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Post by FrontroverPaul on Aug 16, 2019 22:05:58 GMT
I was disappointed by one of the (amateur) shows I saw this week because it had been reduced in length by over an hour.
It's a musical I know fairly well (not My Fair Lady!) and normally runs for about 2 hours 40 minutes including the interval. This production was cut back to 90 minutes including a 20 minute interval. Most musical numbers were edited, several cut out, and two significant parts of the story completely removed. The cast were fine but I still felt very much short-changed as did the couple next to me and I'm sure many others.
I would have thought that when an amateur or stage school company was given the rights to perform a show their scope to make cuts and changes would be limited or can they do what they like with it ?
Incidentally here's nothing in the advertising for the show to indicate it's an abridged version.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Aug 16, 2019 22:16:45 GMT
I was disappointed by one of the (amateur) shows I saw this week because it had been reduced in length by over an hour. It's a musical I know fairly well (not My Fair Lady!) and normally runs for about 2 hours 40 minutes including the interval. This production was cut back to 90 minutes including a 20 minute interval. Most musical numbers were edited, several cut out, and two significant parts of the story completely removed. The cast were fine but I still felt very much short-changed as did the couple next to me and I'm sure many others. I would have thought that when an amateur or stage school company was given the rights to perform a show their scope to make cuts and changes would be limited or can they do what they like with it ? Incidentally here's nothing in the advertising for the show to indicate it's an abridged version. Rights holders often offer different versions of a show, especially for those with young casts or for young audiences. Some are radically changed (the into The Woods junior version cuts act two). In general, adult companies performing for a typical mixed age audience shouldn’t be able to get the rights for these, though. In all cases they should also be advertised with the correct version name. |
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Post by FrontroverPaul on Aug 16, 2019 22:24:37 GMT
Thanks. I've seen Sweeney Todd "school edition" and Shrek The Musical "Junior" and in both cases the words in quotes were included in all the publicity and on the tickets. In this case there was nothing to suggest a different version and it's a family friendly show so nothing unsuitable for a young adult cast to perform.
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Post by jgblunners on Aug 16, 2019 22:27:53 GMT
As Cardinal Pirelli says, some shows offer abridged versions for youth or school groups, but these usually have indications of such in the titles (e.g. 'Les Misèrables Schools Version'). If it wasn't advertised as one of these reduced versions, then in theory you should've been seeing the full show. Most amateur licenses explicitly state that you're not allowed to alter any of the material without the consent of the licensing company. Now obviously it's not always policed and you can take liberties with that - shows that I've done in the past have cut maybe one overlong or superfluous scene or made changes to a handful of lines, but nothing more drastic. I suppose there's also ambiguity over whether cutting material counts as 'alteration' or 'removal'. However, what you saw sounds like a big no-no if it was meant to be the full show. Messing with music is far more serious and can completely pull a show apart. Again, in my own experience even wanting to change the orchestrations requires the consent of the licensing company. Would be interesting to know exactly what this group were licensed for.
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Post by Jon on Aug 16, 2019 22:34:56 GMT
I’m more surprised schools are allowed to perform Sweeney Todd.
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Post by FrontroverPaul on Aug 16, 2019 23:09:05 GMT
There are two words added to the title of the show concerned but they do not give any indication that it is so heavily cut.
I don't want to name the show but I will add that I've been to dozens of youth theatre /summer stage school musicals in the last three years and this is the first time I've ever been aware of seeing anything less than the full version. Like most such shows the young cast were uniformly excellent making the short running time all the more disappointing.
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Post by andrew on Aug 18, 2019 22:53:11 GMT
I saw an amateur 'Sunday In The Park With George' once (for considerably less than the West End prices are going to be this time round, but the less said about that etc...) which was a really odd experience.
There was a truncated Act 1 (I think 'The Day Off' and 'Gossip' and maybe something else were omitted), then as he finishes the painting it just swept into the start of Act 2 ('It's Hot Up Here' etc). Then most of Act 2 was omitted up to 'Lesson #8' and 'Move On' which had their lyrics drastically altered to become less story and context specific, lyrics about his family tree for example were replaced by platitudes. Then with no clear story really going on anymore and an unclear reason for the musical even existing, we get the second Sunday and it finished. I had brought my friend not realising this was a cut down version, telling her how this is one of the greatest musicals ever written, and what we got was a bland and confused mishmash of songs.
There was nothing advertised to say that that was what it was, it was incredibly disappointing.
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Post by FrontroverPaul on Aug 19, 2019 8:48:39 GMT
I saw an amateur 'Sunday In The Park With George' once (for considerably less than the West End prices are going to be this time round, but the less said about that etc...) which was a really odd experience. There was a truncated Act 1 (I think 'The Day Off' and 'Gossip' and maybe something else were omitted), then as he finishes the painting it just swept into the start of Act 2 ('It's Hot Up Here' etc). Then most of Act 2 was omitted up to 'Lesson #8' and 'Move On' which had their lyrics drastically altered to become less story and context specific, lyrics about his family tree for example were replaced by platitudes. Then with no clear story really going on anymore and an unclear reason for the musical even existing, we get the second Sunday and it finished. I had brought my friend not realising this was a cut down version, telling her how this is one of the greatest musicals ever written, and what we got was a bland and confused mishmash of songs. There was nothing advertised to say that that was what it was, it was incredibly disappointing. That's almost exactly how it was with my show last week. The 65 minute second act became 25 minutes. It was at a well-known theatre only a few miles from where the full version had a recent successful run The audience would have been a mix of family and friends of the cast - most probably unfamiliar with the storyline and score - and people like me and a couple I spoke to who had seen it in the West End and were very disappointed. I'm going to send the theatre some feedback and it will be interesting how they reply. Saturday aternoon I saw the Stagecoach production of Sound Of Music at Kingston which was 100% complete with a star-quality Maria and absolutely wonderful ! |
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