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RainbowJude

DIRTY DANCING on stage - and on CD...

The recording of the stage version of Dirty Dancing, which has been running in London and which has launched a Broadway-aimed national touring production in Chicago, has been released. Details are up at Playbill. The track listing is as follows:

1. This Magic Moment
2. Merengue
3. Johnny's Mambo
4. Do You Love Me?
5. This Land Is Your Land / We Shall Overcome
6. De Todo Un Poco
7. Dawn Interlude
8. Besame Mucho
9. If You Were The Only Girl In The World
10. Lisa's Hula
11. Yes!
12. In The Still Of The Night
13. Someone Like You
14. She's Like The Wind (Instrumental)
15. Kellerman's Anthem
16. (I've Had) The Time Of My Life

Later days
David
JIJane

I saw this in London and it's terrible. Even the person I knew in the production said it was the worst thing they had ever been in. They ruined a perfectly good movie.
Salome

I wouldnt call that piece of cheese a good movie LOL... in spite of Jerry Orbach being in it.
JIJane

You know what I mean. Wink It's good for what it is...
erinmylungs

I don't like the idea of a stage version. I'm not very fond of the movie but eh...it's not like I can control what some of these people come up for shows. It's like...Shrek being made into a musical. Though I think with Sutton Foster, it has a bit of potential.
reedzee

I saw it in Toronto.

Meh.
~GertrudeMcFuzz~

I just saw it this evening (in Chicago) and wasn't really impressed. The staging was interesting, with the lighting and the turntables, but it was almost exactly the same thing as the movie. Also, it just wasn't a musical to me. Three people sang and everyone else simply danced. I realize that it's centered around dancing, but you'd think they'd find some triple threats that could sing the songs as well as do the routines we know and love.

It was a cute show, a fun night, but I could watch the movie without spending money on a ticket. If the show had been, well, an actual musical, I would have been more interested, but it really wasn't impressive.

But despite the negatives, there are some talented dancers, specifically the actress playing Penny, that I think would fare well in a show like A Chorus Line or Chicago. That is, if she can sing. Which I don't know, because it wasn't a real musical. And of course, my favorite part of the show was any scene that had Kaitlin Hopkins. She had a small role, but did a lot with it, and I loved her in Bat Boy, so I was excited to see that she was in it.
RainbowJude

DIRTY DANCING extends + New Interview

Well, Dirty Dancing seems to be doing well in Chicago and has extended it's run by six weeks! Whether or not it's good theatre, it's certainly proving popular with audiences - mostly, I suppose because of the film's reputation.

There is also a new interview with Eleanor Bergstein, who was the screenwriter of the film and who is a co-producer on the stage show, in the most recent Playbill "Stage to Screens" column. You can read the full article by clicking on the link, but here is the gist of what she said:

Eleanor Bergstein wrote:
I had to feel it was necessary.... I had no desire to make our audience pay more money for something that they already had at home [on DVD].... I had to believe that there was another connection they could make. Then I had to figure out how to do it.

I had to find a new way of doing it. That's what took so long. Certainly, it wasn't traditional musical theatre, and it wasn't a straight play. I wanted to explore what you can do in theatre that you can't do in a movie. One thing you have in theatre is the present moment. That makes up for everything.

We start with the song, 'Magic Moment,' and silhouettes of dancers that remind you of the film. But they turn into three-dimensional, individual dancers in the present moment — not in any kind of unison. My choreographer, Kate Champion, and I believe in the individual movements of dancers. The effect creates a kind of theatrical excitement — if we're doing it right.

New scenes account for 40 percent of the show; there are 25 new musical numbers, in addition to the ones in the movie [including the Oscar-winning "(I've Had) the Time of My Life"]; there's much more about Johnny and Baby; the parents; and the political time [of the early 1960s].

For the first few months [of the show's run], I would hear the same audience comment over and over: 'I'm so relieved.' It took me a while to decode 'relieved,' and realize that it meant, 'I was so afraid that I'd be disappointed — that I'd no longer feel what I felt.' So, now 'relieved' is a joyful word.


Later days
David
RainbowJude

DIRTY DANCING in LA

With the tour moving to LA, Playbill has released a series of photographs of the show. Some of the more fun shots:





The full album is available here.

Later days
David
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