The Music Man 2000 revival?

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jamiekennywicked
#1The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 12:59pm

Did anybody see the 2000 revival of The Music Man? I just got interested in the show and was curious to know what people thought of the last revival


''With the number of people I ignore, I'm lucky I work at all in this town'' - Helena Bonham Carter

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DottieD'Luscia
#2The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 1:37pm

This was the last Broadway show as a resident of NYC, and there are only a few things I remember about it (i.e., the finale, that Catherine McGrath as Mrs. Paroo just seemed not age appropriate for the character she was playing, the understudy for Eulalie Shinn was on).


Hey Dottie! Did your colleagues enjoy the cake even though your cat decided to sit on it? ~GuyfromGermany
Updated On: 6/7/12 at 01:37 PM

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Playbilly
#2The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 2:43pm

The show had a great, imaginative curtain call. The actors came out with trombones and played.

Bierko sounded a lot (too much?) like Preston. Eerily so. A few times I closed my eyes and you'd swear it was Preston.

Slick revival.


"Through The Sacrifice You Made, We Can't Believe The Price You Paid..For Love!"

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madbrian
#3The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 2:52pm

Eric McCormack replaced Bierko, who did sound too much like Preston. McCormack was terrific, as was Rebecca Luker.


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wickedfan
#4The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 3:01pm

"Slick" is the right term. Stroman helmed a pleasant, sleek production that was pretty much by the numbers. Bierko seemed more like a Preston hologram than an actual performer, but it had by far the most interesting performance I've seen Rebecca Luker give. The choreography, surprisingly, was pretty uninspired considering that Stroman was in fine form with Contact that season and The Producers the following. The two most memorable things about it were (as already mentioned) the curtain call and the actor who played Tommy, who wowed the audience the night I saw it with his dancing.


"Sing the words, Patti!!!!" Stephen Sondheim to Patti LuPone.

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AC126748
#5The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 3:36pm

I saw Robert Sean Leonard, who joined the show right after his Tony win for The Invention of Love. I remember thinking it was an odd casting choice at the time--a talented young actor not known as a singer, hot off a Tony win, becomes the second replacement in a big musical revival.

I was wrong. He was fabulous. Very pretty voice (though not massive), surprisingly good dancer, excellent actor (that's a given), and great chemistry with Luker.


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Dollypop
#6The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 5:19pm

Loved what Strohman did with the musical numbers--how they started out speaking the lyrics and gradually worked into the music. I also saw McCormack and thought he was sensational, especially in the dance numbers.


"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)

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Playbilly
#7The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 6/7/12 at 5:27pm

I also got to see the Hollywood Bowl performance with McCormack and Chenoweth and agree, he was a better dancer than you'd assume.


"Through The Sacrifice You Made, We Can't Believe The Price You Paid..For Love!"

DigificWriter
#8The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/26/15 at 5:04pm

Sorry to bump the thread, but I just found the Cast Recording for the 2000 revival and have to say that it's my favorite professional production of the score, primarily because Rebecca Luker is hands-down the best Marian I've ever heard.

 

I also really like Craig Bierko's Harold Hill. Nobody is ever going to be able to make people forget about Robert Preston's performance , but Bierko more than holds his own in the role, especially on songs like Ya Got Trouble and Marian the Librarian.

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 05:04 PM

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gypsy101
#9The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/26/15 at 6:00pm

Rebecca Luker is good, but you think she's better than Barbara Cook??? No offense to Becky but Kristin Chenoweth and Shirley Jones were both better singers. I don't mean to disparage her since she truly is a wonderful singer, but Marian Paroo is a role that the best have done so to me she pales in comparison.


"Contentment, it seems, simply happens. It appears accompanied by no bravos and no tears."

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JoseLee_
#10The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/26/15 at 7:55pm

Kristin Chenoweth's "Till There Was You" is the best version.

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icecreambenjamin
#11The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/26/15 at 8:06pm

gypsy101 said: "Rebecca Luker is good, but you think she's better than Barbara Cook??? No offense to Becky but Kristin Chenoweth and Shirley Jones were both better singers. I don't mean to disparage her since she truly is a wonderful singer, but Marian Paroo is a role that the best have done so to me she pales in comparison.

