New to The Genre Traveler? Then you'll want to subscribe using the box to your right. That way you'll never miss an issue. Thanks for visiting!

Welcome to The Genre Traveler! Please sign up using the form to the right so that you'll get all the latest updates to the site. You also might want to sign up for the RSS feed, which you can do via email or your favorite RSS Reader.

The Lord of the Rings officially opens in Toronto tomorrow and last week the news was flooded with professional opinions of the production. Since there is only one week left to sign up for the Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Tour of World Premiere Lord of the Rings Musical, I thought you’d like to see what people are saying. Here are some links to stories about the musical.

Michael Therriault, NOW Magazine
Glenn Sumi’s feature on the man who plays Gollum.

On stage: Lord Of The Rings is a 'world of wonder', XTRA!
A feature about Tony Award-winner Brent Carver, who plays Gandalf.

Mirvish gambles on musical Lord of the Rings, Ottawa Citizen
Jamie Portman’s take on the stage production.

'Lord of the Rings' Takes the Stage, NPR
Jeff Lunden’s take on the production. Includes images and a sound file, along with links to other related NPR stories.

PHOTO CALL: Lord of the Rings Takes Over Toronto, Playbill
Cool images from the production.

Lasting magic or a puff of smoke?, Los Angeles Times
Patrick Pacheco’s take on the production.

Theater: 'Ring' a Ding Ding, MSNBC.com
Jeff Giles’ take on the production.

Bloggers weigh in on LOTR musical while pro critics wait for opening night, Canada.com
A roundup of what non-professional theatre critics are saying about the production in their blogs.

NEW! (3/22/06)

Gollum gosh, the hills are alive with hobbits
"A musical version of The Lord of the Rings is an Ent-sized gamble, writes Paul French."

Ringing the changes
Warning: this page may take a little while to load.
Guy Dammann's view, as posted on the Culture Vulture Blog

Into the fire
More from The Los Angeles Times

The Ring Sings, Time
"J.R.R. Tolkien's saga soared as a book and a movie. Now it has inspired the most expensive stage musical of all time"

NEW! (3/23/06)

Can 'Lord of the Rings' rule the Tonys someday?, Los Angeles Times
Tom O'Neil: Gold Derby collumn

A Revitalized Toronto Pins Its Hopes on the Hobbits, The New York Times
By Susan Catto

'Rings' moves to center stage, USA Today
By Elysa Gardner, "Move over, The Lion King. Another epic adaptation is nipping at your heels — one even longer and more commercially extravagant."

Tolkien’s Rings Premieres in Toronto Pre-London, Whatsonstage.com
By Terri Paddock

NEW! (3/24/06)

Toronto's 'Lord of the Rings' a show of firsts
CTV Toronto

Music sets the tone, Toronto Star
"Finnish group Värttinä's style meets requirement to tell archaic tale in songs for modern ears"

Feet of all shapes and sizes in motion, Toronto Star
Choreographer mixes hobbits' big hairy toes with stilt-walking giants in battles and dance

The ringer: Stage adaptation of award-winning movies hits Toronto stage
By Sharon Demarko-Gordon, Tonawanda News

 

	Watch the Lord of the Rings TV Commercial
	Choose your preferred format
	QuickTime
	Windows Media Player

Originally scheduled for last night, with a second performance today, the preview shows of The Lord of the Rings musical in Toronto have been delayed 48 hours until Saturday. The Genre Traveler published an article about this production in the October 2005 issue.

Apparently, this is quite common for previews and has become accepted as a fact of life on Broadway, according to TheStar.com. However, 4,000 anxious fans hoping to be the first to see this world premiere event were not happy. One ticket buyer posted this reaction at theonering.net: "For those fans like myself from all over the world, this is obviously a huge disappointment as well as great inconvenience."

Much of this inconvenience was due to people flying in from out of town and staying at local hotels just to see the show. One such put out patron wrote on forums.theonering.com, "Nice of them to let me know only three days in advance so I can't get out of my hotel reservations."

