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Post by Mr Snow on Feb 20, 2018 12:32:58 GMT
I am finding this thread extremely interesting and I have now thought up a few more mainly obscure old shows I would love to see staged although they may not all work in this day and age: Edwardian musicals by Monckton, Talbot, Jones, etc: 'Our Miss Gibbs', 'The Country Girl', 'The Arcadians', 'The Geisha', etc, for their delightful tuneful songs and period charm. The Finborough successfully did 'Our Miss Gibbs' in 2006 in a very pared down version and the shows used to be done often by amateur companies. S Sometimes wishes do come true... www.wiltons.org.uk/whatson/445-the-arcadians |
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Post by Stephen on Feb 20, 2018 12:34:24 GMT
Cabaret at the Donmar. Firstly with Alan Cumming then with some other great actors going in for limited time!
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 20, 2018 12:49:18 GMT
Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen! (wrong show, but it will do!) Thanks, Mr Snow. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Feb 20, 2018 13:06:10 GMT
In all honesty, I would love to see a return of the Lost Musicals series - a place to discover lost gems that would never get a revival otherwise.
I don't particularly have a wish list - other than perhaps more votes for Camelot and Brigadoon - both packed with wonderful music and long overdue for major professional productions.
There are so many great scores out there that deserve a hearing - most of them have pretty poor books - and so perhaps a series of concerts would be the way to go. With a bit of revision, some of them may go on to commercial success.
Who would have thought back in the 80s that a revised version of Me and My Girl would have gone on to huge success? There are many shows from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s that won't get a chance of a restaging unless someone with vision takes a punt.
Concert versions don't have the glitz and glamour of a full production - but you can probably attract better singers than you could afford for a run in a small venue and so the music would be well served.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 20, 2018 13:43:18 GMT
In all honesty, I would love to see a return of the Lost Musicals series - a place to discover lost gems that would never get a revival otherwise. Yes, yes, and yes again! Ian Marshall Fisher had a genius for brilliant casting and many of his Lost Musicals, despite the cast sitting in a row wearing evening clothes and reading from scripts in their hand (with just a piano to accompany them) brought vividly to life some fantastic shows, particularly the Cole Porter and Kurt Weill musicals that they did. They were the highlight of my theatre-going year! |
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Post by TallPaul on Feb 20, 2018 13:45:44 GMT
Has The Music Man ever been revived professionally in the UK? There was also a production in Regent's Park in 1995 with Brian Cox and Liz Robertson. I went to a matinee. By 'eck it were hot!!! |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Feb 20, 2018 13:55:43 GMT
In all honesty, I would love to see a return of the Lost Musicals series - a place to discover lost gems that would never get a revival otherwise. Yes, yes, and yes again! Ian Marshall Fisher had a genius for brilliant casting and many of his Lost Musicals, despite the cast sitting in a row wearing evening clothes and reading from scripts in their hand (with just a piano to accompany them) brought vividly to life some fantastic shows, particularly the Cole Porter and Kurt Weill musicals that they did. They were the highlight of my theatre-going year! If only we could have a National Musical Theatre Company that could rediscover these shows. That would be some ACE funding I could get behind! |
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Post by JJShaw on Feb 20, 2018 14:33:17 GMT
Yes, yes, and yes again! Ian Marshall Fisher had a genius for brilliant casting and many of his Lost Musicals, despite the cast sitting in a row wearing evening clothes and reading from scripts in their hand (with just a piano to accompany them) brought vividly to life some fantastic shows, particularly the Cole Porter and Kurt Weill musicals that they did. They were the highlight of my theatre-going year! If only we could have a National Musical Theatre Company that could rediscover these shows. That would be some ACE funding I could get behind! I believe thats a similar akin to the Encores! they do in NYC and I would also be up for more productions like this to give lesser known knows a god needed airing out! |
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Post by Mr Snow on Feb 20, 2018 15:13:57 GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_MusicalsFor reasons I can barely understand today, I seem to have put a Baby, Mortgage and building a company ahead of seeing more of these. Also without the internet it was hard to keep up with events and I seem to have lost contact after the move from the Barbican. I saw nothing after On a Clear Day, which I recall had Captain Peacock in the Audience. At the time there seemed little else being done to revive these shows. Today anyone from the Donmar to the Southwark Playhouse might give them a go. Hats off to Ian Marshall Fisher.
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 20, 2018 16:23:04 GMT
I reckon I must have seen more than half of those shows and, with the odd exception, they were outstandingly successful. For me the most memorable were probably Jubilee, Love Life, The New Yorkers, Around the World and all the Cole Porter/Ethel Merman shows with the wonderful Louise Gold. But, as you say Mr Snow, there are now a number of venues taking a chance with old or neglected shows like the recent Ballroom at Waterloo East and The Frogs at Jermyn Street, so we may yet get to see some of our 'wish list' shows somewhere or other. |
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Post by daisy24601 on Feb 20, 2018 17:49:03 GMT
Memphis and She Loves Me and many older ones which I never got the chance to see due to my youth... She Love Me was revived last year at the Menier I sadly only found out far too late! |
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Post by Being Alive on Feb 20, 2018 18:16:01 GMT
I don’t know why I didn’t put West Side Story. I’d love to see it. Never have. But a new version without the Jerome Robbins choreography...
