Back in the 1980s, the wife and I managed to score really good seats to a pre-Broadway performance of a play about two faded stars cast in a big comeback show. The play was called Legends! It was written by James Kirkwood, Jr., who wrote the book for A Chrous Line and starred Carol Channing and Mary Martin.
I was aware that by that time that Carol Channing was old, and Mary Martin was even older. But the star power, combined with a script by the author of **A Chorus Line ** was enough to convince me that the evening would be well worth the high ticket price.
It wasn’t. It was a long way short of a community theater production. The script was awful, Channing was lifeless and Martin was worse. Legends! never made it to Broadway, and what I hoped would be my one chance to see two of the best Broadway actresses in history was a terrible disappointment.
Huh. Interesting, because I actually rather dislike Into the Woods (though I like A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd very much, so it’s not a problem with Sondheim). I’m aware I’m in the minority though.
In my case, I’m betting that actually a large part of it was in fact expectations. I agree Wicked is (except for Chenoweth, who I still claim is spectacular) not exactly the most amazing thing since sliced bread (though I do find it fun), but because I was expecting it to be so entirely awful it turned out I thought it was quite good. I think I went into Into the Woods with much higher expectations, having heard that it was the best musical ever from a number of people, and that didn’t help either.
Please do not judge stage musicals by movie musicals. They could not be more different.
The stage version of Mammia Mia is great fun. The movie was good, but it does not reflect the magic of the stage.
When I saw Avenue Q in previews off-Broadway with 13 people in the audience, I thought “This is either going to sink rapidly or become a monster hit.” I’m glad it didn’t sink.
Little Shop of Horrors? On stage? With music? Are you crazy?
Objection overruled. That’s one of the songs I hate the most from that show.
That being said, maybe I’d hate it slightly less if I’d seen a production of it that was not community theatre. Then again, I’ve seen (or participated in) plenty of CT productions and liked most of them. Kate consistantly comes up as my least favorite.
Ditto. Except I really do mean “got up and walked out.” Someone gave my girlfriend and I free tickets to the traveling production. Halfway through, we decided it still wasn’t worth the money.
My husband and I got up and walked out on a professional musical version of The Phantom of the Opera. No, not the Lloyd Webber version. Public domain, you know.