Never fear, though. The delay does not mean anything is wrong with the show. One reviewer, who saw the preview for the press back in December wrote, “if what I witnessed is any indication of the final result (and there’s no reason to think it won’t be), then the word I’d use to describe it is ‘fantastic’.”

Director Matthew Warchus said the delay was to further improve the show and put it "in the best shape possible before we show it to its first audience."

NOTE:
The Genre Traveler is working on a special trip to see this musical in the spring. Further announcements, details and information will be posted to this blog as well as the Yahoo! Groups service used to distribute issues of the online magazine. You can subscribe to this blog by entering your e-mail in the “Subscribe to Journal” box to the left and subscribe to The Genre Traveler by going to groups.yahoo.com/group/genretraveler.

From now until March 5, Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va., will be showing Nevermore, a new musical based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Nelson Pressley of The Washington Post called it "an intermissionless fever dream about the near-demented Poe and the women who haunted him." And J. Wynn Rousuck, of The Baltimore Sun, wrote that "the macabre atmosphere" captured "the dark essence of Edgar Allan Poe."

The songs, written by first-time composer Matt Conner, are basically Poe's poetry and short stories set to music. The book, written by Grace Barnes, interprets Poe's work in a Freudian fashion, showing Poe as a man defined by the women in his life and tormented by the search for a mother who died when he was very young.

Connor was inspired to set Poe's work to music because he felt a connection with the work. "Trying to find someone to understand your work," he said, "or who you are as an artist, I think is very challenging."

The production is directed by Signature Artist Director Eric Schaeffer. "It's a bold, exciting new musical that breaks boundaries, challenges audiences, and brings Poe's passion and obsessions to life in a most extraordinary way," he says. "What's particularly exciting about Nevermore is that it breaks many musical theatre conventions. It doesn't have a linear story. I like to describe the show as a cross between an American musical and Cirque de Soleil."

Special Event Discusses Poe and Nevermore
On Feb. 13 at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, Schaeffer and Conner will lead a discussion about Poe and his life. Cast members will also be there to sing some of the songs from the musical. Tickets to a performance of Nevermore, which includes a post-show discussion with the entire cast, are available for a discount when purchased in conjunction with the event at the gallery.

INFORMATION:

Nevermore
January 10 – February 26
Signature Theatre
3806 South Four Mile Run Drive
Arlington, Va.
Tuesday and Wednesday, 7:30 pm
Thursday through Saturday, 8 pm
Sunday, 2 pm and 7 pm
Tickets: $31 and $55
Tickets are available by calling Tickets.com (800) 955-5566 or online at www.signature-theatre.org.
Discounts are available for students, seniors (60+), military and groups of 10 or more.

Corcoran Gallery Discussion
February 13, 7 pm
500 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Tickets: $15 (Corcoran members) and $20 (general public)
To order tickets call (202) 639-1700.

Nevermore with Post-Show Discussion
February 21, 7:30 pm
Signature Theatre
3806 South Four Mile Run Drive
Arlington, Va.
Tickets (includes gallery event): $47 (Corcoran members) and $52 (general public)
To order tickets call (202) 639-1700.

With titles such as "Bloody Awful" and "Elton's Vampire Musical 'Sucks'", the reviews have not been kind to the Lestat, the musical incarnation of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. The January issue of The Genre Traveler announced the premiere, now the blog brings you the critic's opinions.

Robert Hurwitt, Theatre Critic for The San Francisco Chronicle felt that the musical was "didactic, disjointed, oddly miscast, confusingly designed and floundering in an almost unrelentingly saccharine score by Elton John."

He has two main complaints. The first is with Lestat is the lead character. "Woolverton and Taupin have had to truncate so much of the story that they've barely sketched in the main character," he wrote. "Hugh Panaro, who plays the role, is tall, reasonably dashing and sings with a big, powerful voice, but seems lost in his long stretches of dialogue."

The second is with the songs, which he claims "range from mildly interesting to, for the most part, banal and virtually undistinguishable." He writes that the lyrics are "often woodenly prosaic and rarely advance the story or out understanding of the characters." And, he blasts Elton John for spending "most of the evening trying to become Andrew Lloyd Webber at his most vapid and pretentious."

