Comments by "Jamie Hornsby" (@TheMagicLlama2) on "Megamusicals WTF? The art and economics of Hamilton and Les Mis" video.

  1. Great video, Tom, thanks for taking my suggestion! One of my teachers at drama school is doing some work on a huge musical right now - one that originated overseas then came here to Australia. He was telling us about just how regimented and pre-determined everything is. It's odd to me that theatre in different places in the world can almost be a carbon-copy of itself, but the point you made about everyone getting access to the same level of quality is a good one. Here in Australia we've also got a touring production of Headlong's recent 1984 by Duncan Macmillan and Robert Icke. That's the same thing apparently, the Australian production employed a director and whatnot, but they're contractually not allowed to change a thing. Rather just ensuring that everything that was there in the original production is there again, or making tiny tweaks to make things work. Which, it seems to me, would be a hard job to do. I'd feel really restricted. I was actually just about to mention John Doyle and his Sondheim productions before I saw Brian's comment. Seems that the big artistic changes seem to come when the work is revived. Which usually only happens after it's become a classic work already. I guess you're unlikely to see two vastly different productions of a new work in separate parts of the world. I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of Theatre&Globalisation, sounds very interesting! Looking forward to the next video! :)
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