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[Charles Pogue]

Who cares who Trump is firing?  Speaking of cartoons!  It's a TV show!  Not real life!  Nothing could have less importance!  

[François de Paris]

I won't let you "trash" --  quite unfair! -- the score for Beauty and the Beast, which is a Broadway show adapted to the animated film medium!
So it made sense that it was adapted to the stage!

I haven't seen any of those Disney Broadway shows so I don't have an opinion... At least, you were lucky enough to be given a chance of disliking them!

Now, don't ask me why, I hate The Lion King but don't call Beauty a ... cartoon, s'il vous plaît! It deserves better... It has soul, it has heart! AND the music and songs are terrific!

Merci!

[George]

Who cares who Trump is firing?  Speaking of cartoons!  It's a TV show!  Not real life!  Nothing could have less importance!

To the person who actually wins, it's real.  "The Apprentice" isn't just a contest with a grand prize of a lump of money.  Whoever wins actually gets a real job within the Trump organization...and even after that, they still have to perform well enough in it to keep the job.  Granted, the "tasks" on the show are quite superficial and have absolutely nothing to do with the actual job that the winner will get, but the final prize is a real job.  It's not like all the other "reality" shows where they get money and artificial celebrity status because they "won."  Just my 2¢.

[François de Paris]

Who cares who Trump is firing?  Speaking of cartoons!  It's a TV show!  Not real life!  Nothing could have less importance!  

All right! Even though most viewers won't look at this that way!
Not real life but an example of what today's world enjoys for entertainment! It's relevant of a certain mentality, imho!
NOT inoccuous!

[George]

François, you are quite right!  Disney's Beauty and the Beast is much, much, much (that's three muches) better than Disney's The Lion King.  B&TB was written by people who came from the theater.  They knew (and still know) what makes good theater.

Just listen to Menken's score for to the German production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  In my humble opinion (IMHO in Internet lingo) the score is wonderful...and I don't even understand any of what they're singing (since it's in German).

[Emily]

Happy Anniversary HHW!!!

Welcome SanJoseGirl!!!

I just ate a pound and a half of broccoli.  Because sometimes you just need the green stuff.  

It was yummy at the time but now I feel ugh.  

[François de Paris]

François, you are quite right!  Disney's Beauty and the Beast is much, much, much (that's three muches) better than Disney's The Lion King.  B&TB was written by people who came from the theater.  They knew (and still know) what makes good theater.

Just listen to Menken's score for to the German production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  In my humble opinion (IMHO in Internet lingo) the score is wonderful...and I don't even understand any of what they're singing (since it's in German).

Thank you, George!

For a moment, and not a brief shining moment -- or is it shiny???!!! -- I thought I was losing the "battle"!
All in good clean fun!!
All is fair in love! (What am I talking about?).

[bk]

Beauty and the Beast is an interesting case, because obviously Mr. Menken and Mr. Ashman are theatrical and it is structured like a musical to begin with.  So, all they had to do was add three or four new numbers and make it a full-length score.  Where the show fails for me is in its mechanics - all the computers and the singers in some room somewhere and the hideous sound design where it seems you never hear a real sound coming from anyone - if they'd just let the material speak it really would have been better.  That's where the Disney effect has been most harmful.  Obviously, they got Julie Taymor, a not uninteresting director, to do the Lion King, but, aside from some of her clever visuals, she simply didn't have the smarts to know how to make it a moving or cohesive evening of theater.  I don't even like the cartoon, but the fact is the cartoon did not start off as a musical - same with Shrek.  Aida is something I couldn't even force myself to see after hearing that horrendous score.

[td]

Count me in on AIDA-hating.  

[elmore3003]

I have problems with the mythical side of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, which the film screwed up and transferred to the Broadway production, much as I was troubled by the Disney happy ending to THE LITTLE MERMAID, which is not the ending of Andersen's story.  The mermaid dies, simply because the Little Mermaid's tale is that of a fish out of water.

In LA BELLE ET LA BETE by Mme Leprince de Beaumont, a retelling of the same story by de Villeneuve and greatly indebted to Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche, the theme is about coming to love someone, and when you love, they become beautiful in your eyes.  Disney places the emphasis frm the beginning on the Prince's transformation to the Beast so the story becomes a how-do-we-change-him-and-us-back involving all that moronic dancing furniture and a Frankenstein-like storming of the castle over the mythic story of a young woman learning that the ogre is the handsomest man in the world because she loves him.  Disney blew it, in my book, but Cocteau got it right.

[TCB]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, NEW SITE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR ANNETTE (and THANK YOU)!

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TOD:

Sorry to be so unoriginal.

