Will HEATHERS Take The Neil Simon?- Page 2

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 7:01pm

Wasn't it the Heathers producers that alluded to a potential Broadway run, though?! Or just the crazy Heathers fans on here? I can't remember where it started anymore.

[BroadwayNerd24601]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 7:08pm

@newintown
School of Rock is taking the Winter Garden

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 7:29pm

Rachel and Dustin,



Updated On: 1/9/15 at 07:29 PM

[carlodowd]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 8:27pm

That Rachel and Dustin comment made my night!!

[Everlast85]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 8:31pm

^ YUP

[Fire and Music]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 11:37pm

Wow Jordan, looks like the Heathers are talking sh*t.

http://instagram.com/p/xqK6SVAPxj/?modal=true Updated On: 1/9/15 at 11:37 PM

[jbroadway4]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 11:44pm

HAHAHAHAH Jordan.

You go Rachel and Dustin!!

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/9/15 at 11:52pm

That instagram is amazing.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 12:03am

[Fantod]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 12:19am

I think I want it framed.

[theatregeek6]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 10:51am

The Instagram was hysterical. And bravo to Rachel and Dustin for responding. A great reminder to us that there are actual people with actual careers and lives being talked about here

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 11:30am

I love they have kept up with Jordan's constant obsessive bitching when it comes to this show and handled it perfectly.

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 11:49am

"constantly obsessive bitching"?

Is that how it reads if someone was unable to discern humor?

Updated On: 1/10/15 at 11:49 AM

[Everlast85]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 1:56pm

That's how people, especially those who are able to discern humor, read it. Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch!

Spot on songanddanceman!

Updated On: 1/10/15 at 01:56 PM

[Everlast85]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 2:03pm

Updated On: 1/10/15 at 02:03 PM

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 2:04pm

As someone who actually has to deal with the members of the "Heathers Fandom" (as they call it), I found Jordan's satire to be the most humorous thing on this board in a long time.

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 2:12pm

Agreed. And I would hardly consider this a matter of "cyberbullying" as the account said on one of the comments.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 6:00pm

This brings me to another issue: being a fan of something in the 21st century.

There have always been certain people who are more "into" certain things than others. That's why shows like Freaks and Geeks are called "cult classics" in spite of not having much popular success. But the norm was more enjoying certain music, certain television shows, or certain theatre shows and leaving it there. Nowadays, there are much more rabid obsession with these things. Especially within the teenage and early twenties age range, people are obsessing about these enjoyments. These people become "fandoms" which border on obsession with television shows and such. In the theatre realm, this was first really shown with Rent - there were people lining up to be first in line to get discounted tickets, the RENTheads saw the show numerous times, some up to over 20 within the off-broadway run. This lead up to Wicked which had many young fans obsessing with the characters and declaring that Wicked was "the best show ever!" Even Spring Awakening had this happen and younger people (these are generalizations, yes older people are sometimes involved in the "fandoms" but it is more often younger adults and teens.

This brings me to Heathers. The film version of Heathers was one of the cult classics I brought up earlier. It is one of the more successful of the genre, and inspired the much less successful (in both terms of popularity and quality) Jawbreaker and even GBF. What makes the film stand out more than the others it that the matter of satire and camp is well rounded: the craziness of what is happening is handled with the utmost care and every character believes what is happening. No one is poking fun at what is happening because they are deeply invested in the events. The point of bullying and teenage fame was made quite clear. The reason why Jawbreaker and GBF failed as satire was that they didn't make their point clear enough and relied on camp elements that made the film unrealistic, and drew audience members out of the story. Regardless, the films gained a small but vocal following. This is kind of what happened to Heathers the musical.

