What went wrong with the phantom tribute for HAL PRINCE. was it cut?? that whole tribute was rushed!!! a tribute to a GREAT man should have been presented in broadway fashion.. what a shame!!!
No. I think the orchestra started too early and the actor (forgot the name, sorry) figured they'd follow him (as they are supposed to do), but they didn't and remained half a verse ahead of him, so he he had to catch up.
Nope. McGillin has sung that song thousands of times and was on total autopilot. Rather than sing the one minute abbreviated version that was specially prepared for the telecast in which he was to sing the first verse of the song and then skip ahead to the last few phrases of the song, he somehow forgot and began to sing the second verse like he does in the show. When the orchestra (which was on tape, so any mistake was McGillin's) did the prearranged skip, he realized his error and jumped to the right place.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
It sounded as if the tape started when Brian was still talking and when Howard started to sing, if you payed attention to the chords underneath his singing, you could hear that he was singing the first verse while the second verse was playing. Since the tape was playing before he sung, he was a full verse behind. As far as I could tell it wasn't his fault, but the tape operator's fault for starting it before he could acctually sing.
Yes, the music was taped but there was nothing Howard McGillin could do. Because the music was taped the applause and Brian Stokes Mitchell's introduction went into the first verse of his song. So, in actuality it wasn't another "garden variety actor screw-up" but a terrific save by a consumate professional doing the best he could with taped music. I blame the lack of live musicians...see how important live music is? I know because I was actually there. Since I didn't get to watch the Tonys, I came on the theatre sites this morning to read all about them and was stunned to see so many people bashing things that they really know nothing about. I suppose that is why I usually stay away from these sites.
On a lighter note and a little off-topic...Congratulations to all the nominees and winners and thanks to all the theatre fans that continue to be supportive.
Maybe he was doing the Vegas version and since the show there is only 95 minutes.......
"I've lost everything! Luis, Marty, my baby with Chris, Chris himself, James. All I ever wanted was love." --Sheridan Crane "Passions"
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"Housework is like bad sex. Every time I do it, I swear I'll never do it again til the next time company comes."--"Lulu"
from "Can't Stop The Music"
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"When the right doors didn't open for him, he went through the wrong ones" - "Sweet Bird of Youth"
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"Passions" is uncancelled! See NBC.com for more info.
Thank you, Beachgirl :). I thought Howard did a wonderful save there and I agree, live musicians are very important. Makes me wonder why they used taped music? There WAS an orchestra there, wasn't there? Now I'm not sure.
OK, wait a sec. Before you get all mad at my use of the phrase "garden variety actor-screw-up," please read what I first posted (giving him the benefit of the doubt, assuming it was the music that was wrong, and NOT him), and then the response I got from Margo, which indicated he was "on autopilot," and forgot that he was supposed to skip that second line of verse and go straight to the next melodic line. Margo has always proven to be a solid source of info, so I accepted the fact that he was supposed to sing a different cut of the song, and that he may have forgotten where he was in the heat of the moment - like all actors have done at some point in their careers, since they are human beings.
Anyway, it wasn't that big a goof. He indeed covered it well. And I agree it's a real shame that they didn't have a live orchestra there...I mean, you're celebrating a live medium, you'd think you'd have live music. Oh, well.
I'm not sure how noticeable it was to any one not familiar with the music. Either way, I thought, why bother if it was going to be an extremely truncated version of the song.
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Um, he sang ONE sentence? Was that the wrong part?
"I'm thinking about how if you took the W in
answer, and the H in ghost, and the extra A in aardvark, and the T in listen, you could keep saying WHAT but no one would ever hear you because the whole word would be silent."
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Yeah, he definitely forgot that he was doing the abbreviated--as in maimed-down-to-twenty-seconds--version. He started saying "Touch m--" then stopped for five seconds, then continued.
I'm not referring to the words themselves---I realize that a mistake was made with orchestra/shortened version. I was asking about the quality of his voice----was it a mic problem or am I alone in thinking his voice wasn't up to his usual strength?
Umm - whether it was Mcgillin or the music, let's not mistake one thing - the fact that there was a mess up there was noticable to EVERYONE. My students, who may or may not know the song, but the few who watched it were asking me "What happened to the Phantom song!" I didn't have an answer other than "I don't know, but he's played that role more than anyone else ever - so how he could have messed up the words to the most famous song is beyond me!"
I understand your last sentence, but not your first. What do you mean "She didn't get to watch it as people saw it on television?" What, she was too far in the back? Locked in a closet?