NYPOST.com: "The final performances of 'Dracula' last weekend played less like a Gothic thriller and more like the backstage farce 'Noises Off.'
The antics -- which Tony-win ning costume designer Willa Kim calls 'the most bizarre experience of my career' -- began Friday, the day The Post reported that the artistic team was owed $100,000 in fees and expenses by the show's producers.
4 comments:
Making sure that not only the design team but everyone involved with a production gets paid fairly should always be a top priority in any situation. That being said, I believe the designers of Dracula behaved very immaturely and unprofessional. Informing the producer that certain pieces of the show had been 'confiscated' a mere hour before the curtain rose is not the civilized way to deal with the issue. A meeting should have been arranged at the first available moment, probably before any shows the following day, and all the persons involved should have conferred about the dilemma. The way these designers behaved themselves and how they placed the show in jeopardy is not fair to the actors, who now have to improvise on stage, the crew, who are torn between sides, and most importantly the audience, who are paying top dollar to see the performance. One could argue that the vast majority of the tickets that night were comped and it wasn't a paying audience, but the costume designer Willa Kim was not aware of this fact when she put her plan into motion at 7:15 PM. In her mind, she saw nothing wrong of cheating the audience out of their money. Overall, the situation should have been handled more professionally and with more attention to the consequences of the actions of those involved.
Being in the mindset of commenting on the abrupt closing of the Country Dinner Playhouse (see above), I may be biased, but it seems so often that when the producers are in financial trouble, rather than explaining themselves and asking for patience, instead they shut up and let out no information until it's too late. Not only were these producers entirely out of money, they also had such animosity from the designers that this debacle happened. While I agree with you, David, that the designers definitely stepped over the line by pulling all their content (especially since it's not fair to the designers and stage managers, who are trying hard enough to do their jobs even as they're not being paid), but the producers needed a sign that the designers were not "getting it".
While i agree with David that the designers went a little too far, they have the right to pull their intellectual property out of the show. they have a contract in which they were supposed to be paid money. that being said they should have given the producers more notice to actually give them time to get the money to pay them. It kind of sucks that the situation got so out of hand.
While I do agree that the designers and fight director in question may not have reacted in the most mature and appropriate manner, I do believe that they were entitled to be upset. It makes me angry that things like this happen on a professional level...intellectual property should be more respected and the designers should have been compensated for their work as soon as the show opened and their work was viewed by audience members! It is understandable for a show to have financial issues, though, and I am aware of the fact that a show has to make money in order for its creators to get paid. Since financial issues were clearly a concern, the producers would have been much better off if they had just been up front with the designers. This could have prevented the madness that ensued over the last few days of performances for the show. The designers did act maturely in the end, though, and their choice not to humiliate the actors shows that they do have some degree of professionalism.
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