Musical Sunday!
Nov. 7th, 2010 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalI am all stuffy-nosed and scratchy-throated and hopped up on cold medicine this weekend (let me tell you, NyQuil totally zonks me out, which is great for helping me get to sleep, except that I can NEVER wake up. Fortunately, I was feeling all lazy that I'd slept so late, only to realize that last night we turned the clocks back so I had an extra hour. Yay!).
But nothing clears the sinuses like a good dose of Broadway! No? That's not a thing? Oh, well. Segue fail.
Anyway, I've been weirdly nostalgic about London this week, so I figured I'd tell you a story from my West End theatre exploits. I was in a London Theatre in Performance class, which basically meant I had to see one show a week. I probably would've done that anyway, so this wasn't much of a hardship. :) I've already mentioned a couple of the shows I saw that semester (The History Boys and Brighton Rock), but by far the most well-known was The Producers, which I saw while my family was visiting me.
So, if you're one of the three people on the planet who's never heard of it, The Producers is a Mel Brooks movie from the 1960s, which was made into a Broadway musical starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, which was made into a Mel Brooks movie starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. It's about a sleazy Broadway producer (Lane) who teams up with a naive accountant (Broderick) after he realizes that "under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit." Together, they concoct a get-rich-quick scheme that involves putting on the worst musical ever.
Here's a clip from the movie, featuring the climactic title number of their "guaranteed" flop, Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.
Anyway, it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get tickets to see it on Broadway, especially when the original cast was there. But when I was in London, the show was slated to open in the West End with Richard Dreyfuss in Nathan Lane's role. We were kind of like, "Richard Dreyfuss? Really?" but we figured why not. Then, right before it opened, we heard a rumor that Dreyfuss was backing out (he claimed some sort of injury, but the suspicion is that he just wasn't any good).
As I recall, I was in class the day when my parents and my aunt went to the box office to buy our tickets, and my mom wanted to confirm the rumor. "No, I'm afraid Mr. Dreyfuss will not be performing," the attendant told her, anticipating disappointment. "But we do have Nathan Lane replacing him."
Now, I wasn't there, but I have heard this story from both my dad and my aunt, and the consensus is that, at this point, my mother FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.
"NATHAN LANE!" she shrieked. The poor box office attendant was attempting to get her to complete the transaction; meanwhile, my dad and my aunt are backing away slowly pretending not to know her. But she just kept going, "Nathan Lane!" over and over. Finally, the guy was like, "Okay, lady, let's get on with it," so she paid for the tickets, and the attendant closed the box office window in a real hurry.
After the show, we decided to get our stalker on and wait by the stage door. My mom didn't think Nathan Lane would come out, and as we waited, she kept saying, "Ah, let's go," and we were like, "Are you sure? Let's just wait a few more minutes." And then he did come out, and my mom for whatever reason decided not to ask for his autograph, but just started telling him about how we were Americans and we'd tried to see him on Broadway and how we were so happy to see him here, and he was probably like, "Uh-huh, lady, stop blocking my damn car." But my mom was happy, and after he'd left, she turned to my dad and said, "Did you get a picture?"
"Picture of what?" my dad asked.
"You're useless!"
So, alas, we have no proof of my mother meeting Nathan Lane, but we still tease her about the whole thing. :)
But nothing clears the sinuses like a good dose of Broadway! No? That's not a thing? Oh, well. Segue fail.
Anyway, I've been weirdly nostalgic about London this week, so I figured I'd tell you a story from my West End theatre exploits. I was in a London Theatre in Performance class, which basically meant I had to see one show a week. I probably would've done that anyway, so this wasn't much of a hardship. :) I've already mentioned a couple of the shows I saw that semester (The History Boys and Brighton Rock), but by far the most well-known was The Producers, which I saw while my family was visiting me.
So, if you're one of the three people on the planet who's never heard of it, The Producers is a Mel Brooks movie from the 1960s, which was made into a Broadway musical starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, which was made into a Mel Brooks movie starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. It's about a sleazy Broadway producer (Lane) who teams up with a naive accountant (Broderick) after he realizes that "under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit." Together, they concoct a get-rich-quick scheme that involves putting on the worst musical ever.
Here's a clip from the movie, featuring the climactic title number of their "guaranteed" flop, Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.
Anyway, it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get tickets to see it on Broadway, especially when the original cast was there. But when I was in London, the show was slated to open in the West End with Richard Dreyfuss in Nathan Lane's role. We were kind of like, "Richard Dreyfuss? Really?" but we figured why not. Then, right before it opened, we heard a rumor that Dreyfuss was backing out (he claimed some sort of injury, but the suspicion is that he just wasn't any good).
As I recall, I was in class the day when my parents and my aunt went to the box office to buy our tickets, and my mom wanted to confirm the rumor. "No, I'm afraid Mr. Dreyfuss will not be performing," the attendant told her, anticipating disappointment. "But we do have Nathan Lane replacing him."
Now, I wasn't there, but I have heard this story from both my dad and my aunt, and the consensus is that, at this point, my mother FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.
"NATHAN LANE!" she shrieked. The poor box office attendant was attempting to get her to complete the transaction; meanwhile, my dad and my aunt are backing away slowly pretending not to know her. But she just kept going, "Nathan Lane!" over and over. Finally, the guy was like, "Okay, lady, let's get on with it," so she paid for the tickets, and the attendant closed the box office window in a real hurry.
After the show, we decided to get our stalker on and wait by the stage door. My mom didn't think Nathan Lane would come out, and as we waited, she kept saying, "Ah, let's go," and we were like, "Are you sure? Let's just wait a few more minutes." And then he did come out, and my mom for whatever reason decided not to ask for his autograph, but just started telling him about how we were Americans and we'd tried to see him on Broadway and how we were so happy to see him here, and he was probably like, "Uh-huh, lady, stop blocking my damn car." But my mom was happy, and after he'd left, she turned to my dad and said, "Did you get a picture?"
"Picture of what?" my dad asked.
"You're useless!"
So, alas, we have no proof of my mother meeting Nathan Lane, but we still tease her about the whole thing. :)
