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Post by anthony on May 2, 2022 9:39:27 GMT
The new cast clearly hadn’t started rehearsals yet- Summer hadn’t met Daisy before. I think the current cast should just not turn up for the next show. And black list their names in the industry? There is only one person in the cast who has a big enough name to be able to get away with something like this. |
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Post by cezbear on May 2, 2022 9:44:18 GMT
And yet Today Tix haven't removed the tickets for sale past the closing date yet.
I can't imagine what the atmosphere is going to be like when they have to perform on Tuesday, I feel for the cast and the audience in that situation. Shows close early - it happens. Performers understand this is the nature of their industry. It absolutely didn't have to be this mess of bad feeling though.
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Post by mrbarnaby on May 2, 2022 9:59:47 GMT
The new cast clearly hadn’t started rehearsals yet- Summer hadn’t met Daisy before. I think the current cast should just not turn up for the next show. And black list their names in the industry? There is only one person in the cast who has a big enough name to be able to get away with something like this. I beg to differ. If they all do it , the industry is clearly appalled by how they’ve been treated |
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Post by Rory on May 2, 2022 10:06:16 GMT
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Post by richey on May 2, 2022 10:13:43 GMT
And black list their names in the industry? There is only one person in the cast who has a big enough name to be able to get away with something like this. I beg to differ. If they all do it , the industry is clearly appalled by how they’ve been treated |
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Post by richey on May 2, 2022 10:17:35 GMT
This one just about sums it up
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Post by MoreLife on May 2, 2022 10:23:33 GMT
And yet Today Tix haven't removed the tickets for sale past the closing date yet. I can't imagine what the atmosphere is going to be like when they have to perform on Tuesday, I feel for the cast and the audience in that situation. Shows close early - it happens. Performers understand this is the nature of their industry. It absolutely didn't have to be this mess of bad feeling though. There’s human beings behind Today Tix, actual human beings who put in data and set up seating plans etc. Most of them will have been / still are at home because of the bank holiday weekend… plus they will need to be told by the production to remove those tickets, they won’t do it of their own initiative just because whatsonstage has announced the show’s closure. |
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Post by stevej678 on May 2, 2022 10:56:37 GMT
Twitter thread from Daisy Twells.
Daisy had been cast in the ensemble and 1st cover for both stepsisters.
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Post by longinthetooth on May 2, 2022 11:21:23 GMT
I'm torn between going to see this one last time, or refusing to let ALW/RUG have a single penny more of my money.
I would think this debacle would put off many actors from ever wanting to work for ALW again.
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Post by alece10 on May 2, 2022 11:26:39 GMT
I'm torn between going to see this one last time, or refusing to let ALW/RUG have a single penny more of my money. I would think this debacle would put off many actors from ever wanting to work for ALW again. Yes but by going you are supporting the cast, crew and FOH. Thats why I'm going again in June. |
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Post by theatreian on May 2, 2022 11:37:22 GMT
Glad that I will get to see it as we are booked for the end of May to coincide with Abba Voyage.
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Post by alece10 on May 2, 2022 11:43:18 GMT
Glad that I will get to see it as we are booked for the end of May to coincide with Abba Voyage. Thats bizarre as it's exactly what I am doing over the Jubilee weekend plus a visit to the flowers in the moat at The Tower of London. 😀 |
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Post by theatreian on May 2, 2022 11:48:08 GMT
I have a 4 show 3 days as am fitting in My Fair Lady thurs mat with Frozen on Thurs 26th then Abba Voyage 27th.
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Post by scarpia on May 2, 2022 11:48:53 GMT
A reminder of when Love Never Dies flopped, ALW promised a bigger, better and revamped new production to open on Broadway within a year. It turned out that by Broadway he meant "Australia" and by bigger, better and revamped he meant "reordering the songs". Oh and by open within a year, he meant "open to mixed reviews, then close at a sizable loss, within 18 months". The same ALW that had promised and heavily promoted (then was given a reality check) having a "record breaking simultaneous world premiere" of said show in London, New York and Shanghai. This is not going to open on Broadway. Investors will want to see balance sheets. They'll want guarantees. I repeat, this will not make it to Broadway. Just look at the history. It's hubris, pride and the common line put out by producers when a show closes much earlier than anticipated. But especially ALW. "The Lord of the Rings", "Next to Normal", "If/Then" are on a list a mile long of shows which are announced as transferring after a retool/reimagining in a major new production. It hardly ever happens generally, but it's even less common after the show bombs in quite the way Cinderella has done. Exactly...which is why I've been sceptical of the Broadway plans for a while. Yes, they may have a theatre booked (is it the Imperial?), but they had the Neil Simon booked for LND and look what happened there. As late as 2012 they kept claiming Broadway was going to happen when it was obvious it wasn't and they were just putting feelers out for potential investors, but no-one in New York was interested. I can't see why anyone in New York would be interested here either, save that perhaps it may fare better to the extent that part of the show's lack of commercial success in London could be explained by the theory that titles associated with pantos don't do well as West End musicals (see Disney's Aladdin, which nonetheless is still running at the New Amsterdam but bombed at the Prince Edward). As for certain posts suggesting ALW's hands are clean here, come off it. We've heard that excuse time and time again. He is the producer when it suits him, and then when it all goes wrong he says he had nothing to do with it. It's the excuse he's rolled out so many times, and which subsequently has been proven to be untrue (cf. Sunset and what happened recently with Phantom in London), that I'm astonished people still buy it. RUG is wholly owned by him and Koravos reports to him and no-one else, and what he says goes. Maybe posters who are big ALW fans find it hard to fathom that he's not that pleasant as an individual, but even though three to four of of my all-time favourites are by him, I've long accepted that he can be (and is often) a **** and have learnt to separate the art from the artist. |
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Post by zahidf on May 2, 2022 12:03:00 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2022 12:15:14 GMT
This is now top of Daily Mail showbiz page so is potentially going mainstream. Shows do close and sadly contracts are only two weeks notice but to be done this way is just wrong. I whizzed through Summer's 2 hrs 45 mins Insta feed last night and she was very dignified about it. Her partner was more honest, poor Daisy too.
