Jesus Christ Superstar

Miss von Krolock wrote:Hear hear, Mr. Rice!

http://blog.musicaltheatrenews.com/2012/01/sir-tim-rice-against-itv-show-to-cast.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fwckr+%28Musical+Theatre+News%29&m=1

Sir Tim also added that he is prepared to veto the winning contestant "They can't cast the show without my approval. I have the right to veto casting so if Andrew casts it on TV and I didn't like the person, I could say so."

Ouch! If that is true, that IS powerful. I agree about his initial thoughts about the religious aspect, that Jesus is more than a character in a musical. They should step lightly and tactfully on this one. I'm sure it could be done, though.

But what puzzles me is to what degree Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to alienate all his previous collaborators. It's unusual for Tim Rice to protest so loudly and openly, which makes me think he is really pissed off this time. I think he might be feeling what few is saying - that Andrew Lloyd Webber is credited for everything these days. It's like he created JCS, Evita, Phantom and Cats all by himself, and that he's entitled to use HIS musicals as he sees fit.

operafantomet wrote:

Miss von Krolock wrote:Hear hear, Mr. Rice!

http://blog.musicaltheatrenews.com/2012/01/sir-tim-rice-against-itv-show-to-cast.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fwckr+%28Musical+Theatre+News%29&m=1

Sir Tim also added that he is prepared to veto the winning contestant "They can't cast the show without my approval. I have the right to veto casting so if Andrew casts it on TV and I didn't like the person, I could say so."

Ouch! If that is true, that IS powerful. I agree about his initial thoughts about the religious aspect, that Jesus is more than a character in a musical. They should step lightly and tactfully on this one. I'm sure it could be done, though.

But what puzzles me is to what degree Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to alienate all his previous collaborators. It's unusual for Tim Rice to protest so loudly and openly, which makes me think he is really pissed off this time. I think he might be feeling what few is saying - that Andrew Lloyd Webber is credited for everything these days. It's like he created JCS, Evita, Phantom and Cats all by himself, and that he's entitled to use HIS musicals as he sees fit.

Well, you know what, I hope to see Tim Rice involved in the Broadway transfer of Evita as much as he can. Because I'd rather have him at opening night than Andrew. Seriously, though, why did Andrew go through with doing a TV show if Tim said no? I mean, both of them ARE creditors, doesn't Andrew respect their friendship at all?

Miss von Krolock wrote:Hear hear, Mr. Rice!

http://blog.musicaltheatrenews.com/2012/01/sir-tim-rice-against-itv-show-to-cast.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fwckr+%28Musical+Theatre+News%29&m=1

This MADE MY DAY. Sir Tim, I f***ing love you.

I understand Tim Rice! I don´t like the casting shows (there are too much) and it must have an end.
Maybe there come a time and he´ll cast his Phantom or Christine on TV. No no!! This can´t be!

Booked tickets to see this on Broadway in early May.

BTW, to raise an old discussion earlier on in this thread about the Perry book, I found out that it was planned but never published. It may have even been written, but for some reason (no idea why), they never published it, so it's never been on sale...which is why, despite it having a cover image on Amazon, you'll never find it second-hand either. Pity.

Oh dear, the logo for the ITV reality show that shameful Andy has gone and done without Tim's permission looks so...



...tacky.

Doubt I'll watch any of it.

I know this is a show from the '70s, and it sounds best as originally recorded rather than these modern Rent-like revivals, but doesn't mean you also have to make your logo look so '70s.

Did they have a leftover Starlight Express logo hanging around somewhere?

~LCD

I kind of like the logo...It obviously is playing on the rose window in an old cathedral, and although not religious, I've always loved old cathedrals with the big, gorgeous rose windows. I seriously could sit and stare at them all day.

I'd be curious to watch this to see how show turns out.

Yeah, I get that it's supposed to be a stained-glass thing, but the colors of it are too bright and garish for my tastes. I would say it looks more like something you'd see in a megachurch than in a cathedral.

~LCD

The problem is not so much the star. Mediaeval stained glass windows can have incredible colours. It's the background that makes it look garish. In a cathedral the stained glass would glow in daylight, as a contrast to the muted stone walls, and at night they would be dark while the walls would be illuminated by candle lights or similar.

In the JCS logo the background is bright and illuminated as well as the star. They both demand our attention. The graphic look of the star, and the colours, are cool enough, but right now it's too much going on in it.

Said the art historian...

