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| Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: StageLover 09:05 pm EDT 08/30/18 | |
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| in the Post... | |
| Link | https://nypost.com/2018/08/30/when-neil-simon-nearly-gave-up-on-broadway/ |
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| I really loved both of those show. | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 07:14 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - StageLover 09:05 pm EDT 08/30/18 | |
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| I still listen to the recording of The Goodbye Girl often and I think the overture is one of the Top 10 best. Laughter on the 23rd Floor was Nathan Lane at his very best. Just incredible. I saw it 5 times. How he could turn his face red on cue every night I'll never know. | |
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| More of the story | |
| Posted by: clothedboysinging 09:19 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - StageLover 09:05 pm EDT 08/30/18 | |
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| is that there was a clash within the company over the male lead's portrayal of an effeminately Gay Richard III which was considered an affront to the AIDS epidemic. So the script changed it to a man playing a woman playing a man... or something. Much fuming in the local and national press over this. |
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| re: More of the story | |
| Posted by: musicaldirny 09:25 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: More of the story - clothedboysinging 09:19 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| I always thought the biggest problem with the musical of "The Goodbye Girl" is that we were supposed to be on Paula's side and against Elliot until she (and the audience grew to like him) They cast Martin Short, whom the audience was IN LOVE WITH the moment he walked on stage, which made Paula seem like a hateful shrew, (no matter what the story told you to feel). They needed to cast a brilliant NON-STAR as the obnoxious at first Elliot. |
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| Link | Peter Saxe Music |
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| re: More of the story | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 11:06 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: More of the story - musicaldirny 09:25 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| But isn't Richard Dreyfuss insanely likable the entire movie? I certainly like him. I'd have to watch the musical again to see what you're talking about. Maybe it was the way BP played her role? TOFT here I come? | |
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| re: More of the story | |
| Posted by: musicaldirny 02:25 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: More of the story - KingSpeed 11:06 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Richard Dreyfuss went for totally obnoxious. Martin Short couldn't stop being Martin Short. Also, in the movie, by the time Elliot shows up, you really felt Paula's abandonment. |
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| re: More of the story | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 04:14 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: More of the story - musicaldirny 02:25 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| True. Short even did his little dance (that he almost always does) from playing Ed Grimley on SNL. When I saw it in The Goodbye Girl, I was happy with that because I was so excited to see him live and doing his thing. Nowadays, if I saw an actor do that, it would annoy me. | |
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| Gene Saks and Jerry | |
| Last Edit: AC126748 06:13 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| Posted by: AC126748 06:12 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - StageLover 09:05 pm EDT 08/30/18 | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 12:58 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 12:56 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - StageLover 09:05 pm EDT 08/30/18 | |
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| I'm kinda surprised to read that Simon thought ''The Goodbye Girl'' was the nadir of his career. He had so many hits (''Barefoot in the Park,'' ''The Odd Couple''), but he had a number of flops, too. Simon would quote Walter Kerr's review for ''The Star-Spangled Girl'': ''He hasn't had an idea for a play this season, but he's gone ahead and written one anyway." Simon wrote more than his share of screenplays and TV stuff, but as a writer, he was such a creature of the theater. Some have said that Simon's style of comedy writing is passe or dead, but I think it's mostly moved over to TV sitcoms. Nowadays, if you're a playwright who gets much attention, you're snapped up by Hollywood to do episodic shows or screenplays. And who could blame them? The money's much better, and the fate of your work doesn't necessarily hinge on the critics. But the theater is sadder without their vitality or their voices. |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 05:26 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - WaymanWong 12:56 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| The Star-Spangled Girl (despite Kerr's pan) was actually a hit (albeit a small one). It ran over 7 months (261 perfs) and recouped its investment. My recollection is that it got generally mixed to positive reviews. Despite a couple of plays that flopped, The Goodbye Girl was the first time that critics really tore into Simon. They excoriated him for writing a book which was far inferior to his original screenplay. Peters and Short were quite good and had excellent chemistry. Hamlisch's score and Zipple's lyrics were mostly fine. The critics blamed Simon for the show's failure and he had trouble handling it. The movie was shot all over New York and really took advantage of its great locations-- the city itself was as much a character in the film as were Mason, Dreyfuss, and Cummings. There is no way to capture that element on a stage. In the film Simon depicted the city's seamy underbelly and the story's gay undertones honestly and with humor -- in the stage version he whitewashed them. |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 07:17 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - BroadwayTonyJ 05:26 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| I do love the film too. Love movies that take place in NYC in 70s/80s (Tootsie, King of Comedy etc). And Richard Dreyfuss was awesome, becoming the youngest actor to ever win the Oscar. And he had grey hair! | |
