| My tally Part One (re: Years of Encores) | |
| Posted by: Marlo*Manners 05:16 pm EDT 05/15/23 | |
| In reply to: Years of Encores - Dale 10:27 am EDT 05/14/23 | |
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| I only started going around 2000. That was a good year with "Wonderful Town" with Donna Murphy, "Tenderloin" with David Ogden Stiers and Patrick Wilson (before he was famous) and "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" with Kristin Chenoweth (uneven but the score is fabulous and well performed). My next ones were "Carnival" with Anne Hathaway and Stokes and "Pajama Game" with Brent Barrett and Karen Ziemba, both winners. In 2003, "No Strings" and "House of Flowers" were both washouts due to miscasting and problems with the original material. However Sigmund Romberg's "New Moon" with Rod Gilfrey and Christiane Noll was uninterrupted joy. Encores! should have done "The Student Prince" and "Bitter Sweet" and other operettas. I missed a few years and then did "Kismet" and "70, Girls, 70". Both were did in by miscasting or missed casting in crucial roles - Olympia Dukakis was no singer but Charlotte Rae stopped the show with "Go Visit Your Grandmother". Brian Stokes Mitchell fell flat as Haji due to not really being up in the part but Marin Mazzie was pure sexy gold as Lalume. In 2007, Irving Berlin's "Face the Music" was fun and out of nowhere forgotten show - a revelation. The "Follies" with Donna Murphy and Victoria Clark was terrific. In 2008, I loved "No, No, Nanette" with a sensational Sandy Duncan in the Ruby Keeler role. In 2009, "FInian's Rainbow" was another winner with Cheyenne Jackson and "Music in the Air" was a Lubitsch-like operetta that was not perfect but a wonderful rediscovery of a lost genre. In 2010, "Anyone Can Whistle" was a textbook example of how to set a flawed musical aloft with wonderful stars and brilliant staging. Sutton Foster, Raul Esparza and Donna Murphy have seldom been better. "Fanny" was another show that hadn't been revived and was never filmed as a musical and was a rediscovery indeed. I skipped 2011 but saw all three in 2012. "Pipe Dream" is another unsalvageable flawed show where the book and score and lyrics are like oil and water. But I hadn't heard any of the songs (didn't have the OBC album) and when "Everybody's Got a Home But Me" stirred up in the orchestra my whole body had chills. A magical R&H ballad I had never heard before carrying me away. Must have been similar to when people heard "Oklahoma!" or "Carousel" for the first time in a theater in the 1940's. "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" isn't a great show though it has great songs but the cast was fun and very well deployed. "Merrily We Roll Along" was another winner. In 2013, "On Your Toes", the second "Fiorello!" and "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman!" were very fun well-cast concert versions. In 2014, "The Most Happy Fella" had a miscast not very mellifluous Shuler Hensley as a not very naive Tony but a spot on Laura Benanti and supporting cast. "Little Me" was fun and full of my favorite Broadway performers. 2015 had "Paint Your Wagon" another elusive but famous title with an appealing Keith Carradine and "Lady, Be Good!" which was very fun with a cameo turn by Tommy Tune. To be continued Marlo Manners (Lady Barrington) |
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| Previous: | Years of Encores - Dale 10:27 am EDT 05/14/23 |
| Next: | re: For those who go to ENCORES consistently… - Melissa 09:26 am EDT 05/14/23 |
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