Yeah, what Anea said. The way they've done the glowing of the star is just cheap-looking. I also think the font for "Superstar" isn't very original. Maybe this is just a preliminary mock-up.

Please tell me these guys are going to walk around in robes on the stage and wigs. Because that's the only way I'll watch this.

I wish Tim Rice had a blog where he could just troll about this.

ML6 wrote:Please tell me these guys are going to walk around in robes on the stage and wigs. Because that's the only way I'll watch this.

I wish Tim Rice had a blog where he could just troll about this.

Tim Rice is known to have replied to people's comments online before (about Chess and Elaine Paige), so maybe when he's had a bad day he might decide to do just that... I wonder whether he'll now boycott the entire thing or just the TV show, or whether he'll come round to it. Just like those Phantom fans "came round" to LND.......

Seeing JCS on Broadway on 1 May. Anyone fancy joining?

Yesterday I´ve seen a great show here in Vienna. Jesus Christ Superstar in Concert for one week.
http://www.musicalvienna.at/index.php/de/aktuelles/article/105655

I know it´s in german, but the cast is great. The whole show will be sung in English.
I was fascinated to look at Colleen Besett. She has the same look as Christine

Drew Sarich was very touching and moving Jesus. Mischa Mang was a very wild Judas.
The orchestra rocks the theatre.
Maybe I see it again at the end of the week.
I love the musical...one of A.L. Webbers best works after Phantom.
(for me)

Well, I saw the revival that came to Broadway via Ontario. Overall I give it three out of five. The best thing about the show for me was Chilina Kennedy as Mary...she acted and sang fabulously. Paul Nolan made a very good Jesus, but not quite in the stratospheric league of Steve Balsamo for me. His highlight was Gethsemane, which was marvellous. The big disappointment was that I don't know what Rice and Lloyd Webber saw in this production that catalysed it being fasttracked to Broadway. This is the second time I've been disappointed with Des McAnuff's direction (I similarly felt let down with a not-great staging he did of Gounod's Faust in London), so maybe he isn't my cup of tea. The staging was a mess and the choreography at times hideous. To his credit, he made some tricky scenes like the Overture interesting to watch, but the rest of the time it felt like he just wanted complete meaningless hyperactivity from everyone to mask a lack of dramatic substance. A lot of it is not original either; it would be nice, for instance, to have Herod's Song done in a way that is not high camp and instead concentrate on its viciousness, which is what you get on the original album. The focus on this supposed love triangle that McAnuff has discovered seemed forced; at one point, Peter's lines are taken away from him and given to Judas, but the result is nonsensical in terms of the storytelling. I came away feeling the show works best as a record and not on the theatre stage. But I swear the show CAN be done right, cf. the 1996 Lyceum production in the West End. What puzzled me most was Josh Young. I do not understand his Tony nomination at all. His voice is by no means bad, but it is a little too stretched for Judas, to the point where he cops out of a LOT of notes. I also find it strange he got nominated given the sheer number of performances he's missed (including opening night). To be fair, he didn't have much opportunity to show off his acting given the way he's been directed; a lot of it basically involves just observing everything from a raised platform with no interaction with the rest of the cast, including (bizarrely) the scene where he is supposed to confront Jesus ('You sad pathetic man...'). I don't think the show will last long. It has been rushed to Broadway without much thought, and half of the mezzanine was empty on the night I saw it, which isn't great if you've only been open for a couple of months.

In other news, namely that awful reality TV idea, Tim Minchin (who went to see the Broadway revival when it opened) has been cast as Judas... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9248124/Atheist-comedian-Tim-Minchin-to-play-Judas-in-Jesus-Christ-Superstar.html

Um, yeah. Thoughts?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/9269315/Melanie-C-and-Chris-Moyles-join-the-cast-of-Jesus-Christ-Superstar.html

Well any interest I had in this has now evaporated. I didn't think ALW could get much lower beyond the previous reality TV shows, Wizard of Oz and that godawful pointless sequel to Phantom, but apparently he has managed it. I won't be seeing this.

Time to give up hope ALW will find his marbles again, I think. What a sad, sad decline into bad taste and tackiness this last decade has been for him.

Could ALW be more uncomfortable-looking?

The only person I'm familiar with in that pic is Tim Minchin. Don't know the others.

PhantomsGhost wrote:Could ALW be more uncomfortable-looking?

The only person I'm familiar with in that pic is Tim Minchin. Don't know the others.

