Ann Crumb in Aspects of Love

[sing_dance_love]

Love, love, love Patti. Was lucky enough to see her in Piazza also, and thought she was funny, vibrant, and in sounded lovely.

And her vocals on the Drood album are absolutely magical. What an exciting voice.

best12bars- What was going on during Drood? Haven't heard about any drama with that show.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Bety Buckley was " going on during DOOD".

[best12bars]

It wasn't just Buckley, but that was definitely part of it.

Suffice it to say, the cast quickly "soured" during the run. It was not a fun atmosphere behind the scenes, particularly after the Tony nominations came out. Things just went downhill from there.

Such a shame, too. I enjoyed the show so much when I first saw it.

(A year later, not so much, but most of the OBC had left by then.)

EDIT: Maybe this is a better way to summarize it ...

You had a cast filled with very strong personalities and loads of talent with the OBC of Drood. Those personalities didn't always get along. A lot of clashing occurred.

[Leadingplayer]

Why did the Tony nominations sour the Drood cast? They got tons of them. (and who is that in Curtinpulldowner's picture above....I love him!)

[sing_dance_love]

Ahh, that's right. That really was a cast of characters. Insanely talented, but characters nonetheless.

[chernjam]

Ahhh - Aspects of Love - probably tied with Sunset Blvd for my favorite ALW score. Aspects was the first broadway show I saw as a senior in High School. Got to see it with Ball and Crumb.

I agree - I've yet to hear any cover of a song from Aspects that bested Ann Crumb.

As for the production itself - I thought Robin Phillips production (which also made some changes to the score -- notably making my favorite song "There is more to love" into a duet -- and slight changes to the story line) made the entire show much stronger, more effective and moving. Free from the massive heavy production, the show really seemed to become the intimate show that ALW had envisioned...

(Good to see you EricMontreal22!)

[iluvtheatertrash]

Just have to throw some Patti Cohenour love in here! She was my voice teacher during her PIAZZA run and was an absolute joy to be around.

[nobodyhome]

Cohenour discussed her Phantom experience in this article from very soon after she left the production:

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-06-23/entertainment/ca-2648_1_fair-lady-big-river-phantom

[chrisampm2]

Thanks, nobodyhome. She didn't mind burning that Macintosh bridge.

[Mattbrain]

*sigh*

I've told this story before but I must tell it again...just cuz. We did this show my sophomore year in college. I was Marcel. The director was completely and utterly confident that people would just take to this show like cats to cream, that he was opening a new audience to what he basically viewed as an unsung masterpiece. When we opened...oh boy did we bomb like hell. The show has flaws but it was stuck in this equally flawed production. The cast didn't like the material. The director had NO concept of how to stage a scene. He'd pretty much arrange us onstage and we'd just stand or sit where we were for minutes on end. Our set looked more like a brick pizza oven than the French countryside (shame too because the set designer is extremely talented). They pretty much scrapped the orchestrations entirely and settled on two pianos, bass and percussion...in other words, a rehearsal band. The production was frankly just a listless bore. Marcel's barely in the second act so I'd be backstage just bored out of my mind. And to top it all off, for more reasons than one, audiences were just turned off by it completely. If they weren't weirded out by all the sex, they were laughing when they shouldn't have been, particularly at the Lolita subplot in the second act with Alex and his cousin/possible daughter, Jenny. And trust me, y'all are pretty much getting the short version.

[MCfan2]

"I think its a cold, uninvolving show. Its very hard to feel any empathy for the plot and characters. The score is ravishing but seems to belong to another story."

Dubliner, my thoughts exactly. The music is lovely, but every time I get done listening to the cast album, I feel like I need a shower. There's just something so repellent about the characters.

[Parsley]

rather enjoyed Aspects. The music at any rate is excellent although the original producton in London plodded at times.
Loved Sarah Brightman as Rose in the final London cast - not the best actress but much better than she was in Phantom but a very good and convincing singer, who delivered her songs emotionally.

Loved the changes they did to the show during the London run - especially making "There is more to love" into a duet between Guilietta and Rose: a much better and more poignant song as a duet done the way it was.