HERE WE ARE

Started by scenicdesign71, Mar 16, 2023, 11:31 PM

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scenicdesign71

#30
I forget whether the OCR includes the dialogue about Leo and Marianne cloning their dogs (so as to keep an identical set at each of their houses around the world, saving the hassle of pet transport when traveling).  But this article made me think of them...

The New YorkerBest Inbreed
                                         The rise of canine clones.


scenicdesign71

#31
Ives's latest sounds interesting, even if it's not quite ready for primetime:

NYT:   In Pamela Palmer, a Blonde, a Gumshoe and an Existential Mystery

I was stumped (especially without having seen or read the play, as one might assume most readers of theatre reviews haven't) as to what near-anagram Green could be thinking of for the eponymous heroine's name ("map me paral[l]el"??), before finally reaching the obvious conclusion: he's simply pointing out that her first and last names are near-anagrams for each other.

I enjoyed Ms. Benko in the 2020 indie The Scottish Play not once but twice: when it first streamed in 2021, and then again last year on PBS (where it can still be viewed with a PBS Passport, or rented on Prime Video or Apple TV+).   It turns out that, around that same time, she also had a four-episode arc in Raising Kanan's first season, playing a doctor who delivers bad medical news to, and conducts subsequent check-ins with, one of the series leads (a police detective played by Omar Epps).  I never met her, but I vaguely recall working on her character's office set soon after our return from the pandemic "hiatus".


Leighton

Self indulgence is better than no indulgence!

scenicdesign71

#33
Full casting has been announced and is now listed on the NT website, and it's a very exciting group indeed:


(It's taken me a year or two — of very irregular watching, maybe half a dozen of his videos over that time? — to warm to this Mickey Jo fellow; but if influencers really have to be a thing that exists in the world, we could do worse).



Leighton

My mother is gifting me some money for Christmas; as soon as it hits my account I'm booking a ticket!
Self indulgence is better than no indulgence!

scenicdesign71

#35
Yay!!  Please give us a detailed account when you see it, @Leighton !

In my limited (and long-ago) experience of the Lyttelton, I've always assumed it was the least flexible of NT's stages — but, between its size and excellent sightlines, and the theatre's enviable resources, I can theoretically imagine a replica of the Shed production there, perhaps with a shallower thrust (or perhaps not; more recently I know they've done traverse stagings in the Lyttelton, and that it has an expandable forestage, so perhaps the space is more flexible than I thought). 

But I'm hugely curious whether Mantello and Zinn (or, for that matter, Ives and Tunick) are in fact planning to simply replicate their NYC original; while it will presumably be recognizably the same show overall, I wouldn't be surprised if there end up being tweaks, at the very least.  As elegant as HWA was here at the Shed, I can't imagine having a potential "second pass" at it a year and a half later, with another dream cast, at a world-class institution like the National, and not wanting to keep exploring.

Either way, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this to make its way to NT Live and/or NT At Home at some point.



Leighton

Certainly shall! 
Self indulgence is better than no indulgence!

DiveMilw

Let's pretend I am going to purchase a ticket to the show.  Is there a spot I want to avoid sitting in?  
I no longer long for the old view!

scenicdesign71

#38
Quote from: DiveMilw on Dec 30, 2024, 08:40 PMLet's pretend I am going to purchase a ticket to the show.  Is there a spot I want to avoid sitting in? 

Here's a webpage that attempts to make sense of the "best" and "worst" seats, in terms of value for money:

https://www.theatremonkey.com/venues/lyttelton-theatre-national-theatre

Scroll down a bit and select, on the left, "Best Seat Advice" (for notes) and "Seating Plan(s)" (for graphic); then, on either of those pages, scroll down to Here We Are, although for the time being these opinions are presumably more general to the venue than specific to the show.

The latter may be hard to gauge just yet, not knowing just how much of a replica of the Shed production this will be.  Here We Are's seating plan, both on theatremonkey.com and on NT's own ticketing pages, suggests that they won't be creating any kind of true 3/4 thrust at the Lyttelton as they did at the Shed, but it remains to be seen just how dramatically (or not) that might affect the design and staging.

Theatremonkey's general advice affirms my sense that the Lyttelton, like the Shed's Griffin Theatre, really has few bad seats, but  @Leighton is probably much more familiar with it than I am.  I'd be curious to see HWA from the front mezz (Dress Circle), but given the starry cast, I wouldn't want to go any higher than its first couple of rows if at all possible.  At the Shed, where there was no balcony, I was never further back than seventh-row orchestra (stalls), but close was good; while the performances were appropriately broad (as is probably evident from photos and the cast album), they still very much rewarded a closer view, as I imagine the London cast's will too.  (However, the NT itself prices the first four rows as the cheapest in the house — theatremonkey mentions that there's little-or-no audience rake until Row F —  so maybe take "close" with a grain of salt).

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that they do replicate the New York staging as closely as possible even without the thrust, I'd say the extreme sides probably aren't ideal (as they rarely are, in general).  And a certain second-act moment that's been mentioned previously on this thread took place upstage(ish)-left here in NY; so if the NT staging follows suit, then the farther House Right seats would be especially worth avoiding.

Speaking of price, I have to say: with premium seats for this production currently topping out at about $125 USD while equivalent seats on Broadway (and even HWA's Off B'way) easily double that, I am envious.  I assume this is partly to do with the fact that this is at the National rather than the West End.  But then, I envy that, too: i.e., NT's very existence, with nothing remotely equivalent over here.  And God bless NT At Home, where I enjoyed Andrew Scott's 2019 Old Vic Present Laughter last week, and the West End Prima Facie a few days before that, and where I'm hoping Here We Are will eventually wind up streaming.


Leighton

I have booked for the last few rows of the Stalls (and for the matinee of the Cabaret immersive revival that same day!) so I am very excited for a very theatrical day out!

Self indulgence is better than no indulgence!

scenicdesign71

#40
Quote from: Leighton on Jan 03, 2025, 05:51 AMI have booked for the last few rows of the Stalls (and for the matinee of the Cabaret immersive revival that same day!) so I am very excited for a very theatrical day out!

That sounds like a fantastic day!

I keep thinking about visiting Cabaret here, but still haven't gotten around to doing so.

But now you're inspiring me — a two-show day might do me some good as the winter blahs loom.  It's been quite awhile since I did one, certainly since before the pandemic, and probably quite a few years before.  It would be too tiring for my mom, but I could take her to dinner after a matinée and then put her in an Uber home before heading to an 8pm show myself.


Leighton

Oh do it! I think the last one I did was pre-covid too - I saw Waitress and Come From Away on the same day. I couldn't do it every day, but when it takes me hours to get to London these days it's worth doing two in a day. I did Barbenheimer too, so a double show day in a different way!
Self indulgence is better than no indulgence!