Chicago Tribune: "We will never,” said Cameron Mackintosh, sounding unusually wistful, "be all together doing this again."
Mackintosh — often known by the sobriquet "Mister Producer" and the most successful British theatrical entrepreneur of his generation — was talking from Providence, R.I., where he was together with Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil, the French duo responsible for creating "Les Miserables," one of the most successful musicals of all time.
6 comments:
This is a show that I have been wanting to see for a very long time because there are not a lot of asian featuring shows in this industry. I really want to see the tour but I am not sure if I will be able to because it is not coming to Pittsburgh. It was kind of interesting to read about the process in Chicago although it was more about casting and finance and less about the designs and stuff. I think that this article was a little more boring for me than other articles I've read because when I clicked on the article I thought it would be more about the show and less about the pre process. I think that the dedication to the quality of the show was really nice to see and I am kind of sad that it will not come back for a while to Chicago because it is such a cool show and Chicago has a great space for it.
The original production of Miss Saigon changed Broadway. This show was the first time a live helicopter was used on stage. It had one of the highest advanced ticket sales in history. Cameron Mackintosh truly produce something special. One thing that I really admire about Cameron is his need for quality in all his productions. A lot of the time when you take a show on tour the producers will try and save as much money as possible. This was not the case for his shows. He stated that he had 17 trucks for the tour which would be a crazy amount now. For example, the current tour of Aladdin has the most trucks on tour with 33 and that’s 2018. It’s sad to see how much this show means to him and how he realizes that this will probably be the last time all of the team will be together.
I think Miss Saigon is an excellent show, but it probably will be the last time this production is revived for at least a while. This show was written in the style of most other shows from that era of theatre, and style is simply not what people are as interested in anymore. Miss Saigon is an extremely important show in the history of theatre. It employed a very large number of Asian American actors, particularly in the revival, which is a population that is virtually never present in mainstream theatre. It also pushed technical theatre way ahead by using the giant ass helicopter onstage. I've only seen videos of the original, but seeing the revival, I was blown away by the helicopter in 2017. The production quality of Miss Saigon has to be huge to support such a huge score, but I think that this era of gorgeous, but not very layered shows is coming to a close.
This article discusses the musical, Miss Saigon. The article brings up some interesting points about the timeliness of the show and how reactions to the show today vary greatly from initial responses to the show, when it first came out. I think it is always interesting to examine how people’s impressions of a show change over time. Especially with Miss Saigon, it is interesting to see how people slowly began to realize the issues with the production and the erasure of Vietnamese autonomy in the show. It is hard to say whether or not this means that the show should not be produced anymore but if it does come back, I think the director should take some time to think about implications in today’s political climate and the message it might send to viewers. I think there could be a very interesting of Miss Saigon, that changes the original message of the show and updates the portrayal of certain people.
It is always sad to see a show go, especially ones with technical elements like this one. Though I am unsure of how you would do the helicopter on tour. This article raises some concern and talks a little about whether we should be doing Miss Saigon at all anymore. There is an argument to be made that it is a picture of a time in history and thus is not inappropriate but I think that could be said for a lot of things that I don't want to watch anymore. Things don't age well, and that is just a fact of life. It is sad to see all these people lose their jobs but I think we should start putting shows on tour and on our stages from Broadway to regional theater that don't make me say "is this really appropriate anymore?"
I never did see the Broadway tour of Miss Saigon, however, I did see a version of the same show put on by the Serenbe Playhouse just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in a small town, obviously called, Serenbe. This performance was housed entirely outside, literally in a meadow, but in the middle of the summer in Georgia, so it was very warm outside. However, the one thing that really made this performance stand out to me was two things, first of all, the talent was very good. Everyone in the cast was a very good singer. The second thing was the fact that this performance landed an actual helicopter in the meadow, and used it as a set piece, if only briefly. It is unfortunate that this show is closing, as it is a very find memory for me, and I would love to see a more professional version of it.
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