Could this possibly be a good thing?
This can’t be for real. You created this Web page just to fool us. Ha ha! You big kidder!
:eek:
Why would they do this?
Who would pay to see it?
Okay. That’s it. I’m declaring a moratorium.
You can’t remake or adapt a television program or movie that’s less than fifty years old, regardless of your medium.
Movies may be adapted from the stage, but not the other way around.
All I want is a little bit of originality, is that too much to ask?
You know, a couple of hours ago, my mother said she was taking my little brother to see the stage version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I said this whole stage-adaptation-of-movies thing had REALLY gone too far.
And then this. What can I say? Sometimes, you get to thinking some things are so outrageous that nobody would bother. Then they do. Matthew Sklar, Chad Beguelin, Tim Herlihy and John Rando, you’re dead to me.
I haven’t seen it but Dirty Rotten Scounderls is a huge hit and is very popular. The economics of broadway are such now that this is what you are going to get.
I find it really interesting that this spate of movies to stage flys in the wisdom of Lehman Engle’s rules for shows:
Must be based on material from another form.
Can not have been a huge success in its original form.
I know others have broken these rules before, but now, there’s the “If this was successful then a Musical based on it will be successful” mentality.
Tell that to the producers of “Big” among others.
Like Carrie
Based on a heads-up from lissener, I called another theater geek friend of mine and let him know it’d be possible to attend the technical dress rehearsal on Sunday night (I wasn’t available). He went, and got out late (a couple of snafus meant they had to suspend the show for fixes). I’m trying to get a report on whether the show was watchable or what. I’ll follow up when I know more.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was actually a very fun and entertaining show. My wife, the jaded theatre professional that she is, loved the dress rehearsal so much she made me buy a ticket. The trick to making a show like this work is to take a good story line and characters, then build a proper musical book and songs around it. They did a nice job with Dirty Rotten, I barely knew anything about the movie, seen snippets at most, and I felt the musical was fully developed, it didn’t rely at all on knowing the movie. Spamalot, OTOH, benefitted greatly from knowing Monty Python’s works, and parts of it didn’t feel so much like a musical, as a reading from the movie. Other stories don’t work at all, they just don’t fit the musical genre, or lend themselves to live performance.
I think the Wedding Singer could work as a show. It’s a fun, light hearted story, there is some good music intertwined naturally. Write a good book around it, and it will be entertaining. I’d go see it, if they didn’t screw it up royally, which is just as likely as them doing a good job with it.
I wasn’t able to make it, though I too am curious.
I just talked to him. He said the technical problems were legion (e.g. “I missed some lyrics because the band was too loud, they need to fix their sound”), but that other than that: “I liked it. It didn’t blow me away, but I liked it. Funny, sweet, a couple of good laughs… It’s the movie, basically: fairly standard romantic comedy stuff. Cast was apparently having fun, and the audience seemed to enjoy it.”
He already has tickets for an actual performance a few days from now, but he appreciated the chance to see a work in progress, and he’s looking forward to seeing it again.
Final verdict: “It’s no Hairspray, but it’s fine.”
So, there you go.
For what it’s worth, Stephen Lynch is an evil genius as a stand-up comic/musician. I don’t know what that means for this show…probably nothing.
It could be kinda cute.
Give it a chance, eh?
Just a little update on Wedding Singer. It opens on Broadway the end of the month. I went to see a preview performance last week (free tix, one of the perks of marrying into the theatre industry). It was a cute, fun show. Nothing earth shattering, for sure, but pleasant enough that I wouldn’t have felt cheated if I paid full price. Occasionally, the lead played up the Adam Sandler angle a bit too much, and there were too many scene changes, but I enjoyed myself and would not turn anyone off to the show.
It reminded me of All Shook Up, the Elvis themed show. Not high art, but fun if you don’t expect too much out of it. I think it will run longer than Shook Up’s 6 months, since it’s not just a songbook musical, but we’ll see.
I’m sure I’d hate it as much as I hated the movie. Adam Sandler can be really funny, but after watching *The Wedding Singer * I was seriously wondering if Netflix sent me the right movie. I actually checked to make sure I didn’t accidentally get “disc 2”, containing another version of the film. Unfortunately, I got the right one.
No way on God’s green Earth I’d pay Broadway prices to see it.