City of Angels

[Colin]

We have just found out that early next year we are going to be doing the musical "City of Angels", knowing nothing about this show I have had a quick look on google (nothing particularly useful found) and I have heard the 30 second sampler of each song on itunes. I still have very little idea what the show is about.

 

So has anyone done this show before?

Are there any major technical challenges?

Are there any obvious areas to do something cool and interesting?

All the information I have heard about this says that it is comedy, is this true or by the time we get to the dress are we going to find it suicidally funny?

Finally is this play interesting have any actual storyline/decent songs?

 

We are really hoping that this is going to be a good show, the last two major shows we have done were Oklahoma and Sweet Charity. :)

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[LeeStoddart]

City of Angels... I did this show about four years ago. It's a good show and great fun.

 

The biggest challenge that the whole thing is in two simultaneous worlds. One is the real world and the other is the movie world. Stine is in the real world writing a movie about a private detective called Stone. We see the movie acted out by Stone as Stine writes each scene. We move between these two worlds throughout and have to show the difference by lighting.

 

As I remember it was funny and had good songs but I can't actually remember what they were. Technically from a set perspective there were lots of locations to be presented and most have to be in both worlds.

[beware]

When we did it, we had a two level set behind a gauze, and did the fictional action in front of it, and the real life action behind it. The set was pretty simple - a few gobos, and some trucks (a door, a desk, a bed, etc.).

 

the costumes tried to make it look like black and white in front, until the end, when both worlds mix...

 

The major technical challenge is making a realistic bomb effect. We used blinders which worked really well, as Stine has to get off stage.

 

http://www.musictheatrewarwick.co.uk/ , altough the curent site is down, there may be some pics there somewhere

[Rachel]

We did this when I was at school. A common technique is to use black and white for the film, and colour for the 'real world'.

 

The musical itself is quite stylised in a way. The music is great, really chromatic and a bit dissonant(especially the stuff sung by the Angel City Backing group). It's quite a 'sexy' musical - lots of people trying to seduce each other (and kill each other!). It is a comedy, but quite a dark one. I seem to recall that my grandparents thought it was a bit too risque for their liking!!

 

We used a traverse stage, with set pieces to indicate location. As Lee mentioned there are quite a lot of locations.

 

The best songs (in my opinion) are the Angel City backing numbers (dabadaba!), the Tennis Song ("You seem at home on the court" "Let's say that I've played around..."), and a 'You Can Always Count on Me'.

 

For more research, I believe this musical was performed at the National a few years ago.

 

Have fun!

[smidge]

I've also been involved with a production of this play 2years ago. We had the same idea for black and white for the movie/fictional world and colour for the real world.

We achieved this rather well by dressing all the fictional characters in black and white clothing, then using a steel blue wash to create the grey effect of old films. The real world was pretty much any clothing (not very restricted) with a straw wash to give that warm contrast to the fictional world. This required a lot of lamps, as two entire stage washes were required and meant that the whole stage could be used for both worlds.

 

The bomb we achieved using a very old large lever switch (industrial type with a big red handle), and used a loud flash bang pyro for the detonation. This worked really well as every night the whole audience lept from their seats.

 

Not much more to say really, apart from it's a really good musical and the comedy doesn't become dry at the end of the run. Suppose it all depends upon your cast. I enjoyed it very much, and still enjoy reminiscing by listening to the cd.

[Fletch]

Hi,

 

Well I just finished this show last week as an am dram production, and it's one of the hardest shows I've ever done! no rest for the technicians - I'm still recovering!

 

Just a quick q.... are you doing this with the SEDOS group? if not then I know they are planning to do it shortly http://www.sids.org.uk/fsid/corporate_sedos.htm - I would recommend going to watch if you can - depends where you live mind.

 

I agree with the general plot synopsis of the previous posters, so I won't elaborate any more on the plot side of things - although I will say it is nothing to do with the film and is definitely a dark comedy - you won't find yourself falling over with laughter.

 

One of the big technical obstacles is the sheer number of scenes. Mainly because in the 1st act there are 21 scenes, and 19 in the second...

 

This show needs a very well thought out set / stage design. How are the "movie" scenes going to be differentiated from the "real life" scenes. I must admit our set didn't lend itself to this so we had far too many scene changes that required blackouts which made it slow (although this was done with flying sets so wasn't too bad). The lighting can also be quite complex, depending on the stage design. We were lucky enough to have a nice budget for this so rented several movers, which we found almost essential to allow us to focus in on where each scene was set - also good for lazy LX designers like me who choose their colours far too late to order the gel!

 

Prob all sounds a bit negative! so what was good? - some good musical bits - a club scene to do some great lighting for and the explosion was always fun, we used pyros.

 

Hope it goes well

Fletch