But, Dick Scanlon is the fellow who has re-written the project. What Dick did, he did the adaptation of the movie to a musical, and had been kicking around "Molly Brown" for a while. He ended up coming out here to Colorado, did the trip to Leadville, studied, read and came down to Denver and spent time at The Molly Brown House and decided to go ahead and do it. He is a very wise man and he didn't really throw himself into it until a rather prolonged negotiation with Mrs. Willson. It is my understanding that the signed agreement with Mrs. Willson is that he can do anything with the play, the musical, as long as the title stays the same and the Music is all Meredith Willson Music. So he basically had free reign to re-write the book and use or not use all of the original songs in the show. I think he kept about six or seven and then went back, well, he actually went back and visited Mrs. Willson at her home, and if you can imagine such a thing, if you are a theater person, of being in MerEdith Wilson's basement and going through file after file after file of Meredith Willson songs, published or un-published and going through and go "Oh this could make this work and put this together with this" and basically re-structured the entire show. His arching project here was to re-focus the original musical from Molly Brown the legend to Molly Brown, the person. And that's what he has done. I don't think Dick is done yet. I think there is more work to be done. But you don't know that until you have a few readings and the Denver Center facilitated that, for Dick, both here and in New York and now I think he has a better sense of what happens in front of an audience, what works and what doesn't work, and we have an agreement with Dick that if the production does take the next step of garnering a commercial producer, that the Denver Center for the Performing Arts has an option to become a co-producer on the project. And also, with a few hold-outs and a few extenuating circumstances, that Denver would be the "quote, unquote", New York out of town preview".

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/4/10 at 12:13pm

Can't we have BOTH Mr. Matt?

YOU can have both!
Whatever...
Shut up!

*clicking heels fade into distance*

[newintown]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 4:18pm

bk, I bow to your superior knowledge. Perhaps the film is different from the play? I had just re-watched the movie, and noted that a) the boys seem to belong to another father, b) Molly isn't really a Tobin (being found in the flood), and c) there's an exchange about getting one of the boys to marry her (which they have no urge to do). Although I may be unclear on a lot of this - I find the storyline and dialogue to be colorful to the point of incoherence at times.