Phenomenal! So much fun! The music, the casting, the performances…my God it’s beautiful! The new songs that original composer Maury Yeston wrote specifically for the adaptation perfectly complement his original tunes as well as uniquely honing Rob Marshall’s vision for exploring the pre-pubescent mind of 50 year old film director Guido Contini.
Down To Earth (1947) was a spiritual sequel to the film Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941, which in itself was remade twice – the 1978 Heaven Can Wait and the 2001 Down To Earth). The plot was recycled in 1980 to create the movie musical Xanadu as a vehicle for Olivia Newton-John that has now been adapted into a hilariously self-referential musical.
enjoyed Xanadu @OCPAC – it was..interesting. Yay for walk-on role! Lots of comedy and good one-liners! Very small cast and orchestra…(http://twitter.com/bullfrog117/status/6989842010)
According to Laura, the movie had about half good songs (written for Olivia Newton-John and fit her range) and the other half not-so good (that didn’t fit her voice). The musical keeps the good songs and extends it with brand new songs that perfectly fit the story.
YES! That’s what sums up this movie at the end of the day for me – it was such a wonderful experience to watch that I can barely express it! I mean it’s New Orleans jazz! It’s Goliath the Gargoyle singing, dancing and casting voodoo spells! It’s got Jim Cummings as an adorable, endearing Cajun firefly – reusing his Jambalaya Jake from Darkwing Duck voice! It’s got a story that rips your heart out, stomps it all over the floor, laughs at you, and then perfectly sews it back up and makes you laugh with joy!
Rule Number One of the bayou – never ask directions from a gator. I got confused by the typography, geography…choreography!
Gator down!
Look in the gumbo!
I’ve been looking for you all morning! What a coincidence! I’ve been avoiding you all morning!
Disney is doing a decent and amazingly fun thing by tying in the movie at their theme park (at least Disneyland) with Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee, but watching the movie I couldn’t help but do some armchair Imagineering – I listened to the firefly’s warming up for “Gonna Take You There” and I could just picture a New Orleans style Country Critter Jamboree. I looked at Mama Odie’s boat-in-a-tree-house and I saw a revamp of Tarzan’s Treehouse.
I’m pretty sure Muskers and Clement gave themselves cameos again (as bead tossers during the Mardi Gras finale).
In Tiana’s restaurant, the featured band is Firefly Five Plus Lou, which is a direct reference to the Disneyland band Firehouse Five Plus Two that was composed entirely of Disney animators including Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas! 
Amazing string of A-list celebrities in bit parts! Oprah Winfrey as Tiana’s mother Eudora (the best seamstress in New Orleans). Terrence Howard as Tiana’s hard working father. John Goodman as ‘Big Daddy’ La Bouff [any relation Shia? 
]. Emeril Lagasse as…a gator?
BEAUTIFUL MUSIC BY RANDY NEWMAN! AND HE DIDN’T MAKE ME CRINGE BY SINGING ANY OF THE SONGS! YAY! Sorry that’s my own personal bias – he’s a great composer/performer, but his singing makes me cringe. Pretty, pretty New Orleans jazz!
Let Disney know that John Lasseter isn’t crazy with all this 2-D animation nonsense the only way a lot of Disney executives understand – by buying a ticket and seeing this adorable movie! You won’t regret it!
Spring Awakening – OCPAC
It’s Rent but with German La Boheme influences!
Talkback with (some of) the actors
Ilse
Moritz
Hanschen
Swing (Krista Pioppi)
Wendla
Talkbacks need question screeners
- No self-undulating praise rambles
- No gushing adoration for the cast
- No “how to be an actor” questions
My question: Did you have any inhibitions mounting this production?
Wow…Ashley Brown AND Gavin Lee! Absolutely amazing performances!
I love how Bert is completely in control of the set and lighting – at least when Mary lets him.
During “Jolly Holliday”, a couple in the chorus were wearing the film version costumes! Well at least Dick Van Dyke’s costume…Julie Andrews’ costume was trimmed down (at best). I really like Mary and Bert’s costumes (pink dress and purple tux – but not pimpish…English).
She actually said supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards! And so did Bert! And then they spelled it out! To be fair I’m quite fond of Ms. Andrews’ recitation and Mr. Van Dyke’s “indubitably”.
No loving to laugh? No man with a wooden leg named Smith? Sure I’m satisfied with the show’s conclusion, I just love that song. Similar fate for the Dawes, Tomes, Mousely, Grubbs, Fidelity Fiduciary Bank and Stay Awake. I like the replacement …I just miss it.
OMG!!! Step In Time! Gavin Lee should you tire of Bert (not that we want that or anything), can you do a Fred Astaire musical? Or is it really Cameron Macintosh’s flair? I don’t care…it’s beautiful!!!
What kind of crowds attend the theatre? As we exited the theatre we noticed lots of litter as well as several empty beer bottles scattered about the theatre. But everybody dressed up for the theatre! It was so confusing! And we had the guy in front of us humming along to the songs from the movie (about half the songs in the show were adapted into fuller musical numbers with elements from the books).
A musical that’s practically perfect in every way!
MUCH better than Fullerton’s debacle (http://www.bullfrog117.com/unfiltered/2008/11/11/noises-off-csu-fullerton/). It was essentially a black box/cabaret theatre so seeing the set rotate was very mesmerizing (they chopped the set into three pieces so that they could play one of those sliding tile games and get things rotated around). The acting was superb, the set was beautiful, the costumes were wonderfully 70s and the pace was PERFECT!
