GERMANY

Will "Billy" be staged all over the world? A place to discuss.
We will move posts, if starts, so has own section, like London, New York etc
accessmenj
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Re: GERMANY

Post by accessmenj »

Acting Dude wrote
"Wouldn't it make more sense for the producers to move the West End production into another West End theatre if the show continues to be as successful as it is now? When they must temporarily vacate the Victoria Palace Theater, I imagine they will just find another London house to host the show. If they can continue the West End production, they will do so, and not end it for the sake of a European tour."

Does anyone know if the London ticket sales are strong, or have they started to decline? That would probably be the deciding factor when BETM loses its home to renovation.
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Re: GERMANY

Post by dancingboy »

I think ticket sales are fairly stable and the theatre has recently stated that they are taking bookings until December 2013. The crunch will probably come when more development around the theatre takes place in the next year or so.
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Re: GERMANY

Post by Musical Fanatic »

ERinVA wrote:
PaulWilly wrote:I don't think that there would be technical problems with elevators or so when bringing BETM to a well sorted out German musical theatre: For the show James Lomas is currently cast member of in Germany, "Starlight Express" in Bochum in the densely populated Ruhr area, they even had built a special brand-new theatre just designed for that musical. And "Starlight Express" has been running now in there without any interruption for more than 21 successful years - and already in March 2010 it reached the mark of 13 Million audience...

Similar with "Phantom der Oper" (Phantom of the Opera) - they had built a brand-new technically state-of-the-art musical thearte in Hamburg for that (with an artificial lake underneath the elevatable stage), where that musical started in 1990 and went on for more than 11 successful years with more than 4.400 shows and 7 Million audience. After that they changed those technics with the lake and that and renovated the theatre to make it suitable for other musicals - and now "Tarzan" has been on there since autumn 2008 - and is still going on very successfully.
If Germany has enough confidence of a stay that it will warrant the construction, then sure, but it cost mega-pounds in London and mega-dollars in New York to excavate pits under the stages deep enough to accommodate the bedroom set. In both cases, the regular space under the stage was not deep enough to handle the height of the set plus the equipment to lift it, but perhaps there is a German theatre that has enough space without excavation.


I remember the discussion from an article the Imperial was the only choice in New York cause of the NY tube/subway/ubahn :D . The pit was that deep and subway that close to the surface :lol: I am not sure about London or a German city.
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johnnyc
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Re: GERMANY

Post by johnnyc »

I know this will not be well-received, especially by purists, but it's been my experience that the rising bedroom and piano/table sets are not really necessary elements in the musical. The Chicago, and I suspect, Toronto productions went quite nicely without them. So I don't think the ability to dig a deep enough pit below the stage to house the mechanisms should be a make or break deal when choosing a theatre in Germany, or anywhere else.

Stephen Daldry was quoted by Rich Hebert as saying (in an earlier posting in the Los Angeles Reviews thread):

"When Stephen Daldry, who directed the 2000 film, came and saw this scaled down production, he said 'This is the way it was supposed to be. This is the best production of the show I've seen.' You see the community on stage because we're moving things around ourselves. It creates much more of a community effect, which is what the show is really all about."

Of course, that referred to an even more scaled down version of the sets than those used in Chicago and Toronto, but it reinforces the idea that sets rising from the floor are not essential to the show.
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LiamM
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Re: GERMANY

Post by LiamM »

I think the Chicago/Toronto set design is the best of all the productions. The rising bedroom is really neat, but leads to strange things like Billy still sitting on his bed while talking to Mrs. W. at the beginning the Letter scene. The rising sets does work really well for Angry Dance. I find the tour to be too small. Moving the sets around is a bit of a distraction. When the boys come in during the boxing scene, they should be able to collapse right on the ground instead of having to move the sets first. That being say, I don't think much is lost; I just prefer the Chicago/Toronto version.
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Re: GERMANY

Post by porschesrule »

If a production in Germany (or anywhere else in Europe) would be of a more or less permanent nature (that is, several months) rather than a tour like the current US/CA Tour, it would seem like the Chicago/Toronto set may very well be the best fit. However, if the production was going to be moving around frequently like the US/CA Tour, it would not be cost effective.

They started out on the original tour with essentially the Chicago/Toronto set and it took 14 semis to cart around. Today's tour set can be transported in just six semis -- a major cost savings to the production.
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