Heathers had a lot of the bite and sting taken out of it by adaptation. The opening sequence, which was original and not from the film, took away from the piece, making Veronica more unlikable. Several elements were misfires: the set, casting (what with the original Veronica allegedly performing under the influence multiple times), ect.
Even the score muddied up the point of the show. "Candy Store", "The Me Inside of Me", and "Seventeen" were points that required musicalization. "Freeze Your Brain", "Blue", and "Kindergarten Boyfriend" were not. "Candy Store" shows peer pressure and makes it point clear while being comedic. "Blue" is a one-note joke, after the first verse, the joke is over. The show features heavy camp, which is funny in moderation, but it goes overboard, into breaking the suspension of disbelief and even the fourth wall. This does not make the show a terrible one, or even a bad one, only mediocre.

The "fandoms" need to realize that Rent and Wicked are the exception, not the rule. It is not normal for shows to run a decade and up. Not all off-broadway shows are going to transfer, nor should they (as shown by The Fantasticks, which requires an intimate space). The small groups that love Heathers is very vocal, saying that it is "the best show ever" and "it's going to Broadway and it will run forever!". Those phrases are not made up, I have heard fans say those quotes. Heathers got middling reviews, and had a decent attendance and closed after 5 months. That's pretty good for that show. The show even got a cast recording, which is more than many shows get. However, realistically, no one should expect for Heathers to transfer or for a film adaptation to occur. If they do, as is happening for The Last 5 Years, it will be a blessing, and it will most likely not be a critical or popular hit. If it transfers, it could be the next Lysistrada Jones. However, these "Fandoms" are rabid and truly believe that Heathers is the best show ever. Because of the new obsessions over media and shows, people, especially in the younger age ranges are not being logical about certain shows.

Age also seems to be a factor. Everyone has their own opinions. My favorite show is Follies. I have said so numerous times, and yes, I am a litle biased regarding the book and such. However, I am able to discern that there is most likely not going to be a revival anytime soon, as it was just revived a few years ago and didn't recoup. There is no "fandom" for Follies and that is quite clear. After looking at the instagram, the people seem very immature. "Look, we wrote it in Veronica Blue because they're cool" is just stupid. If the same thing was true for other shows, we would see a lot of A8's posts up on instagram with rabid teenagers attacking him.

I have made comments about Scandalous and In My Life regarding the quality of said shows. Should I have to call up Carolee Carmello and ask "I know you closed four years ago, but can I post about your show on BWW?" Saturday Night Live is a perfect example of how these phenomenons are satirized. Bye Bye Birdie is partly a satire on teenage obsession with Elvis. Jordan made several funny and satirical comments about the crazy, illogical "fandom" of Heathers and was attacked for it when it is in fact a true, real life portrait of the "fandoms" in America, not just for musicals, but for television and boy bands. I bet the people who found it funny recognized the satire because they see it. I liked it because i know and am friends with many people in the Heathers "fandom" who talk about how it is the best of the best and how they can't wait for it to transfer. Jordan's comments were in jest, but it is chilling how we have deteriorated to this obsession.

[temms]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 6:50pm

In the theatre realm, this was first really shown with Rent - there were people lining up to be first in line to get discounted tickets, the RENTheads saw the show numerous times, some up to over 20 within the off-broadway run.

First off, the off-Broadway version at NYTW was completely sold out and there was no rush line - I got very, very lucky and snagged the last of 4 cancellation tickets for the performance I saw. And there were no RENTheads - just the typical audience you'd see at any off-Broadway show. It wasn't until it moved and the line started (not immediately) that the fandom really started to blossom.

And long prior to that you had the Jekkies with their over-the-top love of Robert Cuccioli*, the Phantom Phreaks and the Michael Crawford-ites, the Mizzies, etc. The internet certainly empowered it and enabled people to find one another way more easily, but RENT did not mark the start of obsessive groups of fan.

When I went with my friend to see the revival of 1776 at the Gershwin in 1998 which also had front-row rush seats, I joked that we should pretend to be 1776 Superfans and get baseball hats and t-shirts and scream whenever a new founding father entered, only to discover that there were people earnestly in t-shirts and baseball caps telling everybody around them how it was their 15th time seeing it or something like that. Fortunately they didn't scream for Richard Henry Lee or anything. (Though a presumably drunk man elsewhere in the audience kept loudly yelling "No!" every time John Adams sang "Is anybody there?")

