Friday, December 18, 2009
Pasadena Playhouse Will Strip Camelot Down to Its Love Triangle; Cast of Eight Planned
Playbill.com: "Based on T.H. White's 'The Once and Future King,' the musical about romance, sexual betrayal and budding democracy — all within King Arthur's mythical realm — is by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music). Opening night will be Jan. 15."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
While this does change the initial story that the script writer wrote, I really hope more plays undergo this process. While it's always fun to work on plays that have large scopes when it comes to design and execution, it's something that the current economy really can not support well. Some plays contain lots of extra characters, that while important are not as important as others. I think that the theater community as a whole will be seeing more of this shortening and condensing of plays that have larger scopes just so they can continue to be performed.
There's very little in the actual story that needs a large cast, as the article says the previous emphasis was on the pageantry of huge numbers of people in a chorus, but that's just something to fill the stage, it doesn't tell the story. If the stage is smaller then the 8 characters that they keep can still tell the story and still fill the smaller stage, they can also do it without having to pay the small army in the chorus so there's a lot less financial risk in it now. I agree that we'll be seeing more of this, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised to see plays going the opposite direction to get publicity - take a show that used to be done by 4 actors and stage it with 40 to get people to talk about it and hopefully buy tickets.
Post a Comment