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| I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: dramedy 01:29 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - WaymanWong 12:56 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| And for $150 now a days it needs to be more than a few chuckles in two hours. His switch in the 80s to a more dramatic form got him more critical acclaim in late career. And look at the play that goes wrong surprisingly recouped with half filled houses and discount codes. And wrong is laugh out loud funny. |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:11 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - dramedy 01:29 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Audiences certainly found them laugh-out-loud funny, as acoot1er says. Some of them don't hold up that well (and, of course, many of the later ones were not successful or only marginally so even when new) and perhaps you haven't seen some of them well performed. I saw 11 of the original productions of Simon stage works, going back to Promises, Promises, some of them with original casts, some of them with replacement casts (or mixes of originals and replacements). So I saw only one directed by Nichols, and I saw that one very late in the run with replacements. I have somewhat mixed feelings about Simon's output, but that his plays got huge laughs — and lots of them — during the period when he was having mostly hits is indisputable. In fact, it's even discussed in The Season that they were trying to cut laughs from Plaza Suite, partly because it seemed possible that the audience came in with a determination to laugh. They'd paid their money to see a Neil Simon play, and, goddamnit, they were going to laugh. But discounting audiences in which there may have been a tendency to over-react, during the period when he was writing mostly big hits, audiences found his plays hugely funny. Even some of the ones that were not big hits, such as The Good Doctor, had hugely funny sequences. I've rarely heard so much loud laughter from an audience as during "A Defenseless Creature" in The Good Doctor as played by Frances Sternhagen and Christopher Plummer. You can't see it in the television production, whether because of the direction or because Lee Grant didn't figure it out (perhaps time with an audience would have helped) or because it needs an audience, but with Sternhagen and Plummer, the audience was screaming. So I don't know which Simon plays you've seen or in which productions, and different people have different senses of humor. I've certainly sat stone-faced at shows where the audience around me was laughing. But despite my feeling that Simon wrote only a small number of plays that have much chance of lasting, many of them played as very, very funny. It may have been that they captured the zeitgeist, but it wasn't just a New York or Jewish thing as they thrived on tour and in stock and in regionals and in the movies. They're not always easy to play. In many of them, there's a rhythm that has to be found, but actors can't just play the rhythm. They have to be real, but also find the rhythm of the laughs. And as I said the other day here, even if only three or four of his plays hold up in another 50 years, that's a lot for any playwright, even if it means that 90 percent of his plays do not hold up. Even if only The Odd Couple holds up, that's something of which any playwright would be proud. |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 12:29 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 12:26 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - dramedy 01:29 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Comedies come in all types - slapstick farce, drawing-room, absurdist, etc. - and what makes one show ''laugh-out-loud'' funny is so subjective. I'm sure we've all had the experience of sitting at a comedy where everyone else is uproariously laughing, while we sat stony-faced. Or we found something hilarious, but the rest of the audience didn't. However, I think we can agree that comedy doesn't get its due at awards time. Theater prizes usually go to ''serious'' dramas. Take ''The Play That Goes Wrong'' and ''Significant Other,'' which the Tonys snubbed (except for the fall-apart scenery to the former). I had a far better time at those two comedies than I did at the highbrow, Tony-nominated dramas for Best Play. I've now seen ''The Play That Goes Wrong'' excerpt (below) many times, and it still cracks me up. |
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| Link | 'The Play That Goes Wrong' from 2015 Royal Variety Performance |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Last Edit: KingSpeed 04:19 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 04:18 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - WaymanWong 12:26 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| Interesting. I haven't seen it because a close friend of mine walked out at intermission and would've left earlier if he could've. He said it was obnoxious bad knock off of Noises Off. He's thinking about going back though, wondering if he was just in a bad mood. | |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 02:07 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - KingSpeed 04:18 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| Again, comedy is so subjective. I doubt ''Noises Off'' was the very first farce about an amateur theater company. And I've seen others, like ''Footlight Frenzy.'' It's all in the execution. Give this ''Play'' a chance. Who couldn't use a good laugh or two? |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: davei2000 03:49 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - WaymanWong 02:07 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| "Play" isn't at all like "Noises Off," which has a structure; it builds. "Play" is one gag after another. I laughed at many of them, but by the end of the night I was weary of it. | |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 04:05 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - davei2000 03:49 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| To me, Act III of ''Noises Off'' can be wearying. My favorite part is Act II. | |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:35 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - WaymanWong 04:05 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| For me it's the reverse. I find Act Two remarkably unfunny for all its busyness, but Act Three, at least with the original Broadway cast, was funny till its last moments. But most people are with you. | |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:28 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - WaymanWong 02:07 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| Well, Noises Off is not about an amateur theatrical company. But George Kelly's 1922 The Torch Bearers is. | |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Last Edit: BroadwayTonyJ 04:02 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 04:01 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - dramedy 01:29 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Regarding Simon's plays and assuming we are including his musicals, I think it depends on the show, the cast, and the direction. For example, Henry Winkler and John Ritter in The Dinner Party, Martin Short in Little Me, Nathan Lane in The Odd Couple, and Sean Hayes and Molly Shannon in Promises, Promises nailed every single laugh in their respective shows. I laughed out loud a lot at all those shows. Just remembering Sean Hayes trying to sit down on Tony Goldwyn's goofy office chair makes me laugh pretty hard right now. That said, I don't think you could successfully revive any of Simon's shows on Broadway today without Nathan Lane in his some of his plays or Hugh Jackman in a couple of his musicals, unless you can find actors who are just as funny or as big a draw. I've recently seen productions of both Brighton Beach Memoirs and Lost in Yonkers in Chicago that made me laugh out loud a lot, primarily because the actors playing the kids in the shows were so funny. |
