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EvRobert

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Posts posted by EvRobert

  1. Posted

    On a personal note, if anyone is in the Hapeville, GA area this month, one of my plays will be performed by Academy Theatre.

     

    Back to the subject on hand,

     

    There was an article on the On Stage blog last week about the University of Wyoming producing this show and several Native American students walking out when Mortimer came on stage and accused the theater of red-face. Is this a fair criticism or not?

    • Like 4

  3. Posted

    I'm looking at the list of the movies of 1995. Here's some suggestions just looking at the box office and awards though...

     

    my first thought is Val Kilmer. He was coming off of TOMBSTONE and did Batman Forever that year.

     

    Nic Cage? Would this have been better with Nic CAge? Possibly. He won the Academy Award that year for Leaving Las Vegas.

     

    Patrick Swayze was kind of on his downslide but it would have been interesting to see what he would have done.

     

    Denzel? Imagine a 1995 Denzel coming off of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and CRIMSON TIDE.

    • Like 6

  7. Posted

    Okay general thoughts and notes, plus a story or two.

     

    As I mentioned, this musical is my favorite musical of all time. And while I LIKE the movie (and own it because support) I don't love it as much as the stage show.

     

    The stage show with it's minimalist set, piano and hard accompaniment, the use of the Mute and El Gallo serving as the narrator just hits all the right notes for me (so to speak). it exists on an ethereal plain that is neither here nor there. It is timeless in a way that works. This musical has shaped the way I direct and write. Almost all my scripts include a narrator character and when I direct, I tend to go for a more stripped down look and feel to things (which was interesting when I directed LEGALLY BLONDE).

     

    In Defense of El Gallo:

     

    El Gallo I don't think is the rogue or the villain or the antagonist. He is the facilitator. To Matt he needs to be the villain, to Luisia the "man in black" (so to speak) rakish and yet horrible. To the fathers and the actors, he is the director. To the audience he is their guide and the star. He invites the audience, with TRY TO REMEMBER (the few times I still act, this is my go to audition song), to "remember". It waxes nostalgic and then leads us into this world where too young lovers believe a moon made of cardboard is a real moon, that a mute holding a stick is a wall. He plays on their imaginations. Traditionally, on stage, the fight between Matt and El Gallo is done with wooden sticks or wooden swords. Then everything isn't. and yet it is.

     

    El Callo is like Cupid, in my eyes. He knows Matt and Luisia belong together, but they can't be as long as they have childish notions of love. So his job is to do what he has to do in order to bring them together. This is a failing of the movie, but I think seeing him drive off at the end adn touch the necklace is a subtle reminder of that.

     

    The Movie

     

    I was in production of The Fantasticks in 1995 when this movie was being cast, directed, etc. I remember hearing about it and thinking "Joel Grey! Awesome!" "Teller! Perfect!" "that girl from Mr Holland's Opus. She can sing." "Joey McIntyre? the hell?" And I think it shows. I know this was a passion project for Michael Ritche, but he just wasn't right. It requires a lighter touch and more nostalgic touch. My perfect version of this movie would be fucking expensive but every scene would be filmed at "magic hour".

     

    Also, I wouldn't have combined the Mute and Mortimer into one character. I understand WHY they did it, but I hate it. I also hate that they gave Henry's best lines (the butchered Shakespeare) to the Fathers. I am curious to see what Coppola did in the final cut (I've only ever seen his version not Ritchie's version). But I don't think, personally, Ritchies could be all that better.

     

    McIntyre, you can tell, has no acting experience. It's all "gee golly shucks". I think they could get him cheap and would give them a pop on name recognition because the rest of the cast are character actors, magicians, or virtual unknowns.

     

    Also going full orchestration and singing live on set were both big mistakes.

     

    HOWEVER

     

    This movie has shaped how I would like to direct the stage version of this, if I ever got a chance. Basically, I would emphasis the "Americananess" that Ritchie was going for by replacing the traditional piano and hard with guitar, banjo, mandolin, etc. I like the circus feel and would probably keep that with the chorus (which is sometimes use and sometimes not in stage productions).

     

    Overall verdict though, while this is an okay adaptation, it just doesn't work like the stage version does. Something is lacking. In a weird way, I think the ony way to make this work on film is to do it Dogme 95 style and then start breaking the Dogme rules. Can you imagine Lars Von Teir's version of The Fantasticks?

     

    StoryTime With EvRobert

     

    So I mentioned I did this show in '95 in college. I played Henry and had a blast. It's where I fell in love with the show and cemented my love of theater as something I HAD to do the rest of my life (I just wish I was making good, livable money on it). The role of Mat was played by another theater guy who kind of took me in under his wing, Luisia by a girl I went to HS with, and the role Matt's father was played by a man named Rob Beckley. Rob later went on to form a popular Christian rock band called PILLAR. It was my one brush with performing with someone famous until I started doing podcast radio dramas and worked with a guy who had been in Star Trek and another who had been in Harry Potter.

    • Like 6

  14. Posted

    My parents listened to a variety of music. Like we might listen to the Beach Boys and then old country and then (at the time) contemporary country and then contemporary pop. The one consistency in my life via the radio in my parents house was Kansas City Royals baseball, which I fell in love with and still love.

     

    Maybe it was because there was such a variety of music that I didn't care about finding a band to revolt against. My tastes CHANGED, I listened to a lot of heavy metal and punk back in the early 90s-early 2000s (my teens and twenties) but I can't think of anything I grew up on that I didn't really love.

    • Like 5

  17. Posted

     

    Although looking back over it, it's just a matter of the reversa of Baby and Posh. What does THAT tell us?

     

     

    For me, it was the same problem with the schoolgirl fetish with Brittney and Christina that I had a problem with Baby.

     

    Also those damn platform shoes she wold wear. Geri cold pull them off, but having Ginger AND Baby wear them was too much and it didn't really seem to fit the "persona" of Baby.

    • Like 4

  24. Posted

    Marky Mark's mom didn't let him be in NKOTB because he was younger than all the rest and she was worried about him flunking out of school.

     

    yeah that's a likely excuse. It was probably because Donnie whined that Mark would upstage him.

     

    "Moooooom, Mark is gonna take my band away from me"

     

    "Don't worry Donnie, I'll make sure that doesn't happen. Now Mark, we know you are too young to do this. Those girls and drugs will eat you alive."

    • Like 4

  25. Posted

    Markey Mark was a member of NKOTB for a year (or maybe less). I'm not sure why he was kicked out (probably because he was too awesome).

     

    Joey Fatone makes me laugh. I listened to him on an episode of Tell 'Em Steve-Dave that just made me giggle.

     

    I make extra scratch as a wedding DJ. Everybody tends to get a better response then most N'Sync stuff on the dance floor.

    • Like 6
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