For me, a busy weekend included a visit to "Avenue Q" at the Phoenix Theatre in its regional theater premiere (to be reviewed in the June 13 IBJ), a concert by Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell at the Palladium (watch for more comments here on the blog), and, if you count Thursday, "Glee in Concert" (see review here).
I also finished--and was disappointed by--Albert Brooks' novel "2030." Set partially in Indianapolis (although our city seems to have been chosen at random by the author given there's no detail whatsoever), the outstanding comic and nerve-wrackingly hilarious filmmaker ("Modern Romance," "Lost in America") has the smarts but not the skill to breathe life into his satiric vision of life in the near future.
I also rewatched the film version of "Phantom of the Opera" with my daughter. We may be the only two people in the world who think it's better than the blah stage show.
Your thoughts?
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I'm curious what liberties the person you mentioned thought the Phoenix had taken.
By intermission, the only thing I noticed was a different breakdown regarding who was doubling what roles.
I checked with a Phoenix Theatre rep, who confirmed that no changes were made to the script. Note that there are some differences between the licensed version and the original Broadway and tour (no George Bush references, for instance).
--Lou
Having seen Ave Q on broadway and touring production, I can say that Phoenix did a really nice job. Way before I knew Phoenix would do it, I wondered how well it would translate to regional productions, given they far less time to master puppetry and expertise than what was employed for the broadway production. It didn't matter. The show was still superb. Haven taken someone with me who had never heard of Ave Q before that afternoon when I asked her to go, I am glad this is show is running for an extended time for audiences to discover it. And while it holds true to the original, I applaud the phoenix and the performers for occasionally making some original choices as any production should.
Hey Open, were you in Austin, TX lately?
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/07/6804530-crazed-movie-customers-voice-mail-backfires?GT1=43001
This was on MSN's homepage today... and since we've been talking about it, I thought others would enjoy. I wish more theaters here would have this policy. I love that this theater has been doing this since 1997... even better that they made a YouTube commercial out of it (press play at the bottom).