Variety: "The first West End preview of 'Love Never Dies,' Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to 'The Phantom of the Opera,' has been canceled.
Originally skedded to begin performances at the Adelphi Theater on Feb. 20, the first preview will now take place on Monday, Feb. 22. No show was skedded for Feb. 21, which is a Sunday, when the majority of London legit offerings are dark."
11 comments:
I may be terribly cynical and naive, but this seems like a case of incredibly poor planning on the part of the managers. A show like Love Never Dies is going to be incredibly involved technically and the tech process is going to be very exhausting to everyone involved, so why did they think a show could go up that quickly? The question of rehearsal time is negotiable, but to think that the cast and crew was going to go straight through a crazed tech process and do one performance before going on Sunday break is not only negligent to the cast and crew, but what is that one performance gaining them? This seems like something that could have been avoided with a little bit of forethought and not just focusing on packing the audience in as early as possible.
It seems delays and pushbacks are becoming more and more acceptable. Whatever happened to the show must go on? I guess with that much money, canceling a preview is definitely a lot better in the long run. A very bitter part of me hopes this shows fails miserably just because i do not like the original, but on a serious note it does seem like there was poor planning with the show. 3 weeks tech rehearsal time seems like a dream for most theaters, but I'm sure for a show of that magnitude that will probably attempt to throw lots of new tricks at its audience alot more time is needed. Hopefully any kinks can be creased out- i'm sure the show being Weber everyone will go see it anyway.
I agree with Mary on the note about pushbacks. I've always been under the impression (like most) that pushbacks are really unprofessional and unacceptable. And while I still think they are, they do seem to be appearing more and more, and frankly I'm beginning to wonder what the big deal is. I mean, it really doesn't seem like a huge problem. The only thing that would make me think twice would be the possibility of people flying in for that weekend, then flying out on Sunday, especially when you consider family members of the cast, etc. When you look at it that way, and the inconvenience you are causing, then that becomes a huge issue, so actually I take that back. One of my friends in fact bought tickets to Spiderman and was really distraught to hear he wouldn't be in town for the new opening.
On another note, I just have a really terrible feeling about this. It feels like going back in to retouch a work of art like the Mona Lisa. I'm not the hugest fan of Phantom, but I do love the show and I think it's an incredible achievement in theatre history. To make a sequel seems, well...a little selfish to me. Unless Weber has some huge amazing secret idea that will wow us all, I doubt this will be a successful endeavor, and I'm a little disappointed to hear it's actually happening.
To do tech so quickly for a high stakes and technically involved show like this seems absurd. It seems like it is more about rushing through the art to make the money. Reading about the set, with one unit made up of 21 separate pieces, being loaded in two weeks, with one week of tech is crazy to think about. They take 3+ weeks here and to do a show like that everyone has to be at the top of their game. I can't wait to see if the show is sucessful, espically because I like most think it is being done for commercial reasons, rather then artistic ones. I wish them the best though and look foward to seeing it in november. Hope that doesnt get pushed back, delayed and cancelled.
While I agree that it is rather unprofessional to push the date back, especially since it's for previews, I do not think that it was the worst planning. Obviously, there was some foresight because of the two dates withheld for an event. While three weeks is a very short time, it does force the process to get done in a timely manner. I still have mixed feelings about this show in general. It could end up being a nice refresher for Phantom. However, after thinking about what a lot of the justification for it seems to be (how the original just kind of ends, with an uninteresting love story), I don't think that alone is a very good reason to make a sequel. Audiences don't need to know precisely how everything ends, because that is a lot of the experience.
I'm honestly not entirely sure how terribly tech could have gone for them to postpone the show going on at the proper time. I know that preview nights are important for benefactors and the like, but techs are always rough on the cast and crew.
Though this is probably just me not being a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Weber, the fact that his huge comeback piece is starting late doesn't bode well for me. If after a brutal tech the people working on it are so stressed out and overworked that they need to recooperate, then I'm not entirely sure the show will be much to look forward to.
This opening sentence in this article is misleading. "Canceled" generally means "We're not going to do this anymore because we realized we were spending boat loads of money on an enormous show that only exists because it's a sequel to another enormous show that was never a particularly interesting story." Okay, maybe that's not EXACTLY what "canceled" means, but that's how I read it. I'm surprised that a break after tech week and before previews was not already built into the calendar; going into the process, everyone involved must have known how exhausting it would be; it seems like management was a little idealistic in planning to go straight from tech to preview without any break for the cast and crew.
I agree that the scheduling could have been better, but i like the way they handled it. they planned ahead and prepared for the crew. i like the way they care about their crew. i think thats rare. A tired crew can make more mistakes and a happy crew is a good crew.
Considering that it was decided that pushing the opening date back was necessary, I agree that it was handled well. I am simply interested to see how well this play does in comparison to its predecessor. A sequel to 'Phantom' has some pretty large shoes to step into, and it should be interesting to mark its progress.
I think that the hype around the potential for this sequel to be horrible is really pushing around the planning and the overall success of this show. It's interesting how expectations for a show of this magnitude can mess with the balance of, say, any other show opening on the West End or on Broadway. It's not unusual for people to feel one way about a production in it's first few performances than a week later after seeing it again. It's impossible to predict or tell what has really caused this during the tech process, but I don't think the pressure on this show is a coincidence in this situation. In the grand scheme of things, I think that the available resources for this show are very accommodating to this type of process. Sure, maybe they shouldn't have cancelled with such short notice, but it's probably not unlikely that they're still expecting a huge audience despite the set backs of opening night.
The fact that they are doing this so that the cast and crew will not be exhausted seems like an admirable reason. However, I can only imagine that the audiences won't think so. Since they will not be so quick to sympathize with them, this may inevitably lose them some face later on. However, when you're right, you're right and in giving them some extra time, it seems like a right decision. If they could go on without it -- which they weren't gonna say no with their " the show must go on" attitude -- then by all means do so but, giving them a break isn't bad either.
Post a Comment