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Post by ali973 on May 22, 2018 18:16:24 GMT
I was just going to post something about this.
I'm not sure. Releasing it this way doesn't make it look good for a first class production, anywhere really.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2018 23:05:22 GMT
The Playbill article says "A revised version of the musical is expected to return to London with dates to be announced." so it isn't affecting the London production (although I don't understand why it needs "revising"!).
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2018 23:24:43 GMT
The Playbill article says "A revised version of the musical is expected to return to London with dates to be announced." so it isn't affecting the London production (although I don't understand why it needs "revising"!). Revised version? It's perfect the way it is! |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2018 23:48:53 GMT
The Playbill article says "A revised version of the musical is expected to return to London with dates to be announced." so it isn't affecting the London production (although I don't understand why it needs "revising"!). Revised version? It's perfect the way it is! My thought exactly! |
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Post by nash16 on May 23, 2018 0:39:55 GMT
The Playbill article says "A revised version of the musical is expected to return to London with dates to be announced." so it isn't affecting the London production (although I don't understand why it needs "revising"!). I fear to say it, but it really does need revising. The songs were too much of a pic n' mix style wise, and the central relationship needed a lot more adding to make us care. Hopefully they're working on these two points as well as others. It deserves to come back, but only if it's better. |
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Post by TallPaul on May 23, 2018 13:14:12 GMT
Doesn't Cam Mack now own MTI, which surely means this is good news, not bad?
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2018 17:03:31 GMT
Andy Karl has now been announced to take over the leading male role in Pretty Woman when it goes to Broadway. So if Groundhog does come over soon, any slight hope of him being in the show is sadly moving further away.  |
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Post by Michael on May 23, 2018 23:26:05 GMT
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I for one would love to see Simon Lipkin play Phil.
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Post by daniel on May 23, 2018 23:42:49 GMT
Oliver Tompsett for me!
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Post by raider80 on May 24, 2018 0:13:50 GMT
The Playbill article says "A revised version of the musical is expected to return to London with dates to be announced." so it isn't affecting the London production (although I don't understand why it needs "revising"!). I think the revising they are talking about will be a restaging. All the technical elements are expensive to run and being a massive flop (losing between 17-20 million) on Broadway meant it would be hard to find investors for the transfer back. The revised staging will lower the operating costs and that might convince investors to invest. |
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 0:36:41 GMT
The Playbill article says "A revised version of the musical is expected to return to London with dates to be announced." so it isn't affecting the London production (although I don't understand why it needs "revising"!). I think the revising they are talking about will be a restaging. All the technical elements are expensive to run and being a massive flop (losing between 17-20 million) on Broadway meant it would be hard to find investors for the transfer back. The revised staging will lower the operating costs and that might convince investors to invest. I understand, and that probably still may happen (sadly! - I bloody love that revolve!). But looking back, Baz wrote an article in October that said they would make changes for the London production: "Warchus and other executives connected to the production said they would do more work on the show: adding some new songs from Tim Minchin, and re-writing Danny Rubin’s book. Peter Darling, the star choreographer, was not able to complete his work on the musical because of ill health and perhaps co-choreographer Ellen Kane will start afresh." Back to possible names for Phill, I could imagine Alex Gaumond doing the role. He has a great voice and played Miss Trunchbull (and was Marley in the OV's A Christmas Carol) so there's already a bit of a connection. |
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 7:25:31 GMT
Jon Robyns all the way.
(Mind you, none of us yet knows how long Pretty Woman will run for... Broadway has been known to be reasonably unforgiving before now...)
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 8:00:38 GMT
As much as I liked the show I felt there wasn't something right with Act 2.
A lot of people didn't get the 'Playing Nancy' thing and from there into 'Hope' into 'Everything About You' it puts the show into a real downer, which is a fair reflection of where Phil and other characters are at at that point, but I felt like it took a while to get going again and never really recovered in terms of pace and intensity.
In terms of speculating physical changes to the show etc lets not forget that a completely different company on a different contract provided the revolve work in the US, which is where all of the issues were experienced. Once a revolve is physically made and programmed the running costs aren't as significant as you'd imagine, otherwise every producer and his dog wouldn't be using them! GHDUK's revolve already exists and is in storage. If they're looking at revising the show due to production costs surely it wouldn't make sense to design and build a brand new set whilst theres already one in storage.
