Broadway and Beyond

[iceblink]

Friends of mine saw Lestat in its pre-Broadway tryout in San Fran and said it was just awful...bad book, bad score, miscast, and not even good eye candy. Alas!

[venusdiva429]

Yeah, I heard that Lestat totally stunk to high heaven.

[gingerdangerous]

Broadway! I love musicals! I could talk all day about them but I'll try to keep it short...

A show I'd love to see is The Last Five Years. I have the cast recording and love it and adore it and listen to it every day but it's kind of complex. I wish it would re-open on off Broadway again. Basically I love Jason Robert Brown and want to bear his musical prodigy babies. On youtube there's videos of him singing Moving Too Fast from L5Y AND accompanying himself on the piano. Despite the poor quality of the videos, it's pretty much the best thing ever. I'd also love to see Songs for a New World performed, though I read it's more of a showcase/revue than an actual musical.

I saw Wicked and Les Miserables when the tours came to Toronto and was blown away by both. Wicked was just plain fun and I was surprised at how emotionally invested I got into Les Miserables. Maybe it's because I had an incredible seat and Jean Valjean kept looking right at me, haha.

My favorite musical ever of all time is still West Side Story, though. To me, it's perfect.

[whatever]

gingerdangerous said:

My favorite musical ever of all time is still West Side Story, though. To me, it's perfect.

Agreed! I own the box set DVD with extra disk AND the script book so I can read and sing along ***preens***. Nothing better on a rainy day than to pop that in, eat Haagen Dazs, and cry.

[tamaradixon]

I just love youtube.com. I just discovered (ya, I know, I'm way late) that they have a ton of videos of broadway performances. I just searched for Patrick Wilson and got clips from "The Full Monty" and "Oklahoma". Can't wait to search for more.

[starskin]

I love Notre Dame de Paris. I have the Original Paris Cast recording, and it's phenomenal. I only wish I could see it acted out on stage, because the music is so sweeping and driven, and just lends itself to huge dance numbers. The stills look really cool. And the ballads are wonderful. Plus, listening to it helps me brush up on my French!

Sadly, though, I've heard the English version suuuuuuucks. And that Celine Dion sang the big, gorgeous love song from it for an English recording. *gags* I think the problem was they tried to directly translate a lot of it and, well....that doesn't work very well most of the time. Les Mis in French has a lot of different lyrics than it does in English, but the overall spirit of the show remains in tact.

[iceblink]

Notre Dame in English is hysterically funny--the French lyrics are fairly simplistic, but in French they at least sound nice. In English it's just silly. There's a *beautiful* Italian recording of it, if you can track it down--so much passion and emotion! And the original French cast used to be available on DVD; not sure if it still is.

[proper stranger]

Yay--a thread for musicals! How am I just finding this now?

Has anyone seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? It's coming to LA and I'm debating whether it's worth spending the money. With shows as expensive as they are now, I don't see as many as I used to. Stupid money.

I saw the Sweeney Todd revival during a brief trip to NY earlier this yeaer and it was awesome. I'm a huge Sondheim fan and it was wonderful to see a production of one of his shows on Broadway. I still can't believe it lost the Best Revival Tony to The Pajama Game (which I admit I haven't seen). I love Patti LuPone in general, but didn't care for her performance in the concert of Sweeney done about five years ago with George Hearn. So I was happily surprised that I enjoyed her performance. Michael Cerveris was amazing--his reprise of "Johanna" is so moving. He signed my program at the stage door and couldn't have been sweeter--I must confess I now have a wee crush on him.

gingerdangerous said:

My favorite musical ever of all time is still West Side Story, though. To me, it's perfect.

It's my favorite, too. I know some musical fans don't like the movie, but I love every single thing about it. whatever, I own that version of the DVD, too. Growing up, I used to covet my mom's souvenir program for the movie (which she got during its initial run at Grauman's Chinese Theatre). I was so happy that the DVD booklet reproduced the program in its entirety.

iceblink said:

Anthony Warlow, now, there's a great voice. He should be way more famous than he is.

I love Anthony Warlow! I have several of his albums and never get tired of listening to his voice. I wish there was a recording of him as The Phantom.

[Deleted]

Has anyone seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? It's coming to LA and I'm debating whether it's worth spending the money. With shows as expensive as they are now, I don't see as many as I used to. Stupid money.

I saw it in New York. I really enjoyed it but then I love the music and also was very happy to see my hometown boy Norb Butz on stage. I had already owned the soundtrack though and I knew I would like the songs. I thought it was great though. Yeah, it's a bit unusual because the main female character doesn't show up until quite a bit into the first act but I think it's a really funny show.

ETA: When I saw it in New York I was there on business and sat next to a rather rabid fan of Michael Ball who came to see him in that ALW show but it was cancelled due to his illness so she went to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I don't think she appreciated it but if I had been mentally prepared for the melodrama of a Lloyd Weber show, I'm not sure if I'd appreciate the politically incorrect slapstick of DRS.

[proper stranger]

Thanks for the review, Jensational! The movie it's based on is hilarious and I read that Norbert Leo Butz will be reprising his role on some of the tour (including LA), so I'd love to see him. I got an e-mail about discount tickets and I think I'll check it out.