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Post by sph on Jul 15, 2024 13:59:52 GMT
Interesting (and refreshing) that a 'new' production of a recent show will tour - and Adam Penfold (director) is really finding his feet now at the Playhouse and scheduling some ground-breaking new work (eg The Punch) rather than sticking to tried-and-tested pot-boilers. I hope he does a good job with DEH - but some recent musicals, not directed by Penfold, were less-than good (Assassins and Sweet Charity for example). The Punch was a near sell-out success too! The Playhouse do some good prices, but overall have an irritating booking policy of only opening bookings on less than a third of the available seats when they have every expectation that it will be a box-office hit. I have nabbed good stalls seats at just £17.25 (incl membership discount) - the equivalent seats at Curve, later in the tour, are £58.50. Back in the day, a new West End version of a Broadway show (and vice-versa) would not be a carbon copy of the original - maybe this will start a trend for tours having new creativity instead of a cut-down replica. I think nowadays though, shows tend to be developed as a "complete-package product", i.e. The sets, costumes, direction etc, are all part of what gives the show its identity - Wicked is a good example of this. Shows used to be, many years ago, written as a book and a score and everything else was open to change and interpretation.
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Post by firefingers on Jul 15, 2024 18:44:23 GMT
Interesting (and refreshing) that a 'new' production of a recent show will tour - and Adam Penfold (director) is really finding his feet now at the Playhouse and scheduling some ground-breaking new work (eg The Punch) rather than sticking to tried-and-tested pot-boilers. I hope he does a good job with DEH - but some recent musicals, not directed by Penfold, were less-than good (Assassins and Sweet Charity for example). The Punch was a near sell-out success too! The Playhouse do some good prices, but overall have an irritating booking policy of only opening bookings on less than a third of the available seats when they have every expectation that it will be a box-office hit. I have nabbed good stalls seats at just £17.25 (incl membership discount) - the equivalent seats at Curve, later in the tour, are £58.50. Back in the day, a new West End version of a Broadway show (and vice-versa) would not be a carbon copy of the original - maybe this will start a trend for tours having new creativity instead of a cut-down replica. I think nowadays though, shows tend to be developed as a "complete-package product", i.e. The sets, costumes, direction etc, are all part of what gives the show its identity - Wicked is a good example of this. Shows used to be, many years ago, written as a book and a score and everything else was open to change and interpretation. Respectfully that isn't true. There was a period where elements of the production where actually impossible to alter. West Side Story for example had to be performed with the original choreography right up until the last few years as a condition of performing the show. In a mass communication world it is natural for audiences to expect replica productions of new work, having seen the media about the original large scale production on the Internet, news, social media etc. But eventually after the maim markets are hit née productions emerge, even Wicked has been done without its iconic design.
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Post by sph on Jul 15, 2024 22:26:54 GMT
I think nowadays though, shows tend to be developed as a "complete-package product", i.e. The sets, costumes, direction etc, are all part of what gives the show its identity - Wicked is a good example of this. Shows used to be, many years ago, written as a book and a score and everything else was open to change and interpretation. Respectfully that isn't true. There was a period where elements of the production where actually impossible to alter. West Side Story for example had to be performed with the original choreography right up until the last few years as a condition of performing the show. In a mass communication world it is natural for audiences to expect replica productions of new work, having seen the media about the original large scale production on the Internet, news, social media etc. But eventually after the maim markets are hit née productions emerge, even Wicked has been done without its iconic design. I may have paraphrased a little, but, respectfully, I gave a pretty accurate gist of how the musical theatre market has changed. Sure, older musicals may have had a few stipulations here and there as to things they couldn't change, like bits of choreography, but they weren't "replicas" when they were revived fairly soon after their much shorter initial runs. The market is very different now, and productions like Wicked have perhaps been staged on RARE occasion without their first designs, but let's be honest, that's not the iconic production that people have been seeing the world over since it debuted just over 20 years ago.
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Post by Jon on Jul 15, 2024 22:41:38 GMT
There's nowt wrong with shows being replicas of each other, it in theory ensures quality control but also means you know what you're getting.
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Post by danb on Jul 16, 2024 5:19:05 GMT
In the case of DEH, I suspect it might be to do with Greifs’ initial production really not sitting that well in the uk. I was so disappointed on my first visit as it just wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It was so small, and underwhelming vs the cast recording. The problem was entirely of my own making as it was my expectation that was wrong. But something had created those expectations! At least in Notts I’ll be going with my eyes wide open.
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