Dance numbers that sound great on CD but disappoint onstage

[Skip2]

"There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" - Sweet Charity

"Put On Your Sunday Clothes" - Hello, Dolly!

[blaxx]

What? How do those numbers disappoint onstage? You must be very young.

[bwayphreak234]

I LOVED There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This onstage.

[TheLadyoftheWood]

You must have seen some really lousy regional productions with no creativity or life in them?

[Skip2]

No, I was talking about the Broadway original choreography.

The music and orchestrations sound like the dance numbers should be showier and more exciting...to me.

[Quiche2]

"Morning Person", SHREK THE MUSICAL.

[TrulyOutrageousJem]

My jaw just hit the floor. There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This is AMAZING on stage! One of my favorites actually.

I personally think Dancing Thru Life sounds great on the cd but is really boring on stage.

[morosco]

Gower Champion's "Sunday Clothes" is as near perfect as a dance number can be.

[Skip2]

Strange, that "Sunday Clothes" has very little dancing. It's mostly exaggerated walking.

[Mildred Plotka]

While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, most theatre historians would note your two disappointments as two Golden Age choreographic classics.

Are you going off of the Dolly! film? Because that's not the original choreography.

[PalJoey]

Gower Champion's "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" is one of the most perfect stagings ever:

http://youtu.be/84cXRKxaCpg


So is his "Before the Parade Passes By":

http://youtu.be/c5GkoqiVnPY


Not to mention the title number itself:

http://youtu.be/CFO8T63lLGI

[Gothampc]

If variety shows hadn't gone the way of the dinosaur, somebody would have staged this number with Chita Rivera and it would have been electric.
Link

[EricMontreal22]

I'll never be a big Jerry Herman fan, but I agree that the staging is magnificent. As for any criticism of Something Better than This--I'll just echo everyone else's "WTF" reaction. It's one of my fave dance numbers ever--and setting aside, the film pretty faithfully replicates the original choreography.

[EricMontreal22]

Gotham, such great clip. Larry Fuller never got the credit he deserved for Evita, IMHO. I remember when the current production opened in London critics went on about how now it was a full on dance musical--they seemed to have forgotten how wonderful the stylized movement was in the original.

[bk]

Those clips from Dolly are textbook examples of how to stage numbers. Today, people like Rob Ashford would have everyone doing back flips, as if that is dancing and musical staging. This tells a story, like all great musical staging. In the Dolly number, Gower has everyone just stand there while Carol sings. Today, buff chorus boys would be flipping and falling to the floor and doing push-ups.

[Jake01]

"Dance of the Robe" from AIDA.

It's thrilling on the cast recording, but the tempo of the dance break for some reason was MUCH slower on stage.

[jv92]

I agree bk! Rob Ashford needs to take a choreographic valium. When the curtain rose on HOW TO SUCCEED... and all of the office employees were gyrating in that beehive set, I was beyond mortified. I'm sure he's a lovely guy and very talented, but sometimes, less is more.

Was Gower Champion an innovative stylist like Fosse? No. Was he a brilliant manipulator like Michael Bennett? Sort of. Was he a genius like Jerry Robbins? No sir. But he knew how to build a number without backflips, pushups and all that crap. He understood musical comedies. He was a brilliant guy in that sense.

[GavestonPS]

Larry Fuller never got the credit he deserved for Evita, IMHO. I remember when the current production opened in London critics went on about how now it was a full on dance musical--they seemed to have forgotten how wonderful the stylized movement was in the original.

You're probably right, Eric. But at the time, Fuller was seen to be filling the shoes of Michael Bennett in terms of working for Prince. Almost anyone would have suffered by comparison.

[Quiche2]

TrulyOutrageousJem, really? I think Dancing through Life is great on stage.

[EricMontreal22]

Didn't Birch have that role before Fuller?

[morosco]

Rob Ashford's ridiculously self-indulgent choreography; a masturbatory mess of motion!

[GlindatheGood22]

I love love LOVE King of New York on the Newsies CD, but if the choreography hasn't changed since the Thanksgiving Day Parade, it's bitterly disappointing.

[jv92]

I used to look forward to watching the Kennedy Center tributes. Now I dread what mess Ashford will create next. (Example: Chita singing "I Don't Want to Know." Just let her sing the damned song! She doesn't need to be thrown around by overbuilt chorus boys like a rag doll.)

[chrisampm2]

I agree about Ashford's work when he's also directing. I think his work on Cry Baby and Evita is the best thing about those productions.

[EricMontreal22]

I admit I did like the tap number he did for Cry baby as performed on the Tonys--but in general have to agree. And he needs to drop the 60s TV variety show style he falls back on, like on this year's past Kennedy Honour Awards (I think the men doing jazz pops was to some Anyone Can Whistle song but it just did not work).

[GavestonPS]

Didn't Birch have that role before Fuller?

Yes. For A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, CANDIDE and PACIFIC OVERTURES. The first two weren't really seen as "dance" shows and the latter was sui generis. I didn't mean to take anything away from her fine work on those shows.

But I suspect you know you were taking my remarks on Fuller a tad too literally.

The point is Prince had a history of working with Jerome Robbins AND Michael Bennett. I doubt either Birch or Fuller could really compete, which isn't to say they didn't do some excellent work.