Rather than put each link up separately as topics , I thought maybe a topic entitled Press links would be a good place to post any news articles that come up. This one is from the NJ Star Ledger. No photos though, but a bit of an interview with Laura.
Not exactly a news article, but there are some new photos up on Broadway.com. These are from the Broadway.com Audience Awards. So great to see Laura and Max out making contacts in the Broadway community.
It appears Max is out and about in New York. This link for more photos was posted on the Max Crumm forum. Wouldn't want you to miss out over here. Also, if anyone knows what character Jeb Brown is playing in the revival, please let me know. (Or if he is actually in it.)
Check the links at the end... there are pictures of him I hadn't seen before, including some of him singing in a baseball cap... Max and his sideways cap.
The 2007 Antoinette-Perry Awards at Radio City Music Hall this evening and Playbill.com is on hand to get pictures of those moving up the red carpet. One of the first photos posted isof a dressed-up couple, our Laura and Max.
In an interview cited in Broadway Pulse, [see http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theater/drama/story//0,,2093544.html] but also cited in Broadway Pulse, Andrew Lloyd Webber was aske what as "his worst" job.
His reply was, "Being a judge at the US Grease auditions. It was an atmosphere like a morgue."
Well, I suppose every party has to have a party pooper and now the newest Grease revival has one.
A blog writer who includes a pot pouri of scattered information remarks on show biz items remarks on having seen "those kids" (Laura and Max) "everywhere" the past two weeks and adds rather condescending remarks about starting rehearsals late and says, "I can't imagine the show is going to be anything but a train wreck...".
Strange. I've seen them too and find it very easy to imagine something other than a train wreck. I can imagine them being seen everywhere," for a long, long time, and for very good reasons too.
The blogger's remarks sound like an American Idol afficionado's sour grapes to me.
Gramps, it appears that whatever you posted on your last post may have moved! I get an "oops" message when I link there saying the link is no longer at this address.
The stars of "Grease," which begins previews tonight at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, were cast using reality TV.
But to prepare them and the rest of the cast for their roles, their director used movies.
The flicks were carefully selected to boost the performers' knowledge of pop culture circa 1959, when the rock 'n' roll musical about Chicago high schoolers is set.
Director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall ("The Pajama Game" and "Wonderful Town") put together the "little library" of research films whose titles included "Blackboard Jungle," "Gidget," "The Young Savages," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Rock, Rock, Rock."
In addition to the movies, the cast also received a mixed CD of music from the era featuring artists such as Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers.
"This cast wasn't born when the movie came out in 1978," says Marshall, referring to the John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John film based on the stage original.
In other words, more was more in terms of getting them familiar with the Eisenhower era - a period very different from today's world of iPods, YouTube and endless reality TV.
Auditions for the top roles were even an exercise in modernity: "Grease" cast newcomers Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, who play bad boy Danny Zuko and nice girl Sandy Dumbrowski, were winners of the reality series "You're the One That I Want."
Before moving into the Brooks Atkinson, where "Grease" opens Aug. 19, the cast rehearsed at the New 42nd Street Studios, along with actors in "Young Frankenstein" and "Little Mermaid."
"The elevator ride was always fun in the morning," says Marshall. "It was 'fourth floor, monsters and angry villagers,' 'sixth floor, fish and underwater creatures,' and 'seventh floor, greasers.'"
Marshall covered the walls of their rehearsal rooms there with posters plastered with images of late 1950s cars, clothes and hairstyles.
"You want to immerse yourself in the era," she says, "but don't want to be a slave to it."
With the research and rehearsal phases over, it's showtime - and nerves time.
Marshall knows her leads will be highly scrutinized to see if the power they're supplying is electrifying.
The fact that "Grease" is so familiar and well liked is also on her mind. "It's a blessing and a curse to do a show so well known and popular," says Marshall, who confesses she never saw the original 1972 stage version of "Grease" or the first revival in 1994.
"You have an obligation to meet expectations and to deliver what audiences want," she continues. "But you also want to surprise them."
Some interesting comments from David Ian on NPR...
On average, about 8 million people tuned in each week to watch Grease: You're the One That I Want during its three-month run; the show consistently came in third or fourth in its Sunday-evening time slot. In other words, You're the One That I Want was a flop in network-TV terms, anyway.
But for David Ian, the lead producer of the $9 million Grease revival, the NBC series was less an adventure in television programming than an experiment in casting and marketing. And it did precisely what it was designed to do.
"TV ratings and what have you ... are not really what's driving me," says Ian, who also served as a You're the One That I Want judge. "I have two goals from such a program: One, to get talent that can do the job in hand, i.e. play the role of Danny and Sandy, which I believe I've got." (Two 21-year-old unknowns, Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, were announced as the winners in March.)
"And two, truthfully, it draws huge attention to the show," Ian says. "And that means selling tickets."
Grease, in fact, is sitting on a comfortable $14 million advance sale.
"So as far as playing to a theatrical audience that might buy tickets," Ian says, You're the One That I Want "was a huge success."
So, do Broadway and reality TV go together like rama lama lama ka dinga de dinga dong? Gordon Cox, theater reporter for the trade publication Variety, says the answer may have more to do with the sound of ka-ching.
"I think people are keeping their eye on it," Cox says. "And I think the strong advance that Grease has racked up will encourage further efforts along these lines, no matter what the purists may say about how horrified they are about the popularization, or the amateurization, of Broadway."
...Ian, the Grease producer, is well aware of the star-making possibilities of melding reality TV with theater. His smash-hit revival of The Sound of Music in London found its Maria, Connie Fisher, on reality TV. And two weeks after Grease opens in New York, Ian will open a second production of the show, also cast from a reality series, in London's West End.
While the producer is pleased to be introducing two freshly minted young stars to Broadway, he hopes this production outlasts their tenure.
"This show will continue after Max and Laura leave, whenever that is," he says. "I'm not looking to have a show run just for the length of their contracts. And I hope Max and Laura are the first of many Danny and Sandys in this production."
There was a nice segment on NPR radio this morning about Grease and Laura/Max. You can read about it and listen to some additional clips at npr.org.
Seriously, check out [url=t
singingdoc wrote:
There was a nice segment on NPR radio this morning about Grease and Laura/Max. You can read about it and listen to some additional clips at npr.org.
Seriously, check out this NPR page . The article is great, plus, there are audio clips - a song from the show and commentsfrom Laura and Max, Kathleen and David. Thanks, singingdoc!
Really great article. I always love hearing what Kathleen has to say about the production. And in the clip of "Shakin' at the High School Hop," that first solo line is Max, isn't it?
Indeed, like it or not, reality TV is doing something important for Broadway: shining a bright spotlight on it and changing its image from local to national, elitist to populist.
Sorry about the Tom Hammond piece. I think it has gone south because of updating. Essentially it was about a past neighbor of the Osnes family discovering Laura was on Broadway. There was nothing earth-shaking in it but it was a nice first person piece.
Thanks for posting the Ny times article. I love it because it tells us more about Max and Laura's personal life, and what life is like for them in the Big Apple.
I haven't found it online yet and the search on that site doesn't come up with any article with Max's name. The August 6th issue appeared in my local Barnes & Noble late Friday afternoon. Maybe later we'll find it on-line? Nothing really new or different and they used one of the drugstore shots of Max and Laura (the one where Max wasn't smiling).
Thanks for posting the Ny times article. I love it because it tells us more about Max and Laura's personal life, and what life is like for them in the Big Apple.