I love that the Knights Who No Longer Say Ni made a David Letterman joke, (I’m not throwing stones, I’ve slept with all the knights on my staff; stupid human tricks) and John O’Hurley LOST IT! It was beautiful and hilarious and the single reason worth seeing the whole show (I saw it in Vegas 2 years ago). But then…did O’Hurley really lose it or convincingly act like he lost it? Apparently they did the same joke the night before, but then when our friends saw it a week later, it was a completely different joke! So it’s improvised every night. So is O’Hurley acting surprised because he’s prepared for hilarity or is he not preparing and losing it?
A lot of my old review (viewable here Spamalot (The Vegas Edition)) still applies…tragically. Eric Idle just isn’t as good at adapting his material as Mel Brooks is (although that remains to be seen when Young Frankenstein comes around next year…I’m just saying so far).
The program had a fake program inside for the Finland musical that the show starts with (everybody hears Finland instead of England when the historian launches the show and they go into the traditional Fish-Schlapping Song!).
OCPAC put a giant foot out in front of the theatre. But they didn’t keep it primed during the run…they let it deflate and blow about during the day. At least we got to walk up to the theatre and start humming the Flying Circus theme song.
My biggest problem with the show is the whole Lancelot being gay thing. Now I'm a very open-minded individual, but the first time I saw that, it just displeased me. Sure there are funny jokes like: "Just think...in 2000 years this will still be controversial", but I just didn't like it for some reason. A friend of mine pointed out that there is a very small bit in the movie that alludes to Lancelot's homosexuality - when Lancelot saves Galahad from the tower of virgins, Galahad accuses him and Lancelot dismisses it. I guess I can live with it...and try not to rant about it if you ask what I thought...Also, there isn't any Bridge Of No Return. No killing the historian. No arrest at the end of the movie. They find the grail and have a big splashy wedding. 'I feel so...unsatisfied' (Rounders).
Basically they took the movie – which on it’s own is very smart and very clever – and made it all over the top instead of amplifying some moments and letting good moments from the movie stand. For example – the Greek Chorus of sorority girls? INSPIRED! But on the other hand…
But there were genuinely funny moments and phenomenal music by Laurence O’Keefe (Bat Boy) and Nell Benjamin (his wife).
It’s also nice to see that MGM On Stage is associated with the production…it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it’s the first time I’ve recognized that a movie studio other than Disney has a theatrical department.
The UPS guy was hysterical. Again, an over the top moment that worked. But the musical is plagued by over the top moments that flop as well. We give it a B-.
Featuring Topol! Apparently there’s more than one Fiddler movie (one of which Topol was the star of). Sorry!
The most interesting aspect of seeing this show again after so many years (not since before I was in the show my sophmore year at OCHSA – as Avhram and a bottle dancer!), and especially now that I’ve thoroughly absorbed Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice (the 2005 movie, the Marvel comic adaptation), is the parallels between the two stories. Obviously research was required, and the following was thusly learned: Fiddler on the Roof is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Milkman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem, originally written in Yiddish and first published in 1894 [placing them about a century behind Ms. Austen's tale]. Tevye the dairyman ([ˈtɛvjə], Yiddish: טבֿיה דער מילכיקער Tevye der milkhiker) is the protagonist of several of Sholem Aleichem’s stories. The character became best known from the fictional memoir Tevye and his Daughters (also called Tevye the Milkman or Tevye the Dairyman), about a pious Jewish milkman in Tsarist Russia, and the troubles he has with his six daughters: Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze, Bielke, and Teibel. Yay Wikipedia! So they shortchanged one daughter and wrote lots of fun songs. But regards Pride and Prejudice, there are a lot of plot parallels that I suspect helped frame Sholem Aleichem’s stories:
five daughters, pushy mother, pushover father who loves his daughters, third daughter runs away to get married
Very fun production, great show, lots of fun. To life, to life, l’chaim!
Zach reminded me of Robin Williams and Alan Tudyk. It is also my opinion that he would look good with the thin beard.
The humor of Val’s lines and physicality was somewhat hindered by her unnecessary Lina-Lamont-esque accent. This is yet another example of the unfortunate tendency to play the broad comedy instead of aiming for subtle humor (has intellectual comedy died?!?!?!?!?!?).
Cassie performed extraordinarily well despite being ill and rather heroically managed to keep her coughing to a minimum.
While forewarned that there was no real guitar and that necessary “licks” were synthesized, I found the absence less annoying than anticipated (beyond the opening number). The fact that the lack of a real guitar didn’t glare out of any other numbers (to me, a non-musicians) is a testament to the phenomenal orchestrations of Marvin Hamlisch. Not to say the show should always be done sans (or synthed) guitar – it’s just an interesting alternative concept.
Judy Turner said she wanted to be Tina Turner….apparently Lana Turner isn’t a household name in America anymore…
Other than that, the show was an exemplary national tour (I still liked Brea’s regional performance better though).
Oh. And it was hilarious to watch a mother pull her daughter out of the theatre (with what I can only assume was a disgusted, outraged look on her face) during “Dance Ten, Looks Three (Tits and Ass)”. Although in partial defense (actually out of brute curiosity), I wonder how a parent is supposed to reliably find out if a show is appropriate for their child…I mean sure you can search the internet for details of the show and judge for yourself, but not all internet reviews are reliable judges of content. Of course I know this mom knew NOTHING about the show and didn’t ask anybody about it before bringing her pre-pubescent daughter to it. I hope she’s learned her lesson.