#Hal Prince

[roth70]

The full original ending for Company.

[johnnyvalance]

“you guys aren’t even a good duo ://“

FUCKING!!! US!!!:

[behindthemirrorofmusic]

Happy heavenly birthday Hal Prince!!

[glimeres]

Merrily We Roll Along (2023, Broadway) - Digital Booklet Pics

[sondheims-hat]

March 1, 1979: Sweeney Todd opens at the Uris.

[ethanfreemanappreciation]

Ethan and Anne Görner in The Phantom of the Opera

Ethan was the first Jewish actor in history to perform the role of The Phantom. A favourite of Hal Prince, Ethan performed the role on West End as well as in Toronto, Vienna and Germany.

Together with Hal he worked to include as many aspects of Erik, the Phantom, from the original Leroux novel as possible in the musical, earning him the nickname "The Leroux Phantom" amongst Phans.

[operafantomet]

Hello 💕 I saw your post when the west end revival first opened and you said they were using old proscenium bits. Can you kindly point them out? I really couldn’t see it…

Assuming you mean the sculptures, you needn't look very far to find them: They are in the upper corners.

The overall structure of the new proscenium is three layers. There is the top curve with lyres (where the Golden Angel previously was), then the middle part which originally would have been the main proscenium with sculptures, and then the stage-based false boxes. Unlike the original design the false boxes are now carrying some of the proscenium, which kinda makes them a part of the proscenium.

The outer proscenium thus has less decoration, with sculptures only in the upper corners. The sides and top is straighter and without sculptures. More noticable, of course, the Golden Angel in the middle is gone, and the outer lyre part curves out more which makes it a separate piece. In the past it was more integrated into the overall design. So the general look is quite different from the original, but with recognizable elements. Current look:

Original look (here from Broadway):

[thesarahfiles]

“The Phantom of the Opera” opened in the West End on October 9, 1986. 

[transfemgeorgecostanza]

like damn. this still rules

[thishadoscarbuzz]

286 - Something for Everyone (w/ Chris Schleicher) (70s Spectacular - 1970)

It's time to kick off our May miniseries - the This Had Oscar Buzz: 70s Spectacular! For 1970, television writer Chris Schleicher joins us for a forgotten tale of wealth, deception, and Bavarian castles. The directorial debut of stage legend Hal Prince (and with a screenplay by his frequent collaborator Hugh Wheeler, from the novel The Cook by Harry Kressing), Something for Everyone starred a pre-Cabaret Michael York as a young man who weasel's his way into the good graces of a wealthy family in order to claim their family castle. As the family matriarch, Angela Lansbury earned a Golden Globe nomination that didn't translate to Oscar.

This episode, we talk about the 1970 Oscar year dominated by controversy surrounding George C. Scott's rejection of Oscar pomp and circumstance and this film's very obvious similarities to Saltburn. We also talk about Lansbury's Oscar and Tony run preceding the film, Michael York as canonical cinematic bisexual, and Prince's directorial failure adapting A Little Night Music.

Topics also include "It Goes Like It Goes," the supporting actresses of Five Easy Pieces, and our disdain for Love Story.

The 1970 Academy Awards

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[roth70]

50min Company Pre Boston Tryout Promo aquired 😎

I feel everyone has the right to hear these recordings as theres so much obscure stuff that people never want to share and theres a whole gatekeeping factor about bootlegs that is just ridiculous.

This reel contains interviews with Barbara Barrie, Dean Jones, Elaine Stritch, Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim. Intertwined with Company, Sorry Grateful, You Can Drive A Person Crazy, Someone Is Waiting, Another Hundred People, and Happily Ever After. With a super strong Burt Bacharach sort of production style on all the songs

heres a little sneak peak of the opening number for whats to come...

[behindthemirrorofmusic]

Remembering Hal Prince ...

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

What do you think of Sarah Brightman in POTO? She gets so much hate from the "phans" but I love her as Christine. She looks so victorian, classy, proper and innocent. When I got into the show (which I regret) I couldn't stop watching her with MC and Steve. I love her voice, it's so unique as Gillian Lynne described — like a dew dropping. Also Michael Crawford and her were similar in age to Erik and Christine. I think she wasn't more sympathetic and "into" him because that's how she was instructed to act, Hal Prince was very clear about Christine loving Raoul though she felt sorry for Erik. And Steve Barton was such a perfect Raoul. My all time favorite pair is JOJ & Gina as well as JOJ & Katie Hall. I also adore Hugh Panaro & Samantha Hill.

