bostonman

I'm sure the commercially-released film of the stage version (NOT the recent movie) is easy to find out there - you should give it a shot. Just so you know what the fuss is all about lol. Why they decided to make that film last year I'll never know. Or frankly, it might have been lots of fun as an animated film, instead of whatever the hell they came up with.

Got it. Sorry! :-)

Cats (especially after some judicious and needed cuts hat have been made over time) is a pretty fun song cycle. It was, in a way, the "testing ground" for the craze soon to be known as the "mega-musical," which would soon be all the rage - and IMO, it didn't need all that overdone production value. It's always felt to me like some remnant of a glam rock show, but set in a junkyard, with people dressed like cats. (???) It could have been whimsical, but I think it wound up taking itself WAY too seriously. So, as a musical theatre production, I find it rather pretentious. But the score itself is quite engaging and fun.

Webber had nothing to do with "The Boy From Oz."

Yes, but I'm sure Mr. Diamond is up there laughing at this kind of reaction lol. What's perhaps a bit mysterious about the video is that naturally you might expect that from "Zack" or certainly "Slater" - but a "Screech" porn vid? (Even though of course it's Dustin not Screech.) But if anyone reading this is taking understandable offense at the tone of this conversation, I definitely apologize. We're not trying to dishonor Mr. Diamond's memory.

Likewise, I hate to seem crass under these circumstances, but do we know if there's a link to that video anywhere? Asking for a friend...

Boy, this happened fast. It was only a few weeks ago that I was reading about his diagnosis. Very sad.

This is one reason I love that we have this message board. Tyler, I'm glad you felt the impetus to post and try to clear things up. I confess your ad has always attracted me, but I've never been sure whether I should go for it or not. I'm thinking maybe I should go for it after all lol. I'm still hesitant to hire right now because of covid concerns, but you may just be hearing from me soon! This is also good to know beforehand, lol. I can relate to sarcastic/sardonic, but without knowing someone is doing that it may indeed be hard to get that reading on the web. But this way I'm prepared lol.

I haven't seen any online plays yet this year, but I have seen 3 cabarets done by colleagues of mine. One excellent, one pretty damn good, and one that needed a lot of direction (and a clearer theme). One of them was produced online and edited down, one was live on Facebook, and one was taped live in a theatre (with no audience), with some "guest performances" edited in. I realize more and more that the 2 toughest things about cabaret are the willingness to land the songs in the audience (even online, one has to find a way to be inviting rather than indulgent), and having truly effective spoken patter between songs. And I think the absolute hardest thing about any kind of online performance is getting used to the total absence of audience response (especially applause) and how to compensate for that instead of letting it be awkward. VERY tough to do.

I guess you needed to see it more than once to get the whole play.

I generally don't mind designs, even if extensive like the pic above. It's when I feel I have to "read" someone's body all full of text that it gets too much for me. I don't know the proper term (I assume there is one) for the word tattoos men often get just above the chest, often in cursive "font" or with a Goth sort of look - I hate those. With a passion. (Though if you have a random small "mom" or "name of gf/bf" on your arm or something, that's ok lol. That's not so intrusive.)

There's nothing like bad productions of classic shows. A few of my "favorites": A student theatre club at my alma mater doing a terrible production of Oliver, where the moment that Bill Sykes is shot and falls to his death was staged so ineptly that the audience laughed. A local community theatre "concept" production of Into The Woods with a fairly famous Broadway guest star playing the Witch. The director was a great guy and a fabulous costume designer - period. There were some good performances in the cast (including some friends and colleagues of mine who I enjoyed very much), but Ms. Witch was not really one of them. She essentially had one "attitude" throughout - park and bark with her hand on her hip. Very disappointing given the talent I know she has. Another huge disappointment was the young man who played Cinderella's Prince. Ah - but it gets even better - he was her fiance. And, a local regional theatre who (in)famously did a production of Annie, but tried to change the ending so that "it was all a dream" and Annie was actually back stuck in the orphanage at the end of the show. They got a cease and desist order from the original powers that be, to put the ending back the way it was written. Also, another story with a bit of a "nepotism" twist - years ago I saw the tour of a then-recent Tony-winning show. It was flu season, and one of the supporting women was out, and her understudy was on. The understudy herself is not a household name, but it is a name that diehard Broadway fans might know, and I'll leave it at that. Anyway, she sounded under the weather too. I remarked later to a friend working on the tour that it seemed a shame that even the understudy was sick - and he told me, "no - that's actually how she sounds. But her husband (a lead in the cast) wouldn't do the tour unless they signed her on as well." (Oops...)

Entering Mr. Sloane??? Well, I guess that probably would fit the bill...

