Why is Wedding Singer on the rocks? — Page 3

This was my first show on broadway despite seeing almost every major tour that comes to LA and i thought that it was amazing it is soooo much fun!!!! I hope it runs for years!!!

"And making assumptions based on your own perceptions of 'audience reactions' is pretty flimsy in the first place."

Is this directed towards me? If so, it goes beyond my own perceptions of audience reactions. I have a long history of working in theater management.

---

overthemoon419, you don't need to bold my name, I can read.

Our opinions were requested here, not once but TWICE by jdixon69, or I wouldn't have bothered to respond to offer my two suggestions of how the people who have put money in this show can maybe get it back. It seems with a show's gross dropping, there could be a valid concern.

Frankly I wouldn't want Mr. Morrison to appear in the show until they cleaned up the language, giving the jokes more innuendo and sparkle. This needs to be done in four or five places, maybe a couple more. The vulgarity was noted in the reviews. I don't mind bawdy, Shakespeare was bawdy. Unnecessary foul-mouthing is something else. It doesn't need a rewrite, it needs a minor polish by someone with good taste and a sense of comic style. Craig Lucas could probably clean the show up in two days with a little chisel. Minor work for a writer, that's what I truly believe.

An audience may laugh (this is for jdixon69) at a joke because of the good comic timing and delivery of an actor, yet still find it disgusting. (I don't laugh at disgusting jokes even with good delivery, but I listen harder to dialogue than many.) When they leave the theatre, even though they laughed, they will not recommend this show with foul jokes because they know a lot of people don't like to hear that, won't pay money for it or will be unhappy if they do, and they won't bring children to it. The other audiences I listed before will also not want to attend this show when they can be secure in not running into this problem at a Disney show or something like The Drowsy Chaperone--this competition has good taste. Drowsy has booze, implications of sex, a gayish lead in Man in the Chair and it's all amusing and not offensive. There's no offensive language in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels that I noticed, either.

Think back to the absurd fuss that was raised about Janet Jackson baring a nipple. I wouldn't give a damn if she ran around stark naked onstage. No big deal to me. But I would care if disgusting language and jokes came out of her mouth. You can IMPLY all sorts of weirdity and rediculousness. Just don't be disgusting about it. Leave some things to the imagination. It makes the jokes better.

While I enjoyed the show, I would only recommend it to people who could overlook the inappropriate language, often in the punchline. And that leaves out a lot of people who could easily have been included otherwise. It won't hurt the show to smooth that out.

Updated On: 8/12/06 at 10:46 PM

Perhaps Roninjoey, if you dig really deep, you can find an original thought and idea of your own to offer the person who began this thread.

Such a great show! It really just needs some press and word of mouth.

It's gotten press. The press says it's a bad show, not worth spending $111.25 on.

It's gotten word of mouth. The word of mouth is that it's a bad show and it's not worth spending $111.25 on.

---

People are not capable of "not letting the words come out of their mouth." It's just not human nature, if somebody sees something and they don't expound upon it, they obviously didn't feel too terribly passionate about it either positively or negatively.

If there is lack of word of mouth it's because it's not motivating people to talk about it, which in essence, speaks to the weakness of the show as a whole. If it was great, people would talk about it. If it was horrible, people would talk about it.

---

Roninjoey, Craig Lucas is known for great comic writing (Reckless, which had a revival with Mary-Louise Parker a couple years ago) in addition to dramatic writing. He didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere in 2005 to write The Light in the Piazza.

---

overthemoon419, no offense taken. It's just a bit jarring to see my name bolded. Like a scream from the dark...

Roninjoey, sorry, you can't take credit for my thoughts regarding Shakespeare and bawdiness. They were independent of yours.

Wanna Be A Foster, exactly how I feel about Craig Lucas, and why I raised his name as an excellent writer of comedy. His Prelude to a Kiss of long ago was hilarious. He just happened to get in on Piazza and he was not the first writer to attempt it. The man just has the ability and sense of workhorse completion to get the job done. It was Lucas that laced Piazza with humor and SAW the possibilities of humor in it that helped catapult the show to excellence. I can't think of a better, classier writer that could clean up the bad taste jokes in Wedding Singer with a quick polish if he is willing and available.

Tchi4Lif188, I agree that the ensemble is talented, energetic and glorious, and deserves a long run to prance about in their great costumes and choreography.

jdixon69, as no doubt you are aware, Urinetown did some successful marketing by hiring the little billboards atop taxicabs all over town. Has that marketing tool been well-explored by Wedding Singer? I haven't been looking to see.