| Agreed. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 03:43 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 03:38 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 02:53 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| All well said, though again, given the ticket sales for even a few of the better-known titles in the now-paused off-Broadway Encores summer series, I don't know that the audiences are there for the kind of new renamed series you suggest... at least not for weeklong runs at the 2750-seat City Center. I just don't think there are 25,000 theater fans of any stripe in any given week who'll be eager to see revisions of problematic or dated musicals being essentially workshopped at Broadway ticket prices. Not to mention that the short rehearsal period would make these kinds of revisions tough to pull off even if the material enters in great shape on day one... and as we've seen last month and this week, if there are any issues with the new concepts or dramaturgy that aren't solved by the time they get to an audience, then having only one run-through before opening to critics and crowds makes it impossible to course-correct. So this mission, at this venue, regardless of what the series is called, seems impractical at best and, as you say, likely unsolvable. (By the way, Billy Porter has always wanted to be a director, going back to his all-black Sondheim revue of 15 years ago or so, initially called "Black Sondheim", then in various incarnations, "Mixed Company", and finally "Being Alive". MY suspicion is that he loved the score and, after not having been cast in it, always remembered it – but always felt that there was a way to square a darker take on the subject matter with Coleman's generally sunny tunes. That conceit sounded risky and uncertain from the get-go to me, and there may be people out there who yet get more out of this than I and many others apparently have... but my guess is that germ of an idea has been simmering under the surface with him for years now, even if it only became reality when City Center approached him. AND rather than feeling like they were obligated to go along with him for political reasons, the people at Encores were probably excited about it; why wouldn't they have been, if they were also receptive and eager for Lydia Diamond and Kenny Leon to move The Tap Dance Kid from the 1980s to the 1950s, lose most of the comedy, and completely make a mess of the most memorable character from the original production of that one?) But either way, you're certainly right that they're definitely having a very public and painful learning experience, even if I would say it's less about specific personalities, and more about best intentions & ambitions bumping up against the cold hard reality of mounting a significantly new major production in New York City with this budget and in this timeframe. It was never bound to serve anyone well, least of all the musical scores that are ostensibly the reason for conceiving the whole series 30 years ago in the first place. |
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