THEATRE GOSSIP #286: Here She is, Boys! … Here She Is, World! … Here's … Laura!?!?!? Edition

Thanks, but you're late.

Did anyone see the Pirates of Penzance while it was in NY? It’s now in Pasadena, and I’m thinking of seeing it.

The Pirates from The Hypocrites? It was one of the best nights in a long, long time. I had a blast (and I did not want to go....) Go!

Thank you, r3. I shall.

The Humans is touring. Really terrific production. Currently in DC.

As I stated in the last thread, fuck "period" Raoul!!!

There was already a 286. Time for 287:

We're going to finish this one, Loon.

Do you ever get tired of projecting your own bigotry, lack of empathy, and malignant narcissism onto others, R8? Obviously not or you would not be using such vile hate speech.

Hamilton

Follies

Verbal violence is violence, R10, and you are guilty of that with each new post. And verbal violence is, was, and always will be an incitement to physical violence.

This is a much better opening. Thanks OP.

It was posted several minutes after the real #286. Check the posting times on the two threads #286.

Speaking of Follies r10.....

Given that the show's numbers were built around the strength's (and weaknesses) of the original cast, one reason The Right Girl never quite works is that it's structured for a frigging gymnast!

Please I beg you all, there is already a new 287 and this is a repeat number 286 so let's use the new one so there is no confusion or any need to track both

Yeah, dump this thread. It was created by the Poppins Loon.

Helen Lyndon Goff was a lousy writer, a malignant narcissist and a worse mother than Joan Crawford (at least she never broke up twins and Joan's twins didn't drink themselves to death). If anyone's mental health should be called into question, R16, it's hers along with yours.

IKYABWAI?

No, it's anyone who even brings up the subject.

When does HP&tCC open?

This thread was not created by the Poppins Loon. It's perfectly acceptable to keep 286 going here.

[quote]When does HP&tCC open?

Mid-March is when previews start, right?

The problem lately is the fact there seems to be MULTIPLE loons on the Theater Gossip threads all in a hurry to create the new thread titles.

Which are pedestrian and terrible.

Who has had this queen? Apparently he is based in Colorado, which somehow makes him an authority on Broadway.

Love ya' OP!

I wanna be a Starmite!

Oh, oh! Can I be Roza?

The way the Neil Patrick Harris/David Burtka marriage is going, I think David will be begging to play Roza.

Or Dolly: World, take me back!

I think there should be an all-male version of Dolly.

[quote]I think there should be an all-male version of Dolly.

There is. It's called La Cage aux Folles.

How are those two shows even remotely similar? People sing songs?

I think there should be be an all-doll version of Dolly.

God, that’s frightening. I have a Carol Channing ventriloquist dummy in a box somewhere

Didn't they make a Streisand [italic]Dolly[/italic] Barbie in the 1990s along with dolls of other iconic movie costumes?

Raspberries!

On tonight's Night Gallery.......

[quote]How are those two shows even remotely similar? People sing songs?

Songs written by the same composer.

Mame is different from Dolly in the sense that Dolly has been trying to make other people happy while ignoring her own needs until she decides to get a piece of happiness for herself. Meanwhile, Mame gets a man but still goes on without one after he dies, so she surrounds herself with fabulous and eccentric friends just as she always has, and she fights against injustice in the process but does so with style instead of with leaden lectures.

Does anyone here actually live in or near New York and go to Broadway? What's the capacity of the Shubert? 1400+? So Ms. Bette did her last two shows in DOLLY and about six fangurls on ATC are in heat because Bette Midler did not make a curtain speech!

Let's revive Michael Rupert's "Mail"

I saw not only Mail but also Into the Light.

[quote]Does anyone here actually live in or near New York and go to Broadway? What's the capacity of the Shubert? 1400+? So Ms. Bette did her last two shows in DOLLY and about six fangurls on ATC are in heat because Bette Midler did not make a curtain speech!

1460 but who's counting. Yeah they were all so disappointed and heartbroken she didn't break down and weep tears of appreciation.. Don't know why they cared, been to many last performances were said actor waves and off they go. Strange people.

I wish they would do an Encores season of all those 80s flops. The First and Oh, Brother and the like.

Wasn’t it just NaughtyRob who cared? He seems particularly clueless about everything

Why so many flop shows in the 1980s? Was it AIDS killing too many potential audience members, or were the shows really that bad?

[quote]Why so many flop shows in the 1980s?

The megamusicals had started and nobody wanted to see anything but them. Evita, Cats, Joseph/Dreamcoat, Starlight Express, Les Miz, Phantom

I saw Mail, as I posted above, and I liked it. But just that. It was one of those shows you kept expecting the performance to really take off but it just never did.

As for Into the Light -- all the stories are true. All of them.

The megamusicals did suck a lot of the air out of the room. The AIDS crisis really didn't heat up until the mid-80s, so it had a bigger impact from then until the early 90s. There were lots of good shows that happened during that time period, but New York City itself was undergoing a change in demographics as well. This included the shift from Broadway as local event/evening out to the tourist trap it is today.

Oh please, name me one flop musical from the 1980s that deserved a longer life. They all sucked. Trust me, I saw nearly every single on of them. The only 80s musical flop that I think might be worth taking a second look at is the British musical Biograph Girl. Most of them were so bad as to be unsalvageable. If I was to be kind, I might offer the excuse that too many opened cold on Broadway without out of town tryouts, but the majority are so bad, I can't even throw them that crumb.

I think also in the 80s, off-Broadway was booming and had a lot going on. I think some of those flops should have opened off-Broadway but since Broadway was doing such lousy business, it was probably easier to get a broadway theater and thereby boost the ego of all involved.