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Post by christya on May 24, 2018 8:03:31 GMT
Providing that they keep the hilarious moment with the giant groundhog and the snow shovel, and preferably the car chase, I'll be happy. Ish. 'Playing Nancy' can go as far as I'm concerned, it never convinced me why I should care.
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Post by viserys on May 24, 2018 8:58:57 GMT
Oddly, I found "Playing Nancy" one of the best songs in the show and very touching as it described perfectly how many women are trapped in such a role of being the cute sweet easy-to-have girl because it's their only way to find appreciation. But it was situated in a very bad position at the beginning of the second act and came pretty much out of nowhere. So if they find a better way to integrate it into the show and make us care more for Nancy I'm all for that.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 9:06:30 GMT
Oddly, I found "Playing Nancy" one of the best songs in the show and very touching as it described perfectly how many women are trapped in such a role of being the cute sweet easy-to-have girl because it's their only way to find appreciation. But it was situated in a very bad position at the beginning of the second act and came pretty much out of nowhere. So if they find a better way to integrate it into the show and make us care more for Nancy I'm all for that. Exactly. I think rolling into Act 2 with 3 poignant but quite heavy songs was just a bit too much for a lot of people and resulted in quite a jarring experience. Hopefully a bit of book revision could sort this out and make a great show even better. |
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Post by jamb0r on May 24, 2018 9:37:43 GMT
The first time it was mentioned that the show would be 'revised' for London was back in October last year in this article. Then in January this year Tim Minchin tweeted to say No ma’am. The show will be exactly the show you love.
So I don't think anyone really knows at this point what the show would look like if it was to come back. As much as I loved the music (if they cut Playing Nancy I will riot), the staging is really what made this show - it would be devastating if they simplified it. The show received a lot of positive reviews, an Olivier for best new musical and was a huge hit with the public. Do they really need to change it at all? It obviously worked for British audiences in its original form. I'm still convinced the failure on Broadway was not much to do with the show itself, but rather a combination of bad timing and poor marketing. |
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Post by kathryn on May 24, 2018 9:49:46 GMT
Oddly, I found "Playing Nancy" one of the best songs in the show and very touching as it described perfectly how many women are trapped in such a role of being the cute sweet easy-to-have girl because it's their only way to find appreciation. But it was situated in a very bad position at the beginning of the second act and came pretty much out of nowhere. So if they find a better way to integrate it into the show and make us care more for Nancy I'm all for that. Exactly. I think rolling into Act 2 with 3 poignant but quite heavy songs was just a bit too much for a lot of people and resulted in quite a jarring experience. Hopefully a bit of book revision could sort this out and make a great show even better. It's a show about depression, and about learning to appreciate your life and the people in it and reach acceptance and contentment. It's remarkably funny and uplifting when you consider that! Of course, it's not what a lot of people want from a musical - but I don't think you can make it not 'heavy' or 'a downer' for a portion of the second act without destroying the artistic integrity of the piece. You need the dip into darkness in order to earn the uplift of the ending. Lots of people don't get Playing Nancy because it asks them to do something they're not used to doing - actually think about how they as an audience view people. That's uncomfortable, and unexpected, and wrong-foots people - and I'm sure that's quite deliberate. It's part of the second act broadening out the meaning of the show to be about more than just a weatherman and a groundhog. I really hope that they don't change that. |
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 9:54:53 GMT
Really interested reading that as the one extremely vehement comment/criticism I heard from a friend who saw it on Broadway was how 'flippant and silly' it 'made' what was in the film.
Now for me it was exactly the opposite- the musical made far more serious and poignant elements that are for sure in the movie, but the songs in Act 2 particularly really brought weight to it for me. I have no point really other than that friend's critique really irked me at the time and that I personally think that run of songs works incredibly well.
Anyway another Jon Robyns for Phil vote for me. Shall we start a crowdfunder?
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 10:30:51 GMT
No Andy Karl. No Ryan.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 11:12:34 GMT
One of the top five British originated musicals of the millennium so far for me*, they shouldn't tinker with it too much at all. Maybe a song they can sell for the lead as a standalone for publicity purposes and maybe a similarly extractable 'I want' song for the female lead but the structure and tone both work really well as they are. They should also be very wary about responding to American comments, they aren't relevant here and you'd risk creating a more American show that doesn't play here as well.
