Company, Sondheim and one sick Kookaburra
July 29th 2007 08:51
La Sondheim and La Campbell
The musical Company had not been performed in Australia for well over thirty years and the production staged by Peter Cousen's Kookaburra lived up to the challenge of bringing this legendary show back to the stage. An all star cast and a magnificently simplistic set matched up with the brilliant (if somewhat "just smile and wave boys!") direction of Gale Edwards to display a magnificent show.
Ticket sales were humminh along. Rave reviews were in and no doubt Peter Cousens was smiling (and wiping his forehead in relief) as his National Musical Theatre Company seemed to come of age after a somewhat shakey start. Nothing could stop him now right?
Too many diva's - not enough understudies
The National Musical Theatre Company you say? How veddy veddy professional! Apparantly they could not be budgeted for. A few less stars perhaps might have been adviseable!
Instead of cancel the show's performances for a few days until another actress could be found and broken in, Peter Cousens (via long distance phone call from the premiere of the musical Sweet Charity in Melbourne) told his cast and creative team to remove Ms Whelan's songs and scenes from the show and go on as if nothing had happened.
Now this understandably pissed a few of them off!
An insider (*cough* *cough* David Campbell *cough* *cough*) decided that a classic was not to be tampered with and phoned up BFF Stephen Sondheim in New York to inform him of the changes made to the show.
Sorry Steve
George Furth, who wrote the book of the musical then proceeded to weigh in and threaten legal action.
The result?
Peter Cousens apologised, recruited Chloe Dallimore (of The Producers fame) into the part abandoned by Christie Whelan and announced a concert version of the production to be staged for charity on Tuesday, July 31st.
All in all this scandalicious mess blew over with quiet dignity. Slight hiccough when another member of the cast (Pippa Grandison) had to call in sick with a migraine on Friday, July 21, but them's the breaks. The show still went on as planned the following night, with yet another luminous star to add to its cohort and a large lesson learned by all.
And as for La Sondheim - well he still gets paid. And in the meantime, the headlines in London, New York and Sydney have all no doubt added to a lot of peoples scrap books.
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