financial success and salaries the sequel

[vpgomez]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 4:50am

Thank you all for the information. Now you really admire the amount of work the broadway crews put in compared to most of the trashy acting and productions we get on TV.It's a shame that the Broadway phenomenon is so limited to NYC when there are so many others out there who would love to see many of the shows that don't generate enough success to go on the road.
Does anyone have any idea why Flower Drum Song closed so quickly? What about Vampires?

[Belter]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 5:38am

I didn't see Vampires, but my friends (who are Broadway dressers) saw it and said it was so terrible they were embarrassed to be watching it.

Not quite as bad, Flower Drum Song disappointed them because they love the original and felt the reworking of the script was apologising for things that weren't problems.

I wanted to see it, until I heard that from them. I love the original show, too, and feel that since it had never had a revival, it was wrong to rewrite it AND call it a revival. I call that sort of thing a "bastardization" ...

[chasing_rainbows43]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 9:44am

I may be one of the few who loved Vampires. A lot. A whole lot. It's all about going in with the right expectations: none. I went in expecting a crappy piece of theatre with Girl! Meets! Vamps! MORE SMOKE AND MIRRORS! And that's what I got.
But you know what? Smoke and mirrors and dance music are fun! People went to DOTV expecting to hate it, or expecting an actual piece of legitimate theatre filled with Symbolism and Deeper Meaning and SH*T To Interpret, and they didn't get any of that. It's just a fun, campy, over the top, entertaining musical. No one seems to want fun anymore. Everything has to mean something, so if it doesn't mean something, or have that point in the show where you can see the invisible narrator go "Listen up, kids - here's the moral of the story" and make some great political or social revelation, they peg it as crap. And in that sense the show was crap, but it was FUN crap! Boring people piss me off :-/


BTW I loved FDS as well. Well, maybe not loved. Really liked, though. Sandra Allen was fantastic, Lea delivered a great "Love, Look Away".

[IssaMe]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 10:03am

chasing_rainbows43, you describe DOTV perfectly (well, for me at least...not for lots of other people around here).

We may not be in the majority here - but I think you may well express what the majority of the NON-theater fanatics thought about the show.

Of the (it has to be hundreds) people I spoke with at the show, there was from the GENERAL PUBLIC almost unanimous enthusiasm for the show as a "fun" and "crazily enjoyable" if not "profound" experience. For some of us up closer, it was also somewhat "profound" but on god-knows-WHAT level.

But this battle has been fought endlessly and it all comes down to personal opinion - so everyone is right.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 10:13am

Compare DOTV to a Sondheim musical such as "Pacific Overtures"

Give me DOTV anytime. With overtures, you may fall asleep ( I think I did) . With DOTV, if all you want is 2 1/2 hours of mindless entertainment & totally forget about all your problems, that was the show for you

3 cheers for the Sponge. Ditto re FDS. On the old board, I said I perferred the original & some took that as being anti oriental & racist I kid you not.

[Cadriel]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 10:15am

I think somewhere in some older article on Talkin' Broadway (not the forum, it's on the site somewhere) is a description of one person's reaction to Carrie: The Musical. It was, in his eyes, one of the funniest shows he'd ever seen. It's exactly like that description of DotV: so far over the top it's funny. But Carrie's reviews were, by all reports, even worse than Chess's were two weeks earlier. And I've read the reviews for Chess - they're probably the most uncomplimentary I've seen.

Dance of the Vampires is, as far as I can tell, an example of a musical that desperately needed an out-of-town tryout to see what material worked and was funny and what just fell flat on its face. But that didn't happen, and it continues in a long tradition - begun by Chess, ironically - of rewritten foreign shows making splashy failures on Broadway; Amour was another show with the same problem. I think the next candidate up for that particular curse would be Taboo.

-Wayne

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 10:26am

Amour was quite enjoyable My wife & I saw it & look forward to the release of the cast album. This is a true musical & it is a shame it did not succeed

[sharon1]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 11:05am

If you want to discuss finances. CCBB in London recouped their L6.5 million in 18 months or just under. How is that for successfull?????

[PB ENT.]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 11:17am

I've not seen Flower Drum Song. It seemed like a "nice" show according to the people I know who saw it and the general reviews. Lea Salonga definetly was an asset, as she always is.

Again, ths same principle applies, I think. Investors front the money and the shows make it or close based on audience support. To me , it wasn't strong enough to meet the monthy budget beyond a certain time. Admitedly, just my guess, not knowing more than that.

