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Post by princeton on Mar 18, 2022 20:43:28 GMT
I think it's Bailey Hanks - the winner of MTV's The Search for Elle Woods, who took over from Laura Bell Bundy in the Broadway production (and in fairness she was referenced in the previous tweet to MattNYC's - though she has zero profile here in the UK).
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Post by princeton on Mar 18, 2022 15:52:35 GMT
What's odd about this is that it's not a new production - it's been around since 2009 when it was done in Amsterdam (in Dutch). It's since toured around the world including to Sydney, Dublin and New York. So it's not as though Sonia Friedman and her team didn't know what the set was going to be like when they put the tickets on sale - sounds as though someone got their measurements horribly wrong!
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Post by princeton on Mar 17, 2022 18:26:18 GMT
If what I've heard is true (and I guess all will be revealed pretty shortly) then exciting casting for London and beyond - with some overlap - almost making up for the lack of Whoopi and definitely more appropriate. Some people really do make a habit of it.
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Post by princeton on Mar 17, 2022 14:43:35 GMT
It's just so unnecessary. They've enough good reviews and pull out quotes from reviews without doing this - and it's not, given that the run is well on its way to being sold out, as though they need to misrepresent things in order to move tickets. I suspect it's because the Times response is considered particularly important to potential US investors. It also explains why they've posted several extracts from the Variety review in a separate Instagram post.
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Post by princeton on Mar 17, 2022 12:55:02 GMT
This from a mailing I got today: "In rural Pennsylvania, Michael has returned to his childhood home to look after his dying father. His siblings Ned and Pam soon arrive, determined to work out how much money Dad actually has left and how they're getting their hands on it". So definitely three actors and possibly a fourth (I can imagine that the dying father is never seen).
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Post by princeton on Mar 17, 2022 11:54:56 GMT
It also seems to have James Davis as Will Parker from the Broadway production too. And I agree Patrick Vaill was astonishing - the best actor in the NY version.
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Post by princeton on Mar 16, 2022 23:23:56 GMT
I can imagine a few minor script changes - but very little will need to be done given that the key thing is that main character has to move from a seemingly self-obsessed fashionista - to a Harvard law graduate. She proves herself to be smart, personable and talented - all attributes which Courtney Bowman has in abundance. I remember seeing her when she won the Stephen Sondheim Student Performer of the Year and thinking she really did have the 'it factor' so I'm delighted that she's got such a great opportunity.
The production may be brilliant or may be terrible, it may be an honourable failure or an unqualified success - but isn't it great to have an all new production team looking at it though fresh eyes - rather than just doing yet another cookie cutter version? I wasn't that interested in seeing it - I am now.
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Post by princeton on Mar 16, 2022 18:21:47 GMT
Not her hands - that's the poster from the original Broadway production (with a bit of DIY photoshopping going on!)
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Post by princeton on Mar 16, 2022 15:07:32 GMT
I notice that they've added a dramaturg to the creative team - so I expect that there will be some tweaking or at least a reappraisal/reinterpretation of the source material.
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Post by princeton on Mar 14, 2022 15:45:00 GMT
I saw her as Sophie in Mamma Mia at one point. I don’t know where that fits into the timeline. Alex Jay did Cabaret in 2002 just after she left My Fair Lady, and then she joined Mamma Mia in 2003 replacing Laura Michelle Kelly who was about to take over as Eliza in MFL!
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Post by princeton on Mar 11, 2022 12:18:04 GMT
There doesn't seem to have been any announcement made prior to his departure - just one today to say they've extended booking and Bob Marley is now being played by Michael Duke, and the website reflects that too. I'm assuming it's a planned departure given that they've already got a replacement alternate, David Albury.
I guess that it's not a great surprise given that Arinze Kene is really hot property at the moment so is probably juggling lots of different projects - so six months, including rehearsals is probably all he could commit to (especially as the production is much delayed). That said it's a shame that it wasn't announced in advance as people like me who haven't yet seen it would probably have made the extra effort go before he left.
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Post by princeton on Mar 11, 2022 0:32:13 GMT
It's not his London stage debut as he played Nick in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Apollo in 2006 alongside Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin in a production which transferred from Broadway.
And agree it's baffling how often Rebeck's plays get produced as the misses far outnumber the hits.
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Post by princeton on Mar 10, 2022 13:33:03 GMT
I'm not sure it's as cut and dried as that. The broadcast version of the west end production was called Kipps. There is a version of Half A Sixpence available through MTI (either pro or amateur) but it's the pre-Cameron Mackintosh version, so no Julian Fellowes or Stiles and Drewe. I suspect that KIlworth got the rights before the name change (the production was first announced in 2019) so they've been allowed to keep it.
