I don't have an issue with the Public presenting something free of charge at the Delacorte, even if it falls more into the realm of community outreach than satisfying drama. It's free, and everyone's mileage will vary with this sort of thing.
Regarding the issues you had with the material and some of the performances, my sense is that Disney wanted to use this partnership with the Public as a very (too?) early chance to see how this material plays on stage and what audiences respond to and what they don't. I imagine that no one is envisioning what was seen at the Delacorte as anything close to a final version of the show.
These days, once a show is on its feet, even in an out-of-town tryout engagement, it can be very difficult and expensive to make the kind of major changes that many shows need at that point, even though these audiences are the first public audiences for the material and the whole point of putting the show up in Denver or Seattle or wherever is to try it out prior to Broadway. This is why we so often on this board read about shows trying out around the country and find that those same shows have many of those same problems in New York as they had elsewhere in their tryouts. This whole partnership with the Public sounds like a relatively low-cost way to get some early info on this material and make changes at a point when major changes can actually be made. |
