Fair enough. Ill thicken my skin. However this should be a critique on the play and an open dialogue, not an opportunity to disregard or slam someone's opinion. Then it just becomes a cackle of snobbery. Maybe your right, standing ovations have become perfunctory, and sadly we are past the days of heckling and tomato tossing, but I do believe the great majority that left their chairs that night were in complete agreement with me.
Vermont: That's the status quo around here. An idea or opinion that goes against the hivemind groupthink of the message board is "stupid" or "uneducated." Never mind your history and background in theatre, whatever it may be.
"I disagree with this entire thread about the overture. Yes, it's iconic. Yes it's beautiful. It's also a relic of eras gone by. Overtures are boring. Include it on the soundtrack if you must but Annie already runs long, lets just get into the play already. Lapine, if you're reading this; don't put the overture back in."
And in your other post you said you've been going to Broadway shows for a LONG time. How long? I find people who use that exact phrase end up being young teenagers. Is that the case here? I would assume so because of your use of the word "soundtrack" and the fact that you consider an overture to be a relic of bygone days. The problem with pandering to people who have problems with revivals being what they're supposed do be, i.e. the show that's being revived, which, in the case of Annie would include the overture, is that the denominator keeps getting lowered and that's not a good thing. What's next for you - a new revival of Gypsy without the overture.
bk - i see your point. We live in a changing world where attention spans are shorter and tastes in general are different than they were 50 years ago. The allure of hearing lush orchestrations played live in a pit are pretty much gone to modern audiences....just my thoughts.
Just for the record, I'm 17 and love nothing more than hearing overtures played live with glorious orchestrations! There's nothing more exciting than getting a thrilling musical tease of the evening that's ahead prior to a curtain going up. Of course you weren't referring to all teenagers but trust me, hope is not lost!
Overtures can be either disappointing, lifeless (even the most brilliantly composed) or do exactly what they are supposed to do, engage the imagination. South Pacific at Lincoln Center is the best recent example I know of an overture being orchestrated and performed to great effect.
Okay, yes, the Overture for South Pacific at Lincoln Center was very well done with the whole stage sliding back and all that- but I'm sorry- even if that hadn't done that, it still would have been amazing to sit and listen to that beautiful Overture.
I guess I'm with those who don't understand how Overtures are now old and outdated and there needs to be something special happening during the music being played for people not to suddenly fall asleep and loose interest for 3-5 minutes!
Saw it last night and the overture is indeed back. Also, the French maid stuff with the orphans during Easy Street mentioned earlier in the thread appears to be gone.
According to Clarke ( on FB) Easy Street re staging continues today and starting this afternoon and tomorrow the director has one on one sessions with Katie Finerman. This is what previews are for. Sounds like it is all going in the right direction.
Sorry, geissap, but comparing ANNIE to NEWSIES?? Oooh dem's fightin' words.
NEWSIES is a piece of witless commercial claptrap set in the 1890's with a bunch of identically mechanical dances shoehorned between lame book scenes featuring 2-dimensional cartoon villains and victims. Bad things happen? The boys start leaping. Good things happen? The boys reprise the same leaps. NEWSIES is pure product masquerading as a story with a couple of good songs thrown in.
ANNIE tells a seriously moving story of an orphan girl in 1932 who warms the heart of a millionaire along with his friends in the cabinet of Pres. Roosevelt. But the girl is a full 3-dimensional human being, as is the millionaire, as are her tormenters, etc. Against all odds, ANNIE is a show where every song is a gem and every scene is written to discover to truth in the humor and humanity of these characters. Sure it's entertaining as hell, but only in the service of telling an honest story.
The first show on Broadway I saw was Sweet Charity in '86. Does that make me old or young? But also what difference does it make what I claim? On the internet, no one knows you're a dog.
On another "other post," I wrote, "And don't sweat the people who make you call it "Original Cast Recording," there are about 200 people on the planet who care, and 195 of them are on this message board. The rest of the planet just uses the two phrases interchangeably, like sensible people. Of course there is a difference between an Original Cast Recording and a Soundtrack. I'm sure that people are just lining up to explain it. But the truth is, it doesn't matter. Musicians and Singers don't care what you call it, they just want you to buy it. Only fans care what you call it."
So you can gather how I feel about the "soundtrack" vs. "cast recording" non-debate. I would happily see a new production of Gypsy without the overture. It's a beautiful piece of music, I enjoy listening to it on the album, but it is not essential to the show in my opinion. Please correct me if I'm wrong (as if you needed to be invited to do so), but according to my now years ago Theatre History class, overtures are also a way of introducing people to music they are unfamiliar with, so when they hear it during the show proper, it sounds more familiar, and therefore more "memorable." It's an old vaudeville trick. If that's true, then it is only logical to say that revivals need overtures much less than a new musical. In the age of iTunes and Stage Tube and Twitter and viral marketing, the overture just has significantly diminished importance when compared to the past.
If you have an argument other than "you don't like overtures and I do, therefore you must be an idiot teenager," I'm all ears.
Are the new orchestrations similar to the one's in Australian production? I noticed an entirely new string section. I also imagine the restored overture will be similar. Annie Overture
The new orchestrations by Michael Starobin largely follow the configuration of the Phil Lang original orchestration, although they are otherwise wholly new. For strings, both the original and the new orchestration had/have one violin and cello. The other instrumentation is quite similar: original had two trumpets, two trombones and five reeds + rhythm, guitar and keyboards, etc. The new has three trumpets, two trombones and four reeds + rhythm, guitar/banjo, keyboards, etc.
They set the tone of the piece; they give you something to look forward to in the show; and sometimes the songs can sound better than when sung on stage, eg. Lauren Bacall's songs in Applause.
Some of my happiest theatre memories are of listening for the first time to the overture of a new musical, eg. Dear World. I was in heaven as it played.
Basically, they're fun, and often wonderful. And if people talk through them, so what? They were talking through them fifty years ago.
People often pay to sit and just hear live orchestral music at concert halls around the world. And they listen to music that has no dramatic impetus for its own intrinsic enjoyment: jazz and rock instrumentals, trance music, funk music; I know people who listen to electronic dance music or motion picture soundtracks for hours at a time. I've always enjoyed overtures as an opportunity to hear a few minutes of live music. And, as After Eight mentions, it often sets the tone. But even if it didn't, there's still a group of musicians in the pit performing for you. That has entertainment value in its own right. Some of the classic overtures (Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, et al.) are often performed on their own at orchestral concerts because they're just good music. It seems weird to me that anyone would actually want to get LESS for their money.
An overture is far from "an old vaudevillian trick." Operas have had overtures for centuries. They're an art form in themselves, like a concerto or a symphony. ANNIE has a great overture. It should definitely be restored.
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Posted: 10/10/12 at 04:15pm