*Alongside Billy Elliot, Matilda, London Road & Love Story (or maybe American Psycho but that was an all American writing team).
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Post by kathryn on May 24, 2018 12:00:38 GMT
Really interested reading that as the one extremely vehement comment/criticism I heard from a friend who saw it on Broadway was how 'flippant and silly' it 'made' what was in the film. Honestly, I think for some people Broadway musicals are sort of silly by default, and that affects how they view anything that uses the musical theatre form to address serious issues. I suspect that what the Broadway failure came down to is that there were no 'names' involved - Tim Minchin isn't really a 'name' and Warchus isn't a well-known director. Matilda was not the success on Broadway that it is in the West End, so 'from the composer and director of Matilda' didn't help much. The general public weren't all that enticed by the idea of a Groundhog Day musical, as the film's original appeal rested on Bill Murray and it's not an obvious candidate for a musical adaptation, and the real cult fans of the film aren't that plugged in to musical theatre anyway. I saw so many people who had no idea that it existed until the Bill Murray stunt made headlines, and it was too late by that point. They needed to have got Bill Murray on board and involved in the marketing right from the start. |
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Post by jamb0r on May 24, 2018 12:20:43 GMT
Really interested reading that as the one extremely vehement comment/criticism I heard from a friend who saw it on Broadway was how 'flippant and silly' it 'made' what was in the film. Matilda was not the success on Broadway that it is in the West End, so 'from the composer and director of Matilda' didn't help much. Matilda ran for almost 4 years on Broadway and won 5 Tonys - isn't that classed as a pretty huge success over there? I agree with you about the marketing failure though. Also opening in the same year as Dear Evan Hansen, Great Comet, Come From Away, Hello, Dolly etc was what really caused this show to struggle. If they'd transferred to London after the Old Vic run then opened on Broadway in this (relatively lacklustre) season I think it would have fared much better against the competition and probably picked up a few of those Tonys. |
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 13:24:45 GMT
Exactly. I think rolling into Act 2 with 3 poignant but quite heavy songs was just a bit too much for a lot of people and resulted in quite a jarring experience. Hopefully a bit of book revision could sort this out and make a great show even better. It's a show about depression, and about learning to appreciate your life and the people in it and reach acceptance and contentment. It's remarkably funny and uplifting when you consider that! Of course, it's not what a lot of people want from a musical - but I don't think you can make it not 'heavy' or 'a downer' for a portion of the second act without destroying the artistic integrity of the piece. You need the dip into darkness in order to earn the uplift of the ending. Lots of people don't get Playing Nancy because it asks them to do something they're not used to doing - actually think about how they as an audience view people. That's uncomfortable, and unexpected, and wrong-foots people - and I'm sure that's quite deliberate. It's part of the second act broadening out the meaning of the show to be about more than just a weatherman and a groundhog. I really hope that they don't change that. Maybe I'm not articulating my point effectively. I recognise what the show is about at its core and the journey it needs to take to as a result. That said, you don't have to have 75minutes of ballads and songs in a minor key to realise that idea. 'Nobody Cares' is a great example of showing Gus & Ralph's complacency in a juxtaposing upbeat way. I personally think Nobody Cares would make a great opener into Act 2. Whilst loving all of the music in the show, I just came away feeling like the musical arc of the show wasn't right and I still get that listening to the soundtrack. |
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Post by kathryn on May 24, 2018 13:39:31 GMT
But you can’t have Nobody Cares as an Act 2 opener - it sits at a specific place in the story arc. The Act 2 opener is going to be the mid-point of Phil’s character arc, when he is at his lowest, whatever you do.
The story is the story, it has a particular shape to it, following the arc of the character in the film. If you were creating a brand-new story then you can have your bouncy, up-beat Act 2 opener that drives the plot forward, but it’s very hard to see how you can put one into Groundhog Day. They already have a non-Phil Act 2 opener that lots of people complain is disconnected from the plot - and hey, in performance the first half of that song gets lots of laughs, it’s hardly a downer!
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