I does look very odd to have a musical which dates back to the mid 60's with the billing Co-Created by Cameron Mackintosh - though I guess if you own the licensing company you can do whatever you want!
As you say - all very confusing for audiences.
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Post by princeton on Mar 10, 2022 10:48:54 GMT
This is the required licensed billing - Cameron Mackintosh has to be credited twice, even if he has nothing to do with the production - though I though that it now had to be called "Kipps: The New Half A Sixpence Musical" so there's clearly been a bit of a fudge. This was due to be directed/choreographed by Andrew Wright based on his choreography from the previous version, however that's not going to be to case now.
Also wasn't the Chichester logo based around a banjo?
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Post by princeton on Mar 9, 2022 23:50:30 GMT
it’s UK premiere in Leicester? The first UK professional production of Merrily was actually in Manchester at the Library Theatre, in 1984, with a cast including Tracie Bennett as Mary. The great thing about it is as a piece is that your connection to the characters changes depending on your age (I know that's always the case but here it's even more so) and as such it constantly rewards repeat visits across the decades. When I first saw it I was an undergraduate full of youthful optimism - so I associated more with the characters at the end; by the time of the Donmar production I was heading towards the age of the characters at the beginning of show; by the Menier I was older then everyone (the characters - if not the cast). Every time I've seen it it has affected me in different ways. I do think it's a true masterpiece - albeit a flawed one.
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Post by princeton on Mar 4, 2022 0:20:49 GMT
You're correct - Kim Medcalf was the second Sally at the Apollo during the 2006-2008 production, Michelle Ryan did the Savoy Theatre revival in 2012.
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Post by princeton on Mar 3, 2022 13:09:57 GMT
This is great casting. Louis Gaunt is incredibly talented and has a natural charm and charisma both on stage and off, he's a delight to watch. He's been doing really stellar work in regional theatres for the last few years - and even though he's still only in his early twenties I'm sure the role of west end leading man will fit him like a glove. It's definitely a good reason to pay a return visit.
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Post by princeton on Mar 1, 2022 18:40:20 GMT
Amy Lennox and Fra Fee are both experienced theatre actors with a background in musicals who have also demonstrated their skills outside of the musicals arena. In a way they're similar to some of the early replacements in the 1998 Broadway revival which cast theatre actors rather than names as the MC and Sally (though Jennifer Jason Leigh was a noticeable exception to that). Although the original cast stayed around longer in that case - and arguably Redmayne is a bigger name than either Natasha Richardson or Alan Cumming were then. Also at the moment the show is riding high on good reviews, and likely awards, not only for the cast but for the production/experience as a whole, so may well continue to do well in the short term, albeit with some reduction in ticket prices.
Also it's possible that they'll get a higher profile third cast as a name may not want to be known as the person who replaced Eddie Redmayne (not least because if the box office was to tank it would reflect badly - and at the moment the only way it can go is down!).
I guess the calibre of future cast replacements may well depend on how much time Rebecca Frecknall and her original creatives are willing to spend putting in the cast, as it's unlikely that any true A lister is going to want to work mainly with a resident director, no matter how good the resident is, with Frecknall only coming in and doing a bit of tweaking at the end, and she's hot property herself at the moment. If they are going to go down the cast change every three months route I suspect that she's going to become increasingly hands off.
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Post by princeton on Feb 28, 2022 23:39:53 GMT
I think it's wrong to say that the old couple are the only ones that represent the "authentic lived" life of Weimar Berlin You're right and it wasn't my intention to suggest otherwise. I was going to say 'the authentic lived life of ordinary Germans' then I decided that ordinary germans was an unhelpful, and rather judgemental phrase. I think that as written in the original libretto - there's a very good balance between those characters involved in the cabaret and those who are not. Adding additional songs for Sally and the Emcee and removing them from the older couple has, in my opinion, rather unbalanced things.
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Post by princeton on Feb 28, 2022 13:32:25 GMT
The other thing about Lotte Lenya was that she was the real deal. She'd been living and working in Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic - so would be familiar with the cabaret bars of that era (though too big a star to have worked there I imagine). She also fled Germany in the early 1930s because of the rise of the nazism in the country.
Also Jack Gifford who played Herr Shultz in the original production was a big star both as a comedian and on Broadway, indeed he had a high enough profile to be included on the McCarthy blacklist.
