Anyone going to be watching this tonite? I have watched all of NBC’s live shows (Sound of Music and Peter Pan) and regardless of what I think about performance, etc…its just nice to see live musicals getting the exposure. I read an article about the girl playing the lead, young 19 year old that attends (or attended?) AMDA.
… only if Anna Kendrick live tweets it like she did the Sound of Music.
=))
We should all watch if we want them to continue producing musicals!
Actually she just graduated from a high school in New Jersey I believe. I read she did a lot at Papermill Playhouse.
Oh, I’m in!!! Loved The Wiz movie. Taking a break from holiday decoration to watch the live musical. I didn’t catch The Sound of Music, but I liked the Peter Pan musical better than Pan, the movie.
Better than Pan the movie is a low bar to jump over…
I think this production is pretty good!
Shanice is very good I think!
Shanice did one year at AMDA in L.A.
I watched “The Making of…” last week. The girl playing Dorothy went to the open call just to get a feel for how the process worked. She had no idea how many people it was going to attract, nor that she would actually get anything other than experience from it. I think the third time is a charm… NBC hit it out of the park with The Wiz!
I didn’t get to see it all, but from what I saw I agree that it was great fun and very well sung! I hope it drew a huge audience and that there are many more live productions to come.
I think Grease is in February …
Hated all that went before it but this one, two enthusiastic thumbs up. Clearly a star is born.
What I really enjoyed this time around was how consistantly strong everyone was. Hard to pick standouts among so many solid performances. I also noticed it felt very short in contrast to the previous two, which must mean I was enjoying myself.
Stand outs for me were Amber, Uzo and Elijah. I thoroughly enjoyed Shanice. Mary J. did better than I thought she would. Loved the Poppies and Crows. I have to admit, I wasn’t fond of Queen Latifah (I didn’t really like her cast as the Wiz, and thought her performance was good, but not great).
I am so happy that The Wiz was done and look forward to it coming to Broadway again. I saw the original with Stephanie Mills when I was in middle school.
I thought Uzo was good but a little pitchy in singing. Ne-yo and Elijah were wonderful and Shanice was remarkable for someone so young and inexperienced. I liked Mary J’s singing but her acting was not great, her character was only in about 1.5 scenes though.
I think it worked to have the show set on a stage, similar to how a Broadway show would look. The scene changes in Peter Pan and Sound of Music looked too artificial.
I gotta tell you guys … I wasn’t a fan. In fact, I couldn’t even get through the whole thing and turned it off about a 1/2 hour in.
:-q
I liked it but didn’t love it. I think the Shanice girl was really good & the others were too although I agree on the Queen L not being that great. So hard to watch a musical on TV. I’ll forever be a person who prefers in person theater