CD Player (Car) -- SCROOGE, THE MUSICAL
CD Player (Home) -- SCROOGE, THE MUSICAL
CD Player (computer) -- SCROOGE, THE MUSICAL

[elmore3003]

There's only one AIDA in my book and Verdi wrote in many years ago.  I used to cringe looking at MY DARLIN' AIDA, set in the Civil War, in Theatre Arts Magazine.  For the record, though, the Amneris role was played by Dorothy Sarnoff, the original Lady Thiang, and the Radames by William Olvis, the original Governor in the 1956 CANDIDE.

[elmore3003]

TOD:

Sorry to be so unoriginal.

CD Player (Car) -- SCROOGE, THE MUSICAL
CD Player (Home) -- SCROOGE, THE MUSICAL
CD Player (computer) -- SCROOGE, THE MUSICAL

Is this the London cast or the soundtrack?

[François de Paris]

Beauty and the Beast is an interesting case, because obviously Mr. Menken and Mr. Ashman are theatrical and it is structured like a musical to begin with.  So, all they had to do was add three or four new numbers and make it a full-length score.  Where the show fails for me is in its mechanics - all the computers and the singers in some room somewhere and the hideous sound design where it seems you never hear a real sound coming from anyone - if they'd just let the material speak it really would have been better.  That's where the Disney effect has been most harmful.  Obviously, they got Julie Taymor, a not uninteresting director, to do the Lion King, but, aside from some of her clever visuals, she simply didn't have the smarts to know how to make it a moving or cohesive evening of theater.  I don't even like the cartoon, but the fact is the cartoon did not start off as a musical - same with Shrek.  Aida is something I couldn't even force myself to see after hearing that horrendous score.

Ah! Now, that's constructive criticism!
Thank you, BK!
I like Little Mermaid for same reasons!

I'm prejudiced: I don't know anything about Aïda and never bothered buying the OBC.
I was so upset when I read that Mr Elton John was bragging that his music for KING was far superior to BEAUTY!
He must have been on something that day!!

[TCB]

What sections of New Jersey might be described as Sopranosland, that is, the places where you might find the Mob?  What sort of music underscores the HBO show?  What sort of music do actual Mafia people listen to nowadays?  I hope it's not rap - I heard that stuff can lead to violent behavior.  

LODI, NEW JERSEY

Or, at least, it was when I lived there in the early 80s.  At the time, I was one of only a handful of non-Italians in town, and the only crime was organized.

[TCB]

The Clinton Street Theater in Portland is showing Russ Meyer's film VIXEN this weekend (and all next week). I might go and see it, haven't decided for sure. Other then BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS I have never seen a Russ Meyer movie.

VIXEN was quite fun, when I first saw it.  But, at the time, I was living in Ellensburg, Washington -- so most anything probably would have been fun!

[TCB]

First:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HHW AND THANKS TO ALL WHO MAKE H.H.W. WORTH COMING TO!!

Second, Panni, according to the on-line dictionary of my library's catalog, it's "schlep" or/also "shlep"

NOUN:  1.  An arduous journey; 2.  A clumsy or stupid person.

VERB:  schlepped, schlep.ping, schleps; also shlepped, shlep.ping, shleps

TRANSITIVE VERB:  To carry clumsily or with difficulty; lug.

INTRANSITIVE VERB:  To move slowly or laboriously: schlepped all around town looking for wallpaper.

ORIGIN:  Yiddish shleppen to drag < Middle Low German slepen

VARIATIONS:  schlepper (noun)

"Once I was a schlepper..........."

[Jrand73]

Welcome to DRSanJoseGirl!

I like The Little Mermaid - even though "Part of Your World" sounds to me just like "Somewhere that's Green" from Little Shop....but oh well.

And I liked AIDA, too, but there you are.  The choreography was horrible, but the performers were good and of course the story has always been a stunner!

I thought the quote was accurate DRSTUART thanks for checking.  After I read your post, I do remember that Slim Hawks said it as well....she must have been copying DOW.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.......so since Edward VIII had no children....if he had not abdicated, who would have become ruler when he passed away?  Elizabeth's father was already dead....so she may have ended up Queen of England anyway.

And....I think someone answered this before....BUT if something happens to Charles before he becomes King - does the crown go to William or does it go to Charles' brother, Andrew?

Of course I know it is several steps removed from me....but in case of a direct hit somewhere over there, I am ready to step up to the throne.

[Jrand73]

With my revolution in Dance!!!

[Jrand73]

I want ice cream.

[Jrand73]

I gave up on B/B when I saw the tour in Chicago and Mrs Potts kept singing:  "Beau-DEE and the beast....."