R50, Hmm... I was with you for a minute, a lot of the musicals were "small", but would Welcome to the Club, Marlowe, Mail, etc, have been any better off Broadway?

[quote] Oh please, name me one flop musical from the 1980s that deserved a longer life.

Agreed that 80s musicals were largely awful. But I'd make a small case for Oh, Brother! Yes, it's incredibly mind-numbingly stupid. But there are some laughs in it. It had an overqualified cast, and a score that is probably better than the material deserved. It certainly could have run for more than 3 performances. I had more fun at it than at some of the recent corporate-produced musicals we get these days that run for six months or a year at a loss.

R52, you are a very kind soul.

I went to see OH, BROTHER! when I had hit rock-bottom of a terrible depression over a romance that had just come apart. I almost didn't go because I would be overwhelmed by fits of hysteria and crying jags that overcame me (I had seen SUGAR BABIES in that state, sobbing in the mezzanine while Mickey Rooney told burlesque jokes--i can only imagine what people around me thought!) and was afraid to be out in public. Nonetheless, I carried on, went to the theater...and laughed my ass off for two solid hours, as did the rest of the audience. The show didn't heal my broken heart but it brought me some comfort for a spell.

[quote]Why so many flop shows in the 1980s? Was it AIDS killing too many potential audience members, or were the shows really that bad?

AIDS was killing the talent that mounted great shows too.

AIDS didn't just kill talent. It also killed the audiences that knew how to appreciate the talent.

Speaking of flop 80s musicals, I remember enjoying Roza and thought Georgia Brown was great.

[quote] AIDS didn't just kill talent. It also killed the audiences that knew how to appreciate the talent.

I try my best to keep their memories alive.

Youtube is a treasure.....

I wonder where that poster gets the goods, R59? They've posted some wonderfully rare stuff over the years.

[quote] I think there should be an all-male version of Dolly.

There is. It’s called “Hello, Dolly!”

If Streisand's a man, then who's Jason Gould's real mother?

The Mack and Mabel footage is a real find, yes. Not sure why the YouTube commentators dismiss Preston and Peters' age difference; it is quite apparent in the T.V. commercial footage, and in a feminist age, I imagine some audiences had moved past being comfortable with Audrey and Gary/Fred/Bogie, etc. (and the real Mack was only 12 years older than Mabel, not 30). Of course, our own CZJ was paired onscreen with Sean Connery at a mere, what was it, 23?, so what goes around comes around, I guess!

Anyway, both Preston and Peters are a joy to see, particularly Peters.

Mack And Mabel was an excellent musical. A score that is right up there with the best of them, a "champion"staging, and a book that was damn good when it finally reached Broadway. What doing we have today? The insipid Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the sophomoric Book of Mormon and mind numbing Legally Blonde years.

M&M always had book problems. The ending has never, ever worked in any incarnation.

How does M&M end that makes it so terrible? I know nothing about it.

R66, History does not a suitable ending make. In real life, the two drifted apart and lead separate lives. There is no musical comedy ending. They try to make one using her drug addiction as a hook, but that is actually depressing and doesn't work.

[quote]How does M&M end that makes it so terrible? I know nothing about it.

In the original, Mack rides off into the sunset as a success but didn't Mabel die of drug abuse?

I think the point is that these two who are together go their separate ways and after an hour and a half of musical comedy, it turns into a Greek tragedy.

[quote]How does M&M end that makes it so terrible? I know nothing about it.

The entire cast dies in a grease fire.

[quote] How does M&M end that makes it so terrible? I know nothing about it.

A character that looks like Jerry Herman runs screaming onto the stage and yells at Mabel, "If you had done your wifely duties, he wouldn't be leaving you."

The ending was a bit of a downer, but it was wonderful. Alone on stage Mack simply tells us Mabel died and a few other bits of info; then, he says "So long, Kid." and walks off as I Won't send Roses swells from the orchestra pit. It was the perfect ending and that imaginary wedding ending with pies in their faces was awful.

Wow, judging by his twitter account, Javier Muñozis truly unhinged. SCARY!

[quote]Wow, judging by his twitter account, Javier Muñozis truly unhinged. SCARY!

On the Betty Buckley Scale of Unhinged, what would you say his rating is?

Where does Patti fall on that scale, R73?

Some of that MACK & MABEL footage ( the parts shot from the wings) has been circulating for years. I thought it was from Herman’s collection. There are some other onstage bits out there too. The commercial however I had not seen.

Why did Michael Riedel stop doing Theater Talk?

Why does everyone have orgasms about how supposedly great Mack and Mabel is but it's a flop in every incarnation and I don't know a single song from it?

I know "Tap Your Troubles Away" and "Time Heals Everything."

[quote]Why does everyone have orgasms about how supposedly great Mack and Mabel is but it's a flop in every incarnation

It was sort of like Follies. Everyone basked in the flawed, but genius, reflection of the original Broadway show. If as many people who say they saw the original Follies, actually saw it, it would still be running today.

[quote]I know "Tap Your Troubles Away" and "Time Heals Everything."

If you don't know "I Won't Send Roses," turn in your gay card.

[quote] If you don't know "I Won't Send Roses," turn in your gay card.

How long do I have to learn it before you cut me off?

r80

I had a boyfriend that I'm sure could have been inspiration for the song

[quote] And let's get it clear, she may have been referred to in the show as "Mama" and "Madame Rose" but never as "Mama Rose."

I don't give a shit.

She's "Momma Rose," just like JFK Jr. is/was "John-John" whether he liked it or not.

R76, Riedel's book is being optioned for a film, so he's busy sticking his nose up Hollywood's ass.

I hope DENZEL Ice Man Cometh is a huge financial FLOP for Scott Rudin.

[quote]I don't give a shit.

Then I'll give it for you.

And you may r86.