Tiger Hashimoto, who wrote the review for The San Francisco Examiner, admits that he came to the musical without any preconceptions. "I didn't read the book (or see the movie)," he wrote. However, he also felt that John's music was "vapid," and dislikes the lead character. "After Lestat is 'made' as a vampire (without any warning or motivation)," he wrote, "he mostly kills men in grisly, on-stage murders that had me cowering and wincing -- and I'm a martial arts fan. The rest of the time he is whining about why everybody leaves him."

Dennis Harvey wrote in Variety that "despite subject and talent involved, [Lestat is] lacking the memorable high points these watchable, listenable nearly three-hour tuner needs to play as more than a rambling timeline of several high-pulp novels' picaresque events."

Chad Jones of The Oakland Tribune overcame his "almost overwhelming" urge to "say that the new vampire musical Lestat sucks." However, he conceded that "the creative team has nearly driven a wooden stake through the heart of author Anne Rice's much-loved Vampire Chronicles." He gave Hugh Panaro a slight nod, though, when he wrote, "Panaro does have a beautiful singing voice, but John and Taupin have failed to provide him with a defining number."

Karen D'Souza of the San Jose Mercury News was less kind to Panaro. "Shaking his mane like a lion, the actor strikes one to-die-for pose after another as the flamboyant vampire. If pouts could kill, watch out."

Georgia Rowe of The Contra Costa Times summed it up in this sentence: "The greatest danger in the new Elton John-Bernie Taupin musical, based on The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, is death by boredom." She went on to write that "the new show doesn't capture the romance or the otherworldly qualities of Rice's novel," nor does it "approach Rice's sense of authenticity."

If any of you happen to see this musical, please let the rest of us know what you think! We'd love to hear what a genre traveler thinks of this production.

SOURCES:

SFGate.com:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/10/DDGCQGKMFA1.DTL

San Francisco Examiner:
www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2006/01/10/entertainment/20060110_en01_lestat.txt

Contra Costa Times:
www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/13587161.htm

Broadway.com:
www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=523432

TimesOnline.com:
www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-2003702-524,00.html

The Oct. 17 issue of Science Fiction Weekly (www.scifi.com/sfw), included a brief note about a San Francisco performing arts group, CounterPulse, planning live performances of “Once More with Feeling” – the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It sounded like something a genre traveler would be interested in, so I went the company’s website and found a sad story instead.

All performances of the show had been canceled because Fox sent the dance company a cease and desist letter. Apparently, this little, all-volunteer group had failed to ask permission before pulling the show together. Oops.

But what’s worse, as reading the correspondence between Fox’s legal counsel and the leader of the performance showed, is that David and Goliath just don’t speak the same language. OK, that may be a no brainer, but it seems to me that someone in the Fox chain would have noticed what was really going on. (Just in case that isn’t clear – what was going on was a heartfelt homage to a beloved TV show.)

When I first looked into this, all (or so they said) the correspondence was posted. Now, only a single letter sent to Fox on Oct. 20 is posted. But, I can give you summary.

When Fox found out about the show, they sent a long, legal-ease-filled letter stating their rights to the Buffy brand and that “you, and all those who have acted in concert with you or under your direction and control, respect Fox’s intellectual property and refrain from any further activities which would undermine our efforts to maintain our rights.” Fair enough.

In response, Patrick Simms – the mastermind of this “effrontery” – sent an email explaining his, and his cohorts’, ignorance. Then he asked, “what can I do to get consent from FOX to stage this musical either now or in the future? What kind of fees, or license would we need so that we may proceed?”

What followed were a few more exchanges about possible legal action.

On Oct. 18, CounterPulse received an email from Joss Whedon’s assistant that Whedon, the creator of the TV Series based on the movie, supported having Fox give permission to do the show. As of this writing, no permission has been given.

I may be ignorant on this issue – and I probably am – but it just seems to me that working with fan-based groups like this could only help Fox build, develop and possibly even grow their “intellectual property.” I’ve heard stories like this before, and each time I just shake my head. Goliath just doesn’t get it.