BUT, without getting into a royal opinion debate ...I did see DOTV and thought it was outrageously "out there" and just not destined to last. Besides the fact that behind the curtain lie a dozen major creative nightmares all going in opposite directions (which showed in the final product). Personally, I thought it put Michael Crawford, whom I truly like, in the worst possible light ever! Of course that fact that the media and fans totally flamed it to the point where the majority of theater patrons just said "forget it"....well, it flopped.

I felt sad for a few of my theater pals who were put out of work, but hey! it part of the business. I was up there in pre-pre previews and thought "My gosh, this is going to be a monster of a show, by what I saw "could have" taken place".

I think it was wise that MC took his money, which would have sustained it for quite a while, and closed the coffin.

Again, that's just one of many opinions. Every one's entitles to thier own.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 12:53pm

Does anyone know when "Urinetown" went into profit?(if it has?)

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 1:21pm

DOTV belongs in Vegas

Here is something Revive DOTV with Nathan Lane as Krolock. I would pay to see that That would be a rip & a half. Think of Nathan Lane & the sponge . Is it me or did Garlic Garlic sound like Murder Murder from Jekyll & Hyde?

[CourtneyM]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 1:24pm

dotv was the best show out there. but to many people wanted it to have some meaning like les miz. and it didn't. it was supposed to be pointless. i mean how could you take something that puts vampires and dancing together seriously? i wish it could have stayed but the cost was just to great and the critics just to stupid.

[Sally]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 1:55pm

Chasing Rainbows and others, I'm glad that it is possible to say that you liked Vampires for whatever reasons. In other times and in other places, to do so was to be blasted as an idiot or a "shill."

Having read so many early nasty comments about DOTV, I saw it not expecting very much and enjoyed it a lot--fun show with music I liked a lot.

[IssaMe]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 2:42pm

Well, as a person whose two big goals in life were to be a chorus dancer and a vampire, how could I have not related to DOTV?

[chasing_rainbows43]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 2:57pm

I'm watching this right now (yeah, yeah....). This show kicks ass.
If you've got some sort of connection with the show, then yeah, it's shilling, but I don't, nor do I think i'm promoting it entirely too much, I just hate that the critics & others don't get it. It's not les miz, it's not even chicago, or the full monty. It doesn't have a plot (this, this is not a plot), it doesn't have a point, it's not creatively even good let alone exceptional. The choreography is amazing as it should be for this particular production. (I'm sitting here in amazement at how incredible these dancers are)
And uh, those who are interested in seeing this show in all its schlocky campy immature inappropriate parodying glory can PM me. (hey, always willing ot share the love. hee)

[IssaMe]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 3:04pm

Enjoy.

Last night was comparing Tanz, the DOTV English-language demo, and DOTV as it ended up on Broadway - three very different shows, weren't they? Am looking forward to Germany in August to bid it (in its most serious yet somewhat less campily fun version) goodbye.

Additional international editions being planned...but not in its Broadway form.

[Rypm25]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 3:52pm

I went into Dance of the Vampires looking for fun, and not expecting anything too deep from it. There was quite a bit about the show I enjoyed very much; however, my BIGGEST problem was in the book. Things just sometimes never made sense, which made it more difficult for me to enjoy the parts I was enjoying, especially the sponges. I couldn't laugh at the sponges because I didn't understand why it was supposed to be funny. They never explained what the point of them were,(at least when I saw it) so it didnt make sense that the sponges were funny...and the jim henson bat was wierd, and I couldnt understand it half the time it was giving these punchlines with Michael crawfords wierd voice he used for it...and there are other problems that didnt make sense for me, but overall i thought it was ok...and would have been much better if the book had an overhaul. I actually liked a lot of the songs too!:) Just my opinion...

[Hank]

Posted: 6/14/03 at 4:20pm

The reworked Flower Drum Song was all new to me, so I had no preconceived expectations. I finally got to see this show at it's final performance (2 birds with 1 stone, I allways wanted to see a finale) and I really enjoyed the show, a lot. It's got great tunes, and the CD is one of my favorites. I think it's big drawback was that it was not pc. Some gays were offended by the Harvard character, and there were a few too many Chinese food jokes. As the son of Polish immigrants, I know what it feels like to be picked on as the but of jokes and being steriotyped. But I got over it and I can relate to the story.