But I agree that it's certainly grown in the era of social media. I do feel it's not so much about the shows or about people loving theatre (so many of these Superfans hyperfocus on one show and seem to have little to no interest in any others) but about finding a group and an "identity". They're not going to the theatre, they're enacting their version of a religious rite, like going to temple. I've always said that if I were a documentary filmmaker I'd totally do one on Broadway fans.

*Edited to add - yeah, my timeline's off. J&H was the year after RENT. I stand by the Phreaks, though.
Updated On: 1/10/15 at 06:50 PM

[temms]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 7:00pm

And because I've started my brain going…

I've just remembered listening to a colleague who is now a very prominent entertainment lawyer talking about how he was a "Jacques Brel" superfan in the late '60s and was one of a group of people who saw the show at the Village Gate dozens of times.

And in Lorrie Davis's book "Letting Down My Hair" about doing the original production of "Hair" on Broadway, she talks a lot about the kids who were obsessed with "Hair" and saw it dozens of times - even to the point of performing the show in the alley next to the Biltmore while it was going on inside.

So they've been there for a long time.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 7:18pm

Certainly. This thread had got me thinking about it and I started writing and it sort of took off into an essay. I was basing the shows off what I've heard from other people. But the internet has made it easier for the fans to connect to each other. I heard an interview a few months ago where it was stated that often, the fans are separate from the thing they connect over. The people believe that they will be similar and accepted by people who share their interests, so a community is formed over a shared interest in the things, which is double sided, as it can be a very good thing with people accepting and connecting with others, but bad in the sense that too often these people become obsessed with these things and start taking it to bizarre and creepy levels.

Updated On: 1/10/15 at 07:18 PM

[temms]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 8:06pm

Yeah, it is such a fascinating side of it all. I worked on an off-Broadway show a few years back that attracted a very devoted group of young fans, but unlike most Broadway shows it was a very small endeavor and there wasn't much buffer between the show and the audience and so they got to know the cast and be on the "inside" in a way that most fan groups don't usually.

It ended up being a very traumatic and troubling experience for some of them - seeing behind the curtain and realizing that the people doing the show were simply humans and working at a job was very demoralizing. They wrote several long, impassioned essays on MySpace about it all. And I'm not telling this to mock them or make fun of them - their hearts were really a little bit broken with what they learned, that sometimes everybody in the cast doesn't love everybody else the way the characters do onstage. And sometimes the management doesn't treat the company as well as the Superfans feel they deserve, which was very upsetting to them. They started taking very personally which understudies went on and who was renewing their contracts and why or why not - it was a very much a careful-what-you-wish-for situation.

I will however absolutely agree that Stage Dooring is a new phenomenon that has emerged in the last decade or so and is definitely the one that makes me scratch my head the most.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 10:09pm

"It ended up being a very traumatic and troubling experience for some of them [bolding mine] - seeing behind the curtain and realizing that the people doing the show were simply humans and working at a job was very demoralizing."

If that's true, you are talking about people who need help.

"The people believe that they will be similar and accepted by people who share their interests, so a community is formed over a shared interest in the things, which is double sided, as it can be a very good thing with people accepting and connecting with others, but bad in the sense that too often these people become obsessed with these things and start taking it to bizarre and creepy levels."

You mean like mocking fans over and over and over again during the run of the show and continuing to do so almost half a year after the show has closed?

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 10:15pm

People mock the original production of Carrie - is that creepy because it closed in 1988? Is that offensive to the fans and cast?

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 1/10/15 at 10:24pm

Apologies, I wasn't talking about you specifically, Sally. I should have made that clear. I was also not talking about mocking the show, but the fans - and yes, when a poster goes out of the way to rile up fans on a regular basis during the run of a show and continues to do so long after the show has closed, I think that's pretty obsessive.


eta: you have made a lot of interesting points, Sally and temms, but that's another thread. Imo, joke threads belong on the off topic board, not the main board. People come to the main board for information, and some people might actually believe this "joke".
Updated On: 1/10/15 at 10:24 PM