CMU School of Drama


Monday, January 30, 2017

Stage preview: 'Something Rotten!' aims for the funny bone

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: It happens rarely these days, a cast stepping off Broadway to take a show on tour, and “Something Rotten!” is a rare musical — a throwback to crowd-pleasing comedies aimed at belly laughs and a rollicking good time.

3 comments:

Katherine Sharpless said...

I'm so excited to see Something Rotten! this weekend at the Benedum! I've heard good things about the show from my peers and a stranger on an airplane and hope it lives up to this kind review. As a Shakespeare lover, I hope I really am able to let go and relax when the show quickly abandons iambic pentameter to make fun of the bard as actor Rob McClure suggests. It was also interesting to read about his influence, Mister Rogers, considering what an icon he is for the city of Pittsburgh. Something Rotten! is advertised as family friendly and especially comedic, so I wonder how much empathy and sincerity will be expressed alongside the humor (which is how I remember Mister Rogers' show). The article even mentions that Sweeney Todd has a Mister Rogers influence. Finally, I look forward to seeing it at the Benedum because that space is so huge!

Annie Scheuermann said...

I am seeing this production of Something Rotten this weekend. As a christmas gift my grandmother is taking me to go see the production, and I am very excited. However, I was surprised she wanted to see this herself as she is a fan of classic theater, and really loves Shakespeare. Its good to hear that while there is a lot of making fun of Shakespeare that they do it in a way that respects it as well. I have never seen the show before, and I haven't heard the music either, I only know what I have read about it and heard from others. I'm glad to see that the tour is keeping true to the Broadway production, and not scaling anything down just because they had to travel with it. Personally, I am not familiar with anyone in the cast, but it seems like it will be good. I didn't know that the same director also did Book of Mormon and Aladdin. When I saw Book of Mormon I found it very funny but mostly because of how risky it was, I'm hoping that Something Rotten does not have the same exact kind of humor, as I'm sure my grandmother will want to leave after Act 1.

Evan Schild said...

I got to see this show on Broadway twice and then this week on tour. I have to see I did not like some of the cast members of the tour. Adam pascal did not seem very into it and did not compare to Carnegie alumni Christain Borle. After seeing the show I had the opportunity to go backstage and get a tour with the stage manager, which was awesome! He told me that a lot of the set pieces were the same from Broadway but they cut all automation from Broadway for the tour which was difficult to navigate he said. He also told me that that as the ASM on tour he has to go to the lighting focus call which I thought was very interesting. Right now they have three managers and are cutting down the tracks so that they only need two during the show so that the PSM can take notes! Overall I really enjoyed my experience with this tour.