Whistle Down The Wind?? — Page 3

I also prefer the children singing it. The lyrics are too simple to be sung by one of the older characters. Not simple in a bad way just clearly written from a child's point of view.

A few pages back one poster indicated it hadn't played the west coast on the tour. It did cancel SF, but it did very much play the west coast. I saw it in Sacramento. I remember thinking there was a good show in there somewhere, but every bit of Kenwright's direction was suffocating it. Some of the most inane staging I've ever seen. The choreography for the Overture was just silly.

It's not my favourite ALW score, but I do like much of it. Tire Tracks is totally "English Girls" re-vamped. Truth. But the "Our Kind of Love" thing is a bit of a mixed bag. It wasn't, necessarilly, taken from BEAUTIFUL GAME for LOVE NEVER DIES. it was originally written for PHANTOM 2. When that was initially scrapped the chorus (not verse) was used in BEAUTIFUL GAME. When ALW returned it to the PHANTOM sequel, he removed the song entirely from BEAUTIFUL GAME (now known as THE BOYS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH). I still think that was a mistake, as "Our Kind of Love" is lovely in the piece.

I remember I wanted to see this tour when it came to Philly in February 2008 (Andrea Ross, Andrew Lloyd Webber's protege at some point was starring as Swallow; she would be replaced, however by Whitney Bashor by the time it got to Philly) and a huge snowstorm hit Wed or Thurs of that week. The tickets were heavily comped and discounted by Philadelphia standards, but I never made it. Love the title song.

OK, I take that back. Apparently since I last looked, a 20 minute promo piece for the London production was uploaded to youtube. Mainly Jim Steinman and ALW interviews but it does have some clips which give *some* idea of the set, though not the two tiered element really (I also remember, due to the small size of the theatre, the fire near the end was *really* hot.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3iv4ZgUBO4

Updated On: 2/10/15 at 04:55 PM

If Amos is so sweet on Swallow, why is there no dramatization of that in Act 1?

It's evident in their dialogue exchanges in Act One. He's bordering on flirtatious literally every time they talk.

It's obvious Amos is already a man and the relationship is a bit creepy.

While Dean Collinson was a little on the mature side, there's little doubt that the character is a teenager. He refers to being bullied by his father (which a man wouldn't stand for); he idolizes James Dean. There is little reason to confuse the character for anything other than what it is.

I'm sure by moving it to the American South, the writers were trying to play up the child bride aspect.

What the fuck? No. They chose the South, and more specifically the Bible Belt, because it's a place they think that story would have happened were it to take place in the U.S. (Webber originally wanted the parallel to Yorkshire and the mines to be more on the nose; he suggested a town in West Virginia, but Steinman argued for the deep South for a variety of reasons.)

Jesus Christ, if you're this dense, it's a wonder you find dramaturge work at all. This stuff is all evident to anyone who actually saw the London production or even overcame the crappy attempts at Southern accents and listened to the OLC. It's as subtle as a cockroach crawling across a white rug. Clearly you didn't get it, so I'll allow ya wiggle room, but for cryin' out loud, you seem to have gathered nothing, nothing at all, from what you saw, provided you actually saw it.

---

Updated On: 2/10/15 at 05:45 PM

Not sure they were an important couple, but their definitely was meant to be attraction there.

GDELGI, I love how much you've thought about this musical and reading your posts--but I'm a bit unsure why you took it personal with Gotham... I agree that I felt it was pretty clear--to me--but...

With regards to the set, there was a discussion back when Kerry Ellis got trapped in the lift in Wicked a few years back.

"The entire stage floor was a big fake tarmac surface, like a motorway. Most of the time it was used just as a floor. During the train tunnel an freeway scenes, the entire floor raised half way up the proscenium, forming a flat elevated stage area above, and another flat area area below. This was used to great effect during the Finale of Act One, when the children were down below with The Man ('Jesus'), and the adults were above, searching for the Killer (also The Man).

"The "Freeway" which was a 12-tonne piece of set cause a great deal of technical problems and injuries. I recall Dean Collinson dislocating his ribs and getting a hernia.
Many of the cast had bruises, scratches etc.