Whereas Jill Haworth who played Sally was a 21 year old film ingenue with almost no theatre credits - who, as mentioned above, got terrible reviews - with the NYT calling her casting "the evening's single and all too obvious mistake."....."she is a damaging presence, worth no more to the show than her weight in mascara". The Times also noted that with this hole in the centre of the production - Lenya and Gilford became the focus at least during the first act of the show.
I think that it's a great shame that the characters of Schneider and Schultz have become less central as the years have gone - largely driven the changes made in the film and then by productions which want to put the whole cabaret location front and centre (even if that is sometimes a fine line between immersive theatre and theme park experience). They represent a different side of Berlin life in the 1920s, perhaps the more authentic lived one and, to me, are the heart and soul of the piece. I don't particularly like the way that this production stages 'What Would You Do' - bordering on torch song on the cabaret stage complete with heroics and flashy lighting - but that's maybe because I've seen at least a dozen different productions of Cabaret and have favourite moments from each of them, and this moment didn't move me (it seemed staged to elicit, and then get, whoops from the audience - the curse of the x-factor response).
I guess that's my biggest issue with this production which has many strength and great moments particularly in the book scenes - but it doesn't really move or shock me. I'm not sure whether that's because I'm over familiar with the material, or that I've seen other productions which did move me - or whether I just couldn't get beyond the cynical high ticket prices and drinks and nibbles packages which resulted in Liza-esque audience arm gestures during Jessie Buckley's gut wrenching rendition of 'Cabaret' or swaying along to 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me' - both of which happened all three times I've seen it (thankfully the sing along only happened once). It will be interesting whether a less starry cast will change the audience dynamic.
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Post by princeton on Feb 26, 2022 22:38:24 GMT
Just to add my two penn'orth.
From what I remember Emma was offered the role for four performances a week ie it would be shared equally - on the assumption that the winner of the TV show would be an untrained newcomer who and would probably leave after a few months (the gossip in the west end at the time was that Emma would be top billed with the programme winner being billed as - Special Guest Appearance at certain performances to allow some wiggle room should Emma be required to do more than four shows a week - though that may have been an urban myth)
However as inthenose says the TV show became popular and ticket buyers only wanted to see the people from the television, added to this was that Connie Fisher was actually a Mountview musical theatre graduate, so Andrew decided to make a 6/2 split. He positioned this as protecting Fisher's voice (rather unfortunately, given what was to come, saying "we certainly do not want her ending up like Julie Andrews who strained her voice when young and who can no longer sing") and in some interviews even said that Emma Williams would play two performances and understudy Fisher. Connie Fisher rather called ALW's bluff by saying, in her post-win interviews, that she had trained for three years and had the passion and stamina to perform eight shows a week.
There was only about a week between the TV programme ending and rehearsals starting - by which time Emma had gone - hopefully clutching a very large cheque. It was all so badly handled - with, as usual, ALW speaking first and thinking later (if at all).
The drama didn't end there - Simon Shepherd who was cast as Captain Von Trapp was sacked, to his surprise, after two previews - to be replaced by Alex Hanson who was apparently hired before Shepherd was fired!
And never forget the Hollyoaks/Sound of Music crossover with Summer Strallen playing Summer Shaw, the unknown actress who won the part of Maria at the Palladium. Oh what ALW will do for publicity.
But indeed - back to Mary Poppins.
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Post by princeton on Feb 26, 2022 18:52:42 GMT
And of course what happened with The Sound of Music... Indeed - one of the ever increasing examples of Andrew Lloyd Webber treating actors as disposable commodities - to be used or cast off according to his latest whim.
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Post by princeton on Feb 26, 2022 15:20:29 GMT
oops - my bad.....
Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part then - given how great she is during the development/rehearsal stages....I'd amend my previous post but then the subsequent one wouldn't make much sense.
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Post by princeton on Feb 26, 2022 15:05:26 GMT
I suspect that is largely down to her. I've worked with her and she's delightful, talented and hard-working and really enjoys being part of the creative and development process (it's one reason why she has been involved in many workshops). There's a very good reason why she's been nominated for an Olivier award four times. However, from early on in her career she decided that she wasn't particularly interested in taking over a role and being put in by a resident director to replicate what had gone before. It may have been a bit career limiting but has meant that she's done what she wants to do which.
There's no beef between her and Cameron Mackintosh, in fact she used to work at the CML office during her acting downtime - so she was very much in Cameron's line of sight - literally. And given that both her Truly replacements went on to play Mary I'm sure that she'd been sounded out.