Mel C is a former Spice Girl. Chris Moyles is DJ for Radio 1 in the UK with no performing history that I'm aware of. Weird choices. I guess they figured they needed names to fill the arenas, although these are far from A-list or B-list names... But it already sounds like a trainwreck.

Really, Andrew, the best you could do was Sporty Spice? At least Nicole Scherzinger had done Rent at the Hollywood Bowl...

If there was ever any doubt ALW is firmly in the "exploiting past successes" part of his career decline, this should dispel it.

~LCD

Laughing so hard!!

Scorp wrote:Time to give up hope ALW will find his marbles again, I think. What a sad, sad decline into bad taste and tackiness this last decade has been for him.

Indeed.

I've never heard of Minchin or Moyles.

All I know about Minchin is he wrote the music and lyrics for the musical version of Matilda that just cleaned up at the Oliviers and is coming to Broadway next season. Not exactly credentials which promise a stunning turn as Judas Iscariot, but cool nonetheless.

~LCD

I can't quite believe that Tony Vincent, who played Judas in the 2000 Broadway revival, openly trashed the current revival on Twitter based on the Tony Awards performance (which I've not yet seen): https://twitter.com/TonyTheVincent/status/211985564080144384

I'm not sure whether to be impressed by his audacity or disturbed by his lack of professionalism. If it were his private account or he were just a paying member of the audience, then fine, but he's an actor with a lot of followers and is associated with the show...

There again, it's nice for some honesty considering the BS that often comes out of actors' mouths who are told to big up certain shows by producers...

Not sure which side of the fence I sit on about this. To be fair the revival he was in wasn't great either.

While I do think his behavior (or at least his phrasing) was rather unprofessional, I can't disagree with the sentiment. The title song to JCS is very confrontational--who is Jesus really? What purpose does his life and death (and by extension, Judas') serve?--but Josh Young sings it like a motivational speaker in a bad Vegas lounge act jacket. There was no genuine heart to it, and that more than anything really kills a show.

And yeah, the 2000 revival wasn't that good either. Jesus looked more like a bemused surfer-boy than a charismatic and controversial leader.

~LCD

The 2000 revival sucked, so Vincent doesn't have room to talk. But this production doesn't seem that much better, and I'm not sure why Young has been getting such praise.

I'm with y'all. Sometimes honesty is very refreshing, especially in the entertainment industry where everyone is either selling their product by hyping it, or trying to protect their colleagues by never say anything negative. But I think I would have felt more respect if 1. The production he himself starred in was way superior, and 2. He actually saw the production he's trashing, either on video or live, instead of basing his opinion on a clip from an award.

Why are there so many lackluster JCS productions from recent years, though? How much does it need to be modernized and based on "modern people" for the audience to relate to it? And how different must they make the roles in order to present something not yet done? I loved the 2009 revival in Oslo, it was great. But most of those I've seen from recent years is either trying way too hard, or not trying at all. I like this musical a lot, I wish producers wouldn't make it so hard for me to enjoy their productions...

operafantomet wrote:I'm with y'all. Sometimes honesty is very refreshing, especially in the entertainment industry where everyone is either selling their product by hyping it, or trying to protect their colleagues by never say anything negative. But I think I would have felt more respect if 1. The production he himself starred in was way superior, and 2. He actually saw the production he's trashing, either on video or live, instead of basing his opinion on a clip from an award.

Why are there so many lackluster JCS productions from recent years, though? How much does it need to be modernized and based on "modern people" for the audience to relate to it? And how different must they make the roles in order to present something not yet done? I loved the 2009 revival in Oslo, it was great. But most of those I've seen from recent years is either trying way too hard, or not trying at all. I like this musical a lot, I wish producers wouldn't make it so hard for me to enjoy their productions...

I think the piece works better on the whole as a solely aural experience. Listening to JCS is often superior to watching a staged production of it, I find. The only production of it I know of that came close to being satisfying for me was the 1996 revival at London's Lyceum Theatre. Sadly, that production wasn't the one that opened four years later on Broadway, even though it had the same director.

I agree on that. I love listening to the original concept recording.

You can get too cute with the staging. I've toyed around in my head making it an analogy for a cult-of-personality presidential candidate, but then you've got the whole crucifixion thing....

I think the best production I saw was the Neeley-Anderson tour in the 90s. It had a lot of the same sensibility as the film, but with some neat touches: a trio of devil-women who tormented Judas, making the temple a souvenir store (a nice commentary on Christian commercialism, I thought), etc.

~LCD