Now that the holiday season and its accompanying Jacob Marley's Links endeavor are through we can return to our recounting of the opening of our latest show:
(Beautiful logo design by Leah Becker)
When we last left our intrepid creative team, they were anxiously
awaiting the reviews in whatever media theatre reviews appear
nowadays. I, for one, was obsessed with knowing, spending hours
revisiting and refreshing theatre and news websites -- and for
days to no avail. As far as newspapers go, it seems that
as a small, off-Broadway show with a minimal publicity and advertising
budget, we were in the unenviable position of getting reviewed,
yes, but not seeing the reviews printed uutil the paper had a
space in their arts section that needed filling. We didn't expect
the kind of coverage, say, a Seussical
or Contact
might, but this was extremely frustrating. (There are a number
of the team, cast and creators, who refuse to read any reviews
-- positive or negative -- or at least won't read them until after
the show closes.)
A chain of us, from the CAP's Managing Director on down, kept each other informed about every note, mention, and, eventually, review as it appeared online or in print. I hit BroadwayStars.com several times a day for their incredible daily list of links to theatre articles at major sites. Initially we saw articles and interviews in PlaybillOnline (here's the home page) and TheaterMania (here's the home page), plus a number of listings at the sites that do listings (in addition to PlaybillOnline and TheaterMania, there's the New York Theatre Exchange, On Broadway, Theatre.com, Digital City, etc.).
And then, at last, our first review. A rave from Elyse Sommer, at her CurtainUp site. Soon more positive-to-rave reviews appeared online (among others ElectronicLink, Lesbian & Gay New York, The Siegels Down Front on TheatreMania, and Peter Filichia on Theatre.com), culminating in David Spencer's fabulous notice at AisleSay. (There were a few less-than-positive reviews, mostly by critics who were unable to get past their problem with the show's length....)
What was missing, though, were the critical print reviews. So we waited. And waited. It started to seem as if the print reviews wouldn't come in until too late to help or hurt us. Finally word came that Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times would be giving a brief review on WQXR. Anxiously we tuned our radios (or linked via the net) to the 8:15 am broadcast. The review was brief, perhaps 30 seconds or a minute at most, but by the time it ended it was apparant that he loved us!
As wonderful as that broadcast was, we now fretted that that was all we'd be getting from the Times, nothing we could photocopy, blow up, or link to. Then we got word that the review would appear in the print edition in a few days. I hit the New York Times website at every opportunity until finally at about 11:59 pm the night before the paper would come out (despite the rumor that Times articles do not appear until about 3:00 on the day they appear in print), there it was: "A Welcome to America That Touches All Bases"! Much longer and more in depth, and still a rave! (See note about the New York Times.)
I was the first to see it and made a couple of phone calls the set off a cascade of phonecalling, keeping us up with congratulatory conversations until well past four in the morning.
More print reviews followed, almost entirely favorable, from papers as varied as the New Jersey Star Ledger and the Jewish Forward.
So, with all this positive press, what happened next? Stay tuned to find out.
To read more about the production, see actor, staff, and creative team bios, etc., here are a few links.
Another Op'ning - The Immigrant,
Pt. 1
Another Op'ning - The Immigrant,
Pt. 2
Another Op'ning - The Immigrant,
Pt. 3
Another Op'ning - The Immigrant,
Pt. 4
The Immigrant,
A New Musical
CAP21's website
The Knapp-Alper Pages
Originally published at Suite101.com Theatre, 1/16/01
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