Almost every time a new production is announced I think wouldn't Emma Williams be good in that (Eliza in MFL had they cast at a similar age to the Lincoln Centre production; The Witch or Baker's Wife in Into The Woods; Nellie in South Pacific - a role she was due to play in France immediately pre-pandemic - to name a few).
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Post by princeton on Feb 25, 2022 22:21:48 GMT
When the play was done in New York in 2012 it was often referred to as Cock (aka The Cockfight Play) as many publications wouldn't print the real title. Even the New York Times called it The Cockfight Play in its review - coyly saying: "“Cockfight Play” is not the title of the terrific, tense little comedy by Mike Bartlett that opened on Thursday night at the Duke on 42nd Street. Its real name, which is only one syllable, is unprintable here, and “Cockfight Play” is being used in advertisements in family newspapers." Given that they could even bring themselves to print Shopping and F**king - and simply called it "Shopping and ...." I guess it should't have been that much of a surprise.
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Post by princeton on Feb 23, 2022 14:35:08 GMT
I'm quite surprised by the casting, however one of my favourite productions of Passion was at Classic Stage Company (a 200 seater in NYC) which had a Fosca who was about 20 years older than Giorgio with Clara somewhere midway between - and it worked well. That said, it was certainly helped that in Judy Kuhn, Melissa Errico and Ryan Silverman it had three very good actors with very good voices.
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Post by princeton on Feb 22, 2022 12:19:51 GMT
One final thought having looked at their booking site - if inthenose's solution doesn't work - then try selecting the 'maestro card' option. Maestro was/is the precursor of a Mastercard debit card and it's being phased out completely - but I wonder whether they are actually using this as shorthand for debit card (a maestro card has never been a credit card so their labelling on the payment page is wrong). Maestro cards have always been a bit glitchy online which is one of the main reasons they are being replaced.
Fingers crossed that one way or the other something works!
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Post by princeton on Feb 21, 2022 17:38:50 GMT
In addition to the ones mentioned above, off the top of my mind and going back a few decades (even though it doesn't feel like it) Peter Hall Company did The Merchant of Venice with Dustin Hoffman as Shylock at the Phoenix Theatre; then also Twelfth Night at Playhouse and Hamlet (Stephen Dillane) at the Gielgud . Then, as you mention, he took over the Old Vic for a season where he directed King Lear.
I can think of three commercial Macbeths in the West End - 1999 starring Rufus Sewell directed by John Crowley; 2002 Sean Bean directed by Edward Hall and 2013 with James MacAvoy directed by Jamie Lloyd. Lloyd also directed Richard III with Martin Freeman.
More recently the Michael Grandage Company did commercial runs of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry V (Jude Law) at Wyndhams. There was also a production of MND at the Albery in the early 00's with Dawn French as Bottom.
There was also the David Lan directed As You Like It starring Helen McCrory. And during Trevor Nunn's takeover of the Haymarket Theatre he directed Ralph Fiennes in The Tempest.
I think (and it's not strictly speaking the West End anyway) that the Benedict Cumberbatch Hamlet was produced by Sonia Friedman as a commercial hire at the Barbican - rather than a co-production (like the recent Anything Goes) so didn't get any direct public subsidy. On the same lines - as the Old Vic doesn't receive public subsidy then there were the productions done as part of Sam Mendes' Bridge Project - The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, As You Like It and Richard III. Then more recently at the Old Vic the Glenda Jackson King Lear (and the aforementioned and best not remembered Much Ado). On the Old Vic it's a shame that Matthew Warchus hasn't directed any Shakespeare since taking over as AD as I rather enjoyed some of his earlier work at the RSC (and the brilliant Rylance/McTeer west end Much Ado).
There might be some others which I didn't see, or worse still that I saw and have forgotten! Turned out to be a longer post that I anticipated.
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Post by princeton on Feb 21, 2022 14:26:24 GMT
From the Orchard Theatre website:
Accepted Payment Methods - Credit and Debit Card (Visa, MasterCard and Maestro) The Orchard Theatre Gift Vouchers Theatre Tokens (via our Ticket Office, over the phone or in-person) We do not accept American Express.
Sounds as if any problem is technical, maybe with a card provider, rather than policy.
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Post by princeton on Feb 19, 2022 21:23:43 GMT
LD is lucky dip. As Dave said - when you get to the theatre you have to join a queue for the lucky dip ticket holders and then you'll be taken to wherever there is a free seat a couple of minutes before the show starts, which could be anywhere in the theatre.
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