Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 05:23 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| And again, I ask how you propose to do that on shows where the creative team made the thing thirty or more years ago, unless you bring in people to completely supplant their work? I can't be the only person wondering this, since Encores just DID this. Twice. In one season. You can't just hire a director or set designer on an old work and think that their creative contribution is somehow going to overwrite the actual text of a show. Hell, they tried to do this with the Fish "Oklahoma!" and many, many people felt his staging of it clashed with the words being said and the songs being sung. In that case, I BELIEVE he was intentionally setting out to disquiet, and he succeeded if that was his intent. But City Center isn't trying to jar its audience; it's trying to make new narratives out of old scraps. And so far the reviews don't suggest they've succeeded. |
|
| reply to this message |
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:18 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:03 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| Re: Fish's Oklahoma... many people thought his direction clashed with the text... and MANY did not, including a lot of ticket buyers, critics, and awards committees, like the Tony Awards. (i'm not weighing in either way, that's irrelevant... though if i were asked I'd say I loved some of it and also really didn't not love some of it) I don't think it's worth comparing that with Billy Porter's The Life. I think it's also fair to say that given Porter's very limited experience as a writer or director (outside of his off-bway musical he wrote about his life as a performer, and directing Sam Harris's one man show) .... he may have taken on WAY WAY too much with doing The Life at Encores with such short rehearsal time as a director let alone directing a musical that doesn't work, let alone a musical that doesn't work that's been heavily and haphazardly and massively rewritten ... let alone being rewritten BY the inexperienced director trying to mount and stage it. It's a lot for anyone just re-writing or just directing it, let alone with limited experience in either job, and very little time (including no time to see if the changes work really). That doesn't make him bad or bad for trying necessarily, but it is also presumably, nay, observably, an element at play that is clearly working against him being able to pull this off. And I would say it does make Lear "bad" for letting him/hiring him to do alllll of that with/to The Life for the Encores series. She should respect the mission but also respect the show, but also respect Billy and the performers, designers, and respect the AUDIENCE more and not put them all in the position of this playing out this way in this limited time. Encores is not a series for audience guinea pigs for new visions of old shows people wish were different shows than they are. But IF they were going to do this, it should have been in the Off-Center format, and it should have been properly workshop beforehand. (but I still say we, and musical, have the right to see the score celebrated and performed the way Encores has always done, without it being an experiment in condemning, apologizing and reinventing/repurposing the show) |
|
| reply to this message |
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 06:25 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Chazwaza 06:03 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| I will be surprised if Lear survives this season. Her only hope is if ITW is a smash hit for them, and even that might not be enough. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 06:25 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| I can't wait to see what she decides was wrong with Into the Woods ... | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: PlazaBoy 06:37 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Chazwaza 06:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| Ha! You got a true lol out of me on that one. : ) | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:42 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| Lear and her team are staking out an extreme view that these old shows aren’t fit for public consumption. That is a separate issue from the industry’s commitment to hire more BIPOC artists. How do we do the latter? Well, “Funny Girl” has two BIPOC choreographers. It would be nice if more creatives on that show were BIPOC, but it’s a start. Not everything has to be a bold explosion of a classic in order to be better serving anti-racism principles; BIPOC folk like the Golden Age musicals, too. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
Time to render: 0.017592 seconds.