On Jun 18, 2006, at 4:55 PM, John Howell wrote:
I wonder how many "authorized" productions of any musical actually use the full original orchestration with the number of players mandated by local 802 when they had real power on Broadway, and how many end up with synthesizers and a few single instruments. Because we use community volunteers, I work hard to fill all the original chairs, but sometimes even we have to compromise.
Well I don't pretend to know how things are now, but my point of reference comes from the musicals my highschool did while I was attending, 1962-64: West Side Story (1st HS production ever), Annie Get Your Gun, and Once upon a Mattress. In every case the scool's full orchestra was in the pit, reinforced by some wind players from the band. No problem at all.
Another decision a contemporary director has to make, in shows 40 to 60 years old, is whether to keep topical references that would have been known to everyone in the audience at the time, but will be unknown to 90% of today's audiences. "Kate" is full of such references, including the reaction of General Howell (no relation!) when Truman beat Dewey--which I believe would have happened just a month and a half before the show opened! I don't think many of those references can be changed without REAL rewriting of the entire script.
If London Fire Brigade chief Captain Shaw can remain in _Iolanthe_, I think KMK will survive with a few similar footnote bits. And then, think of Shakespeare!
even an honest high school production is going to have to deal with obscenities, such as they were at the time. Would you enjoy a show titled "Darn Yankees"?
In 1964, we did West Side Story with exactly one line change, altering "You came here w. your pants open!" to "You came here w. your mouth open!" Things, so I'm told, are much looser now. Maybe the answer is just to attend HS musicals only in blue states, where they're much less picky about blue language ("Darn Yankees" indeed!).
--Andrew Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
