Follies

 

What a fabulous person you are! Clever (the suggestion about how to make ticketing fairer) and super witty. 

Ahhhhh!  I get it all now!  I bet no one has ever seen palace and @honouredguest in the same room together.... 

Oh my God, this is the cutest. Basienka is a super-cute form of Barbara in Polish. Something like Babsy?

I just looked at the date/s I wanted and not all the times and dates for all the shows. I take your point though it would stand out if someone looked at all the dates. Anyone looking at the NT schedule and who knows about WE theatre productions would definitely see a difference.

I remember reading that some of the cast of Coronation Street such as Pat Phoenix used to appear in rep which was probably good training as CS used to be shown live. 

But, as someone said earlier, almost all the plays were cross-cast from within a big company of actors in the Peter Hall days. So the extra cost of playing in rep was just production staff to switch the sets around, plus a very few, relatively underused actors who were just in one or two plays. And when an actor wasn't performing, they were in rehearsal for a forthcoming new production. In the Peter Hall rep system, like the present rep systems at the RSC, Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, the actors were all worked very hard so it was an efficient system.

Now, almost all the NT productions are individually cast, as a matter of policy, so each theatre has three separate companies of actors employed at any one time - two as actors in the two plays in rep and one rehearsing the next show to open there. Simplistically, that could triple the cost of actors, comparing now with the Peter Hall days. 

Yes, quite similar to the present RSC model, except that the RSC mini-ensembles are each restricted to one theatre whereas those NT mini-companies did one show in each of the three NT theatres.

So Im just listening to the most recent Broadway Follies,and I'd forgotten how high Sally has to sing in too many mornings, do we reckon this will be lowered a bit for Imelda?

I'm going to London on December 5th, do you guys think this will still be on by then?

Until they announce the extended dates in December though, we won't know the schedule meaning it could play for longer than just a few days each week. We just don't know.

Sally is a very rangey sing for any actress playing the role. Buddy's Eyes and Too Many Mornings both require the singer to have a decent low to mid range and then end with an expansive soprano… Losing My Mind has been altered so many times key-wise in previous productions, so it's hard to say what way this will go for Imelda. She really went to work on the Gypsy score and had singing lessons to prepare, and she was extremely dedicated during the 2 years that she played the role in terms of keeping her voice in shape. However that is a very different sing to Sally. I'll be interested to see what they do key-wise, but my guess is that Too Many Mornings will be brought down slightly especially for the duet section, but I should think Buddy's Eyes will be manageable for her. Her Baker's Wife had some soprano sections (it's a similar sing) and she sounds pretty decent on the OLCR of that particular show (albeit that was over 20 years ago). The best sung Sallys to my mind have definitely been Julia McKenzie in the first London production, Victoria Clark in the Los Angeles transfer of the 2011 Broadway production, and Charlotte Page in the 2013 Toulon production in Paris ( which had a predominantly British cast). I was not taken with Bernadette Peters' interpretation and I could take or leave Dorothy Collins in the original Broadway production. Imelda will act the sh!t out of the role, that's for sure. Her Losing My Mind is going to be terrifying lol.

Check out the above mentioned Sallys here (hope the links work!):
Julia McK
Victoria Clark
Charlotte Page

I wonder if I'm the only one not feeling excited about Imelda playing Sally,... On the other hand I cannot wait to see Janie Dee, her 'Could I Leave you' in Putting it together was brilliant

It didn't sell out instantly in the first booking period so as long as you're fairly quick off the mark you should be OK. Keep an eye out here as I'm sure someone will flag up the next booking period announcement.

Also have a look at info on Amex priority booking (if you or someone you know has an American Express card) and (if you are a young person!) Entry Pass.