It's "Beau-TEEEEE" dumbass.....t t t t t...not d d d ....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Dan-in-Toronto]

It's been a long/been a long/been a long day, but I'd be terribly remiss if I didn't say

Happy Anniversary, Site!

and

Welcome, KS (sanjosegirl) - Nice to meet you, too.

[bk]

I may have some ice cream with some C. C. Brown's on it, later tonight.  Finally wrote a couple of pages.  Whew!

[François de Paris]

Welcome to DRSanJoseGirl!

I like The Little Mermaid - even though "Part of Your World" sounds to me just like "Somewhere that's Green" from Little Shop....but oh well.

And I liked AIDA, too, but there you are.  The choreography was horrible, but the performers were good and of course the story has always been a stunner!

I thought the quote was accurate DRSTUART thanks for checking.  After I read your post, I do remember that Slim Hawks said it as well....she must have been copying DOW.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.......so since Edward VIII had no children....if he had not abdicated, who would have become ruler when he passed away?  Elizabeth's father was already dead....so she may have ended up Queen of England anyway.

And....I think someone answered this before....BUT if something happens to Charles before he becomes King - does the crown go to William or does it go to Charles' brother, Andrew?

Of course I know it is several steps removed from me....but in case of a direct hit somewhere over there, I am ready to step up to the throne.

The Prince Diaries??

[François de Paris]

AZOOLAPALLOL

A zoo, L.A., pal! LOL!

[Charles Pogue]

Another problem I had with B & B onstage.  Disney was just not willing to dispense with things that made no sense anymore.  It's one thing to have someone turned into a tea-cup, that is actually the size of a tea-cup or a candelbra the size of one.  But when you got a tea-cup the size of bathtub onstage it just looks stupid and makes no sense.   At least LION KING (which I've resisted seeing, despite what looks like spectacular and imaginative scenic and costume design) doesn't seem to insist on keeping everything looking like the cartoon.  It adapts to the demands of the media it's in.

I think it would have been a better show to have musicalized Couteau's Beauty & the Beast.  But it's just the whole trend...Aren't they now thinking of adapting the TARZAN cartoon to the stage?  When will it all end?  How about producing an original musical by new young composers that was actually written for the stage instead just adapting the franchise library.

[George]

I think it would have been a better show to have musicalized Couteau's Beauty & the Beast.  But it's just the whole trend...Aren't they now thinking of adapting the TARZAN cartoon to the stage?

Disney's also working on a stage adaptation of "The Little Mermaid."

When will it all end?  How about producing an original musical by new young composers that was actually written for the stage instead just adapting the franchise library.

That's the idea!  They have a built in audience.  They do it that way so that neither the audience nor creators have to think of something original.

[TCB]

Is this the London cast or the soundtrack?

Sadly, Mr. Newley's 1992 production.  I would have loved to have heard him do it about twenty years earlier.

[George]

Beauty and the Beast is an interesting case, because obviously Mr. Menken and Mr. Ashman are theatrical and it is structured like a musical to begin with.  So, all they had to do was add three or four new numbers and make it a full-length score.  Where the show fails for me is in its mechanics - all the computers and the singers in some room somewhere and the hideous sound design where it seems you never hear a real sound coming from anyone - if they'd just let the material speak it really would have been better.  That's where the Disney effect has been most harmful.

I totally agree with you on Beauty, BK.  I saw the Broadway production, but I haven't seen The Lion King at all...only pictures.  I probably should have specified that I feel that the score to B&TB is better than TLK.

Obviously, they got Julie Taymor, a not uninteresting director, to do the Lion King, but, aside from some of her clever visuals, she simply didn't have the smarts to know how to make it a moving or cohesive evening of theater.

I don't know about this.  As I said, I haven't seen the show but I don't like the Broadway score...well, any of the newer songs that Elton John wrote for the stage.  But I've always wondered if Julie Taymor wasn't allowed (by Disney) to make many changes in the story or the score...if she was told to make do with whatever Elton John gave her.  Is that a possibility?

[TCB]

I guess I am in the minority (so what else is new?), but I still say that any show that gets children to see Broadway theater or any live theater is a plus, not a minus.  I agree that when I was a teenager, the shows I would have wanted to see would not have been cartoons, but real musical theater.  However, with ticket prices topping out at over $100.00, I doubt very many children have a say in if they see a Broadway show, let alone what the show might be.

Personally, I think RENT is a piece of crap, but if it stirs the interest of young people enough to buy the CD or to see the production I am all for it.  The child who sees RENT or BEAUTY AND THE BEAST today, is the child that is going to fall in love with live theater; and years from now it is that child who will be turning to Sondheim, R & H, Jerome kern, Kander & Ebb, etc., etc. (okay etc.)