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| re: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny | |
| Posted by: scoot1er 02:34 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: I find his plays amusing but not really laugh out loud funny - dramedy 01:29 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Had you seen the original production with the original casts directed by smile Nichols (all of which I was lucky enough to have seen) you would have found them, as you say, laugh out loud funny. In fact, they were hysterical. The films, as good as some of them are, don’t even come close to capturing the electricity in the air the the theatres, and there is no way to replicate that. | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: Duke1979 07:23 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - WaymanWong 12:56 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| I recall finding Bernadette and Martin quite charming. | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: carolinaguy 09:04 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - Duke1979 07:23 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| The stars were perfect. And I think THE GOODBYE GIRL is one instance where the book is let down by the score, when usually it's the other way around. I found most of Hamlisch's music very generic, as were Zippel's lyrics. The latter were a particularly disappointing follow-up to his solid work on CITY OF ANGELS. The song titles were very bald too--if for some reason you didn't know how the story was going to turn out, all you had to do was look ahead in the program and see that the last two songs were called "Jump for Joy" and "What a Guy". And that Richard III song--ugh. |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:23 pm EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - carolinaguy 09:04 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| I think it was just a bad idea. it's two characters who are not especially interesting. There aren't many real obstacles getting in their way of getting together. It's the kind of thing that can work on the screen if you've got the right actors, and it did, but there's very little real plot. There's local color, which works better onscreen, and two actors you like. Even with two actors you like onstage, it's not the same. There's not enough variety, not enough of interest to sing about. It's like The Baker's Wife — a movie that was never going to be a successful stage musical because the plot is too simple and too predictable. It works onscreen because of actors you love and local color but it can't be a full evening onstage. And although there are good and even great musicals with even less plot, those — like Follies and Assassins and A Chorus Line — either have huge themes or a large group of characters providing variety or both. Perhaps if they had made it one half of an evening of two one-act musicals and had come up with a contrasting new piece for the other half. |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: Billhaven 11:34 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - carolinaguy 09:04 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| I vigorously disagree about Zippel’s lyrics. “Elliot Garfield Grant” and “Paula, an improvisation” are perfect both for the character and Martin Short. The biggest problems were the truly hideous and distracting set and having Peters rage her way through the 11 o clock number 2 minutes into the show. I agree with Saks...her character was really unpleasant. Perhaps if she had started with a self deprecating funny-rueful number (called The Goodbye Girl, perhaps) the show would have gotten off to a better start. | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 01:07 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 01:05 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - Billhaven 11:34 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Martin Short was wonderful, as was his character. But there was something wrong with a musical where you were hoping Bernadette Peters didn't have another song to sing. Short's character would want to do something fun, and her character would be a stick in the mud and try to stifle it. Gene Saks was perfectly right to want to re-think Bernadette's role as written, since it's no fun watching someone be a drip (and not played for laughs either). | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 04:20 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - PlayWiz 01:05 am EDT 09/01/18 | |
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| Strange because Marsha Mason did not have this problem in the movie. I loved the musical but it's too long ago for me to remember such details. | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: KingSpeed 07:24 pm EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - Billhaven 11:34 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| I liked that the show began with what was a "Moment Before" 11 O Clock number. It's never been done before or since but it was cool. You get to see the end of the show that theoretically took place before the show we're about to see. Very clever. And it's a great song. | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: schlepper 11:46 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - Billhaven 11:34 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| Totally agree that Martin Short had the best numbers (I'd add to your list "I Think I Can Play This Part"). Peters was not well-served by the book or the score. Carol Woods had a sort of fun but forgettable song in Act II --- but it wasn't enough. | |
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| re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks | |
| Posted by: twocents 10:16 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Riedel on Neil Simon and Jerry Zaks - carolinaguy 09:04 am EDT 08/31/18 | |
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| if for some reason you didn't know how the story turns out, look ahead in the program and see that the last two songs were called "Jump for Joy" and "What a Guy". Totally. The program is such a spoiler that I don't even touch it at musicals beforehand to be fully surprised. IDK if anyone else takes such drastic measures. |
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