Honestly I would love to give an opinion, but I can't because I have only ever seen one Brightman performance and it was quite degraded, so her visual performance was very difficult to analyze.

What I will say is that I didn't know this about Hal Prince (keep in mind, I've only been in the Phandom for about eight months, so I'm still learning a lot of the production's history.) And I find that interesting, given the fact that Lloyd Webber himself has always dropped hints (and in more recent years, been more open about) his own very pro e/c feelings. I think in the end, everyone in the production has their own perspective, and those combinations of attitudes bubble and collide on stage with different outcomes every time. We have to keep in mind that every element of the main trio shifts the chemistry and even with repeats of the exact same trio, sometimes the vibe you get from Christine can be very different show-to-show. I've seen Crawford/Kristien/Barton in three separate boots and Kristien's performance has had varying degrees of enthusiasm with Erik in every one. In one she was more naïve and timid, in another she was blatantly horny.

I've seen Gina Beck absolutely terrified with Ramin Karimloo and gently spooked with David Shannon. I've seen Rachel Barrell mortified with John Owen Jones and sweetly sympathetic with Earl Carpenter (though her Christine always seems to be Lukewarm for Erik no matter what).

I can also say, having worked with some theatre directors (and of course, every director is different in how far they view their directorial power reaching) but the ones I've talked to have said "when we're in rehearsal it's my job to show you what to do. Once that curtain comes up, my job is done: it's in your hands, you know what to do."

Of course there's a limit to defying direction, but an actors job is not just to stand there and do what they're told. They have to do it in the way that will feel most organic to them and to the people watching. Theatre direction is different than movie direction. The director can't stop the show and give the actors notes to make sure that everything goes just how they want it to. The actors have a lot of power to interpret their direction, and like I said, that interpretation can vary from show to show even when it's the exact same main cast.

So I'm sure Brightman had performances where she was more into Erik and ones where she was more into Raoul. But I don't know.

Now as for her voice, I'm going to be honest that yes it's unique and she's without a doubt a fantastic singer, I'm not a huge fan of her vocal quality. Her voice is very thick to my ears and it's just not my favourite. I don't hate it by any means, but it's just not my favourite.

As for the hate, idk. If she did have a lukewarm performance across the board, it is partially her fault, but as I've said, creating a role is a difficult thing. Other Christines have been able to look at her and form impressions, have ideas and come to conclusions that Brightman may not even have thought of at the time. It's a lot of work to build a character with nothing to go on except the book which only partially resembles the story you're acting out, so I'm disinclined to be very harsh towards her. But I think we as phans have a feeling that no matter how many Erik/Christine pairings we've seen where Christine definitely embraces her attraction to Erik and leaves only reluctantly at the end--pairings that vindicate the E/C stance a lot of us hold dear--theres a sense (and an irrational one, I think) that the original interpretations are the only ones that really matter. While that's understandable, I think it's a bit of a fallacy, because as I've said, shows like this grow over time. New interpretations add new layers and ideas occur to both actors and directors that they maybe want to approach things differently from now on. If they changed their perspectives, it must be for a reason. The first version is often flawed.

ALSO keep in mind that later Christine's, Raoul's and Phantom's have had the benefit of full-text translations of the book that weren't available to the original cast and crew. Post 1990 Christines had the benefit of knowing that, in the book, Christine practically admits to Raoul that, if Erik was handsome, she would certainly have fallen completely in love with him (and, with Erik being pretty darn sexy in the musical, that definitely shifts the perception of Christine as a character and how she would make her decisions in this musical timeline). Maybe this is a factor into why most of the 90's Christines I've seen really went in for an enthusiastic interpretation.

Who can really say?

Also yes, Hugh and Samantha slap.

She's one of my top 5 Christines.

[sondheims-hat]

February 6, 1979: Sweeney Todd has its first Broadway preview.