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| re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 08:37 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:36 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime - BHandshy 04:13 am EDT 08/18/20 | |
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| You may already know this, but perhaps not everyone does: the Pulitzer judges at the time, John Gassner and John Mason Brown, not only didn't choose Fiorello!, they didn't even consider it seriously (or perhaps not at all). Their choice was Toys in the Attic. The Columbia Advisory Board overruled their choice. Someone on the board suggested Fiorello! and that made the Board happy, but it did not make the judges happy. They said nothing at the time but when their choice was overruled again with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? they made a statement and they resigned as the judges. (Actually, their term as judges was over, but they might well have been invited to continue, they were a prestigious pair.) Passing over Lillian Hellman might seem to suggest a political motivation, but Toys in the Attic is the sort play that the Pulizer Advisory Board at that time might have deemed too negative and unpleasant to receive the award. I suspect that members of the Advisory Board found it distasteful. At this time, I think the original description of the award was still in effect: "For the original American play, performed in New York, which shall best represent the educational value and power of the stage in raising the standard of good morals, good taste, and good manners." Oy! Admittedly, they had clearly overlooked some of that with several of the earlier winners, but the particular unpleasantness of Toys might have been a step too far for the Board, even though the critics mostly didn't seem to care and neither did audiences. What productions have you seen of Fiorello!? I don't think it's a great musical, but I'm surprised you find it so bad. As for giving the prize to All the Way Home, it was a weakish season. Still, Gassner and Brown were enthusiastic about it. Btw, even though it won the Pulitzer and the New York Drama Critics Circle award, it never came close to recouping. It almost closed at the end of opening week, and it almost closed several more times. Even the film sale did not bring it close to recouping, and I don't think even royalties from later productions and the two television productions brought it to recoupment, although it may have eventually gotten close. When it closed, it had returned almost none of the investment. Many Pulitzer choices seem, at best, puzzling now, and I think some were puzzling even at the time. Harvey over The Glass Menagerie? |
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| re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime | |
| Posted by: BHandshy (bradleyleroy@hotmail.com) 04:30 pm EDT 08/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime - AlanScott 08:36 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
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| Thanks for all of that info! The productions I saw of FIORELLO were community theatre productions. The groups that performed it are pretty good, so I don't really blame them (other than for choosing the show - LOL!). Part of why I find FIORELLO to be so bad might have to do with expectations - a Pulitzer Prize, a Bock and Harnick score, etc. I just expected better. Further, the story seems a little thin. Lastly, I have little interest in the lives of politicians. |
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| re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 05:37 pm EDT 08/19/20 | |
| In reply to: re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime - BHandshy 04:30 pm EDT 08/19/20 | |
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| I think biographical musicals (and plays, too) are generally problematic, unless they focus on just short periods of people's lives. Sometimes they succeed when the person's life is still so well known to audiences that people can fill in the blanks and bring their affection for the person to the experience, but later they seem terribly insufficient. Of course, there are exceptions. After all, Gypsy is a biographical musical that covers a long period of time. I feel Fiorello! has a terrific score, wonderfully orchestrated and performed on the OBCR. I think that even when I first read the book, when I was 12 or 13 or so, I found it pretty insufficient. I think time has been even less kind to it, especially the scene where Fiorello advocates for America to enter World War I, which I suspect bothered some people even in 1959. It might be OK if it didn't seem so clear that we're supposed to think this is the right position. It's too bad because the score is full of terrific stuff, some of it really brilliant, but the show tries to cover too much. I imagine that the original cast put it across with a lot of feeling and commitment, and in New York at least, enough of the audience knew enough that they could fill in some of the blanks. I wondered what productions you've seen because the last time Encores! did it, the book was apparently so heavily cut that it seemed worse than it is. (The first time Encores! did it, the book was cut even more heavily.) So I wondered if you'd seen one or both of those and were basing your assessment on those. A friend who saw the last one and who didn't know the show found some of it just puzzling. Then he read the script and he said, "Well, it's not a great musical, but at least it makes sense. At Encores! it didn't even make sense some of the time because of the cuts." |
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| re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 09:05 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime - AlanScott 08:36 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
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| Yes, especially when we all know Chase's masterpiece was Mrs. McThing! (I played Chef Ellsworth in my high school production in 1974. The set fell down on opening night, and that was the highlight of THAT production!) | |
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| re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:54 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
| In reply to: re: NBC Live's production of Pulitzer Prize winning play "All the Way Home" is on Amazon Prime - BruceinIthaca 09:05 pm EDT 08/18/20 | |
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| LOL! Not Bernardine? I should read Mrs. McThing. It kind of sounds like something I'd get a kick out of. I was in a show once where part of the set fell down (I was not onstage at the time) on a night when so much went so unbelievably wrong that it was like all three acts of Noises Off happened on one night. |
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