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Post by Tibidabo on Feb 20, 2018 18:22:58 GMT
I don’t know why I didn’t put West Side Story. I’d love to see it. Never have. But a new version without the Jerome Robbins choreography... Well, you know what? I wouldn't care what choreography I saw - I've never seen the show on stage...who has? (apart from tonyloco probably  !) If someone were willing to take it on with the Robbins choreo that would be just fine and dandy by me. Likewise, if someone were allowed to change it that would also be fine. Those songs scream to be sung. Live. By real musical theatre stars. |
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 20, 2018 21:34:44 GMT
I don’t know why I didn’t put West Side Story. I’d love to see it. Never have. But a new version without the Jerome Robbins choreography... Well, you know what? I wouldn't care what choreography I saw - I've never seen the show on stage...who has? (apart from tonyloco probably !) If someone were willing to take it on with the Robbins choreo that would be just fine and dandy by me. Likewise, if someone were allowed to change it that would also be fine. Those songs scream to be sung. Live. By real musical theatre stars. I am puzzled, souchyboyy, why you don't want the Jerome Robbins choreography if you have never seen it? Or do you mean you have seen the choreography in the movie and want to see the show on stage with new choreography? Why? The Robbins choreography was just as much a part of the creation and conception of the show as Bernstein's music, Sondheim's lyrics and Arthur Laurents' book, so for me, any staging of 'West Side Story' should include at least an adaptation of the Robbins choreography. Of course people elsewhere on this website are discussing the possible reimagining of certain musicals and I guess 'West Side Story' could be reimagined with different choreography as well as other possible changes, but again why, when it is one of the greatest of all musicals as it stands? I saw a touring production of 'West Side Story' at Wimbledon just a couple of years ago (which was excellent) and I also saw the original London production at Her Majesty's in London in March 1960, on which I have delivered a Tonyloco lecture in the thread about productions improving or deteriorating over a long run – that one was a tired, listless shadow of what it should have been and after a run of only 16 months. As regards Tibidabo's comments, I agree that the score is magnificent and we heard extracts extremely well performed at a recent John Wilson Prom concert at the Albert Hall. The great tragedy is that in his own recording of the show, which should be definitive, Bernstein chose two totally unsuitable singers in Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras. So yes, by all means let us have real musical theatre stars singing the music, but the show also contains a lot of music for dancing so a concert version or even a semi-staged one would hardly do justice to the show as a whole without dancing. It was the way the dancing was such an integral and powerful part of the show that caused it to be such a sensation on Broadway in 1957 and I don't see any reason to change it, any more than we need to change any of the music! |
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Post by danb on Feb 20, 2018 21:55:34 GMT
I would agree that the tour a few years ago was magnificent. Louis Maskell and Katie Hall were both lovely and the whole thing felt authentic; no gimmicks.
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Post by Being Alive on Feb 21, 2018 1:03:56 GMT
Have seen the film, so if we get a revival of it I’d like something completely different, rather than something that resembles what we know. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I just want a brand new WSS. Maybe that’s just me, but that’s what I’d like.
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Post by cheesy116 on Feb 21, 2018 1:05:09 GMT
Memphis! I know it's very soon but I never got to see it and it's a big regret
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Post by Michael on Feb 21, 2018 5:50:45 GMT
Xanadu needs to return, and Beauty and the Beast would be nice, too.
And I second Memphis.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 11:10:17 GMT
Oh, by the way, I don't suppose it will happen, but I would love to see 'Annie Get Your Gun' staged exactly as it was originally written with its original script and all the offensive material about native Americans intact, especially Annie's song 'I'm an Indian Too'. Sorry, but I am an unreconstructed lover of old musicals even when they are seriously non-PC. I've been listening to the Merman recording today ("She shouts the Berlin music with good effect" Wikipedia tells me the New York Sun said at the time), almost every lyric is a size 12 cliche, it's gloriously insensitive by modern standards ("hatchet face"), but it's naïveté rather than malice, and I can't help but think it's a damn good song. |
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Post by tonyloco on Feb 22, 2018 12:46:40 GMT
I've been listening to the Merman recording today ("She shouts the Berlin music with good effect" Wikipedia tells me the New York Sun said at the time), almost every lyric is a size 12 cliche, it's gloriously insensitive by modern standards ("hatchet face"), but it's naïveté rather than malice, and I can't help but think it's a damn good song. You are right, cmonfeet. It's a damn good song from what was a damn good show before the PC brigade got at it. As you say, the clichés are there (they were meant as clichés at the time) and the insensitive elements throughout the script and songs are indeed due to naïveté rather than malice. The famous tenor Jonas Kaufmann has commented recently that much of what is contained in the repertoire of popular opera and operetta would no longer pass muster by present standards, especially how women are perceived and treated and he quotes the Franz Lehar song 'Girls were made to love and kiss', a great favourite when sung in both German and English by Richard Tauber, as being quite unacceptable by today's notions of how women should be treated. So what do we do? Trash all the works of Bizet, Puccini, Mascagni, Verdi, etc, completely or change them to suit today's attitudes: Carmen now kills Don José at the end of 'Carmen' in a recent production and perhaps Desdemona should shoot Otello in Act IV next time the Verdi opera is produced! |
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Post by TallPaul on Feb 22, 2018 16:42:45 GMT
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Post by 49thand8th on Feb 22, 2018 16:44:53 GMT
Bat Boy, please!
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Post by Elle on Feb 22, 2018 19:39:50 GMT
I was also thinking Xanadu. Such a fun show! |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 20:23:35 GMT
Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. A fantastic score.
The Secret Garden, the original Broadway version, not the RSC version or the new 2018 version with some songs cut.
And although neither will ever happen, Lautrec and Carrie.
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Post by musicalmarge on Feb 22, 2018 22:15:34 GMT
Aida
Kiss of the Spiderwoman
Scarlet Pimpernel
Starlight Express
Into The Woods
9 to 5
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Xanadu
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!) If someone were willing to take it on with the Robbins choreo that would be just fine and dandy by me. Likewise, if someone were allowed to change it that would also be fine. Those songs scream to be sung. Live. By real musical theatre stars. 