So Summer had a wig fitting on Thursday and Daisy's was cancelled on Friday so was decision made in those 24 hours or being cynical might it have already been made when Summer had her fitting. As Summer is a West End veteran and knows loads of people in the business if hers had been cancelled might she have started digging about and sounded alarm bells!
It is interesting that 85% of cast is changing was ALW unhappy with the cast. Due to pandemic I would have thought a lot of the cast would have wanted to stay on and the Producers avoid the extra costs of auditions, rehersals etc.
Has anyone heard before of an incoming company getting an offer withdrawn like Summer and co before?
Decisions for shows are financial ones and even ALW took a big hit in the pandemic but surely the cast, musicians and show support staff deserve so much better.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 2, 2022 12:33:43 GMT
I reckon they sent her onto TV the other weekend to try and generate some sales, it didn’t happen and even worse Twitter didn’t know or care who she was so at that point RUG decided to stop throwing good money after bad.
My theory is that certain cast members knew or found out this was in the cards, not for ages but before yesterday, Carrie being one of them. That’s why we saw the vague comment her last performance date changing without giving any further info. Also the tweet she posted after it all came out was very carefully worded and yet still seems to have disappeared.
Because a few people knew or had put 2 and 2 together the inevitable gossip started and started to get out of control over the weekend to the point where RUG felt their hand was forced. So they announced it before they were ready and before they’d got everything set up for a controlled communication to those affected. I’m not defending them, but we all know how word travels these days and how companies often jump to respond out of fear of criticism about not being open. If we had found out that the decision had been made but not communicated we’d be slagging them off for that too. However I think they could have waited until after the bank holiday and then started to ring people up.
As I said all just theory. I don’t think employers go out of their way to get these things wrong, but let’s face it ALW’s Cinderella has been a sh*t show since day 1 so who knows.
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Post by stagebyte on May 2, 2022 12:50:17 GMT
Twitter thread from Daisy Twells. Daisy had been cast in the ensemble and 1st cover for both stepsisters. I can see this would be heartbreaking but recording a Tik tok of you telling your mum your news and the pair of you crying is just odd/ (of another generation) I’m in agreement with BB CHF definitely knew before everyone else looking at some carefully worded tweets and her Summer comment referred to ‘officially’ being told.. Does anyone know why she wasn’t performing on the Sunday when it was announced? It will be interesting to see if any one else calls out sick Tuesday? I wonder if they’ll make a collective stand at the treatment. Do they get paid sick leave? |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 2, 2022 12:57:06 GMT
It would have been easier for her not to be present if she had been in the know. She would have had to feign surprise/shock or admit that she already knew. Neither option is very palatable, better just not to be there.
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Post by anthony on May 2, 2022 13:00:41 GMT
To be fair to CHF, she may not have known. I guess she wouldn't have been tweeting that her end date had changed if she did know, afterall, she'd have then had to have quantified that to her colleagues. It would just be very, very odd and social suicide if she did know.
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Post by stagebyte on May 2, 2022 13:05:27 GMT
To be fair to CHF, she may not have known. I guess she wouldn't have been tweeting that her end date had changed if she did know, afterall, she'd have then had to have quantified that to her colleagues. It would just be very, very odd and social suicide if she did know. I guess it is just another example of why she should take care with what she says on social media because her comments just look suspicious now. Especially awkward when she’s getting so much sympathy about only just finding out with the rest of them. |
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Post by mrbarnaby on May 2, 2022 13:06:22 GMT
Luke Latchmans tweet is heartbreaking. The entire new cast should absolutely be given financial compensation from ALW and I hope Equity step up and force this to happen
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Post by marob on May 2, 2022 13:09:55 GMT
If CHF was in the know then surely ALW/RUG would be disputing what she said as it makes them look bad that they didn’t even bother to tell the lead.
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Post by stagebyte on May 2, 2022 13:14:37 GMT
If CHF was in the know then surely ALW/RUG would be disputing what she said as it makes them look bad that they didn’t even bother to tell the lead. Give them chance it’s bank holiday Monday 😉 On another note lots of the new cast talking about ‘contracts’ surely they must be compensation if contracts have been signed? |
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Post by anthony on May 2, 2022 13:18:29 GMT
Whilst I appreciate the hurt and pain caused, especially for those making their West End/professional debuts, I do hope that none of these come to regret comments/videos made in response to this because they've been caught up in the madness of it all. I'm just not sure that someone at the start of their career, with no "clout", shaming their former (potential-)employer looks good. Sure, be angry... but they also need to remember that people like Strallen and Fletcher can afford to be this public about their outrage. They'll likely pick up fans because of it, sure, but what about potential future employers?
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