I kinda resisted Rent when it first came out. But over time I've really grown to like it a lot. it's not a perfect show - I will always wonder what Larson could have done to develop it further had he lived. And I think we can also wonder how much his tragic death contributed to the success of the show. But it is definitely a show that has grown on me over the years in a good way. If you're looking for the ultimate lack of story in a show, I might nominate both versions of "The Wild Party" - 2 very worthwhile and very different scores which I like a lot, but neither show able to tell any kind of compelling story over their long running times. (Also too many characters trying to claim an important part of that weak story, which doesn't help.)

What's particularly awful is when you see a production that you know has so much talent involved, and yet the material just doesn't work on any level. I saw a local production some years back of The Great American Trailer Park Musical that was in exactly that situation - great cast, a good production - but OMG, what a lousy lousy show. One of those times when I really wanted my couple of hours back. And more recently - a year ago around Christmas, Boston's landmark Colonial Theatre got the world premiere production of Dolly Parton's new musical Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol. I went to see it because I had two former students in the ensemble, and I was thrilled to see them in a brand new professional musical with a huge huge name attached. (Parton wasn't IN the show, though.) My students were great - one of them got a huge amount of stage time playing some prominent roles including Young Scrooge, and he was marvelous. But the show itself was "a thing of shreds and patches" - an uneven score, sometimes weak staging, and a really terrible book. What made it worse is that I was not in a great emotional place at the time (dealing with an onset of anxiety that plagued me for about half a year), and I was really looking forward to going to the theatre and lifting my spirits - but it was a tough slog. Had my students not been in the show, I'm sure I would have left at intermission. Luckily, my students made it worth my staying. (I got to talk to them after for a bit, and one of them was telling me about the constant rewrites, etc.) I have to imagine that this show will get further productions down the road (given the twist on the holiday story, Dolly Parton's score, etc) - I really hope they consider lots and lots of rewrites and rethinking first.

Yes. But since then, both Serenbe and their former AD, Brian Clowdus, have had their share of trouble. Allegations of racism among the staff, and Clowdus seems to be a trump supporter and Qanon guy. Hmm...

Perhaps he's the Great Comet, circling the sun and just waiting to make a landing...er, killing...

You missed your cue earlier today...

That's funny, because I could swear that the crow's nest was flown in for the Boston leg of the tour. Perhaps there was a problem with rigging it in your venue. I could be wrong - but I seem to remember thinking I was glad they still had that set piece even when the rest of the Act I finale was all done on the stage floor. And of course, we haven't yet mentioned the one part of the original design that even I found ridiculous (used on Broadway and kept for the tour) and that was the actual depiction of the ship hitting the iceberg, done with a tiny "model ship" way upstage (as if we're seeing it from far away, I guess?). It looked very odd compared to the rest of the show's design, and was rather unintentionally comical. I tend to wish that they had gone for something less "literal" - maybe some sort of lighting effect would have conveyed the moment more dramatically. Another scene that was visually electrifying on Broadway was the end of the "lifeboat" sequence (The poignant and dramatic "We'll Meet Tomorrow") with the passengers desperately holding onto each other across the ship's rail in a last farewell just before some of them are lowered into the lifeboats. An absolutely chilling moment.

I may be misunderstanding you, but are you saying you have a price limit based on Covid???

Especially if it lasts more than 4 hours. ?

I grew up with the ballet terminology of "en pointe" (very often Americanized as "on point"), and understood the other meaning of "on point" to mean "to stay on the subject." It was when I started hearing it in the context of hookups to mean being "good looking/in shape" that I thought was strange. If a guy asked me if I was "on point" I would tend to tell him that I wasn't a ballet dancer - which would confuse the hell out of them lol.

Since I was the one that objected to "going viral," I will say this: No matter the literal meaning of the phrase, which I understand, I also tend to feel that that meaning has changed - does it really at this point literally refer to the sharing/duplication of something on the web, or more simply that it's become immensely popular? I don't think most people, when using the phrase, really have statistics on how much it's been shared, simply that it's something that has become the latest sensation. (i.e. one can view a "viral" video without literally sharing it). That may be a misuse of the phrase's original intention, but as we know, that happens all the time with idioms. My main objection is the resonance of the phrase as we are going through a horrible pandemic that is causing an incredible amount of suffering and death. There must be a better phrase we can use that doesn't have to constantly remind us of this devastating time - especially when "going viral" in the internet sense is a celebratory thing. To me, it trivializes the world we currently live in. I tend to think that one would have better taste and decorum than to talk about how your phone "went dead" in idle chat during a wake, no matter how accurate a description that may be. Or in using the very common expletive "Jesus Christ!!" in a church, even if you're a Christian and still say it in other places. Etc. It's how and when a phrase is used in a specific environment, not its derivation. I just think it's currently in bad taste. That's all. To use another overused phrase, "so sue me." (Which is probably not something I'd say idly while in a courtroom, lol.)

Can we please get rid of the phrase "going viral?" Especially in our current era?

@RuffLeatherPig - do you ever make your way to Boston? Do you have an ad somewhere?