I actually hit my head and cut my arm open on that set whilst having to climb through the railings on it in the final scene. "

And back in 2005, actor Dean Collinson was awarded £7500 for his injuries.

"He said after the hearing he had missed more than 100 shows because of injuries received during the production. He said he had had to pick up a motorbike with a pillion passenger still on the back to avoid them being crushed by a 12-tonne stage set.

He had also "had to push the female lead out of the way of a train that was being pushed towards the audience, giving myself a hernia".In another show, "I fell from a ladder that had had oil used on it to stop it squeaking"."

Updated On: 2/11/15 at 12:00 PM

A bit of trivia: "No Matter What," sung by Boyzone, and written by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Jim Steinman for WDTW, is the only musical theater song to crack the top 40 since "One Night in Bangkok" did so in 1985. It reached #35 on the Billboard top 40 and hit #1 on the UK singles chart in 1998.

Other songs from films have become hits since, but none that originated on Broadway or the West End. And while Kinky Boots' "Sex Is in the Heel" was a hit for Cyndi Lauper on the dance/club charts, it didn't cross over.

More than that, "No Matter What" went to #1 in 17 other countries.

---

Enjoying reading all this. I'll never forget when ALW and Jim Steinman were on 95.5 WPLJ (here in NYC) to preview "A Kiss is a Terrible Thing To Waste" on the morning show. They played the workshop version you can hear on the ALW definitive collection.

Jim posted that demo at his website; it seems to have been removed recently, but if you're one of those people who just has to buy the song, you can find it here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/kiss-is-terrible-thing-to/id296886013?i=296886111&ign-mpt=uo%3D5. Not bad for a demo, as they remarked on WPLJ. Full orchestra, the best of Steinman's session crew, and guitar overdubs from Brian May. If nothing else, it makes a terrific record.

My opinion - this was written right after Sunset and was opening just as Sunset shuttered on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. The Really Useful Group was a complete mess. And ALW being a control freak, in the middle of all this and wanting a hit rather than just letting the creative process flow really hampered it. He has said in some interview that he wishes he had stuck with Hal Prince and worked on it more. And having heard a bootleg of DC - much of the score was the same as the London version - but with a more of a rock/edgier sound to it.

I honestly feel a more conventional rock sound came into the London version as opposed to being present in D.C., which had a lot more folky elements bordering on country. I assume massaging most of it into rock made the Steinman/Webber power ballads sit more easily alongside the rest of the score, but I still feel losing a lot of what D.C. did musically (except for "Spider" -- just... ew) was a misstep.

That aside, your opinion seems to me to be right on the money. I find it funny, however, that Webber now wishes he had stuck with Hal Prince, because, to hear Steinman tell it, Webber second-guessed him all the way through the tryout. Quoting an interview: "I remember meeting with Andrew at Trump Tower later and he was indecisive about the whole thing. One week he would say, 'Jim, I just don't know, should Hal Prince direct this or not? He's getting on in years.' Hal was in his 50s then. The next week, he would say the same thing, only Hal is now in his 60s. In three weeks or so, Hal had aged three decades in that conversation." Apparently Steinman himself had a low opinion of Hal's work methods: "Hal only directs from 10 to 2. Then he has to get home to see the soaps." When the show opened in D.C. to hatchet-job reviews, Steinman recalls, "I woke up, went to the theater, ready to start the rewriting. The stage manager said that Andrew was gone and Hal's off skiing. I stayed in Washington for two weeks, hoping to get cracking on it. But they were gone."

(Prince, for his part, points part of the blame at Steinman in Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre: "It was the wrong time for me and Andrew to be working together. We weren't in sync on this, and there was no joy in the collaborative process. Jim Steinman may have been the reason. Andrew had brought in Steinman, a successful rock and roll composer, in the belief that Jim would move him into the area of more current musical taste. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but from the word go the working chemistry among the three of us was bad. Jim is talented, but he drove me crazy with perorations about what needed to be done, and then didn't do anything. Lots of thoughtful and articulate talk, but not enough action.")

---

Not even remotely, but thanks for playing, chewy. It's not offensive, per se; it's just that a certain poster I blocked accuses me of using this particular conceit often.

---

Steinman's a big part of what makes the show work, but diminishing Webber's contribution is, in my view, a mistake.

---