I love Barbara Cook, but I have to agree with the statement that Luker is just a tad bit better.  Cook falters slightly on some of the high notes while Luker hits them with a full voice and strong power.  Cook is a legend though and basically everything else she did was basically definitive.  Cook is still brilliant in it though so don't think I'm bashing her or anything.  Chenoweth is good and her Till There Was You is pretty damn beautiful.  It's too bad she was acting alongside the basically robotic Broderick.  

 

"

 

DigificWriter
#12The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/26/15 at 8:09pm

gypsy101 said: "Rebecca Luker is good, but you think she's better than Barbara Cook??? No offense to Becky but Kristin Chenoweth and Shirley Jones were both better singers. I don't mean to disparage her since she truly is a wonderful singer, but Marian Paroo is a role that the best have done so to me she pales in comparison.

 

"

Yes, I think Rebecca Luker is better than Barbara Cook, whom I think sounds like a wailing woman and is the WORST professional Marion I've heard.

 

I grew up exposed to Shirley Jones' Marion, and, as good as she is in that role, especially opposite Robert Preston, I think Luker is better (although not by much).

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 08:09 PM

aj88
#13The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/27/15 at 8:54am

I did see this production although it was with Eric McCormack and not Craig Bierko (and I agree, he was basically doing an eerie Robert Preston impersonation).

I remember that it didn't get stellar reviews (at least not from Brantley), but I enjoyed the production and I am a huge fan of Rebecca Luker and loved her in that.

I do have fond memories of the production overall but I was only 12 (maybe 13) when I saw it. I also love the show itself and think it was one of the best of the true classics of musical theatre.

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newintown
#14The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/27/15 at 9:08am

I remember thinking that it felt like really expensive summer stock, but cheap and lazy for Broadway. Luker was adept, but wan. Bierko was merely a Preston imitation. Ruth Williamson was inappropriately hilarious, more like a drag queen than Gingold, but at least she made an impression. The curtain call was by far the most interesting aspect of the evening, but I sat there thinking, "did they spend most of the rehearsal time on the curtain call?" I remember absolutely nothing of Winthrop, Tommy Djilas, Zaneeta, or Marcellus.

 

I later got comps to see Robert Sean Leonard in the role, but left at intermission; he's the second-laziest actor I've ever seen, after Matthew Broderick.

DigificWriter
#15The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/27/15 at 9:38am

Maybe it's the fact that I've only heard the score, but I didn't really get the feeling that Bierko was 'channeling' or impersonating Preston's performance.

LarryD2
#16The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/27/15 at 10:33am

Bierko flat-out stole Preston's performance. In the theater, the vocal and physical choices were identical. Luker was fine, in a bland sort of way. Very pretty singing, very little acting. (She's improved since).

I saw Bobby Leonard when he took over and he was okay. Nothing spectacular, and I've liked him in other things.The "really expensive summer stock" comment is apt.

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scripps
#17The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/27/15 at 8:30pm

The ensemble featured ON THE TOWN's Clyde Alves as Tommy Djilas and future NYC Ballet star, Tiler Peck. I remember a performance when Rebecca Luker's mic went out and she had to perform "My White Knight" unamplified. It was wonderful, of course! 

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OlBlueEyes
#18The Music Man 2000 revival?
Posted: 8/28/15 at 12:38am

The show that defeated West Side Story for Best Musical.


For me the film version was too good for a Broadway revival to probably ever win me over. Great cast. Preston, of course, Buddy Hackett, Paul Ford, Hermione Gingold, Shirley Jones as a good if not the best Marian and little Ronnie Howard. I haven't seen the film for quite some time now, but I remember it still bringing tears to my eyes at the end. Preston and Pert Kelton and Ron Howard I thought delivered at the end.


I hope I don't offend any Matthew Broderick fans, but why do people keep casting him as a song and dance man and placing him with truly talented people like Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O'Hara? To me the best part of that Disney DVD is the "special performance" of "'Til There Was You" where Kristin steps out of the darkness into a single spotlight and delivers the standard, looking and sounding as lovely as any person could ever look and sound.


For fans of the last revival, here are Rebecca Luker and her barbershop quartet making the morning TV rounds with one of my mother's all-time favorite numbers: "Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovckg9SIfl8