re: It's not the same show, as indicated in the linked story. nm
Posted by: Chazwaza 10:27 pm EDT 10/17/24
In reply to: re: It's not the same show, as indicated in the linked story. nm - CCentero 08:07 pm EDT 10/17/24

And in the hands of HER 20 years ago, the stage version was a stiff and a dismissed dud.

She has every right to do whatever she wants with her IP, her story, etc. That was never my argument and I never suggested she doesn't. I suggested she is not the right person at 87 years old to adapt it into a very difficult and very expensive medium she has almost no experience except for her one experience which is doing a bad job already with this exact thing, adapting her screenplay/story into a stage musical that failed already.

What on earth relevance is it that this wont be the first or last musical not to speak to todays audience? THE EXPLICIT INTENTION AS STATED BY THE PRESS RELEASE is that it WILL or WANTS TO. I didn't put that onto it.
And who told you that Suffs doesn't speak to today's audience? Because it only ran under 400 performances? It is written in a way that DOES speak to the youth audience, but the mix of the subject, the writing, the story, the production, the timing, the cost... does not translate to a long run right now. That has nothing to do with anything we're discussing. Strange Loop, which you're clearly also referencing, absolutely is written to and does speak to the younger audiences of today... that doesn't mean it's going to be a hit.

My issue wasn't that it could never be a hit as adapted by her... it's that she isn't a good choice to re-think her story or script in a way that will specifically intentionally speak to today's audiences.

Gratuitous? How was my comment about Lonny Price gratuitous? Call it ageist if you want.

What is untrue or baseless about what I said? He's been behind many new musicals, as the guiding hand in development and direction... most of them you've never heard of because they never got to production, and some of them did and show me ONE that was successful or acclaimed. The closest is A Class Act. Fine. It's decent, got decent reviews, and wasn't successful. What he did well or not in that cases has little to do with turning a property like Dirty Dancing into a hit musical in 2025.
And he is 65.. i didn't make that up. You may disagree that the first person to go to to guide (or ghost co-write) a script that's meant to speak to the "audience of today" is not someone who was "the audience of today" 30 years ago, and a decade or more before social media even existed, let alone smart phones.
You can think he's a brilliant writer, a brilliant director, a brilliant developer of new musicals (I'd love to see your evidence but fine)... the point is exactly what you're mad about. Age. A 65 year old is not the perfect person to re-think an 80s movie about teen/20something people for the teen/20/30something people of today, and not just any today but a today that is vastly and markedly different.
I'm not saying he isn't the perfect director for the show. He may be! This is only off of the assumption that they're depending on his guiding hand for it developing to opening night as a new musical, or even that he's an uncredited book consultant helping Bergstein.
This is not about him as a director, and certainly not about his age as the director.

But again if you want to argue that saying an 87 year old is maybe not the best choice to be the sole writer of the book to a musical meant to be speaking to today's audience, especially a stage musical especially about young people... well... we will never see eye to eye on this.

I did not say I have proof there's a ghost writer, I said I'm confident there is. You'd actually, it's clear, be surprised just how many consultants and ghost co-writers there are, especially for big properties like this. The point of them is that they don't get writing credit.

I don't think we'll see eye to eye or get much more out of debating this.
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