Well! It is finally official, Drew Sarich is casted for yet another Wildhorn Musical!

Drew signed the contract a few days ago, unfortunately Ann Mandrella (his wife) declined the offer :)

Vienna... God you're lucky

Anyone can confirm this? Any link to prove it or something? :blink:

Drew confirmed it himself :) No link yet though

I had a dream last night that Drew was cast in this :blink:

well :) Your dreams are powerful, maybe you can dream him as Freddie from Chess, I'd love that :)

Drew's last night in Les Mis is November 8th, after that, prepare Vienna, again :)

Well, Drew's replacement in Les Mis is confirmed:

http://www.davidshannon.co.uk/?p=115

It's gotta be hard to be next to Drew, but I know David is gonna live up to the challenge :)

Rudolph Vienna is gonna be great, I read somewhere Uwe is gonna be in the cast, or at least, negotiations are being held

Well I also read rumors that Frank was revising the role of Count Taffee for Uwe...if so, Frank I dunno if you can read this but DON'T DO SUCH THING.
Uwe is losing his voice really fast, he almost can't hit high notes anymore and he's clearly getting his voice killed. I saw him fail the last notes in Rebecca several times... I can't even imagine the hundreds of computer wonders they had to made to make him sound nice in the Dracula CD. I love him but he must rethink the way he's using his voice and get some rest...
Besides, Frank's music suits Thomas Borchert much better. But since he will be in Count of Monte Cristo...PLEASE get someone who won't ruin the best songs in the musical AND DO NOT TOUCH TAFFEE'S SONGS they are great the way they are. :D

German/Austrian productions are a little too dependent on their "superstars" in general from what I've seen. While individuals like Uwe draw in larger audiences, it doesn't mean they are neccisarily the best-- just the most well known.

I'm all for giving new faces a chance. A lot of broadway's leading men/women are relatively new. Sierra Boggess in the Little Mermaid for example. Also, Sutton Foster was relatively unknown until Thoroughly Modern Millie when they pulled her out of the chorus to perform the title role. And let's not forget Kristin Chenoweth who was largely unknown until Wicked.

Well that superstar-dependence in germany is not as big as in Hungary believe me.
The Hungarians are the other people that produces the biggest number of musicals in Continental Europe but they always use the exact same actors, specially the, way too overated imo, Kata Janza and Szylvester Sabó.
I would like a mix of new and old faces in Rudolf, because you always need to assure the financial viability of the show. I wouldn't mind Ethan Freeman as Taaffe, but not Uwe. If they wanna cast him, put him in another role...
VBW is probably one of the greediest Theater producers I've ever seen, only surpassed by Really Usefull Group, and at VBW they always try to squeeze the money from the audience as much as possible. You just need to see the huge amount of merchandizing they put out for every show. Rudolf won't be an exception. Even VBW biggest flop, Barbarella, had huge merchandizing and Barbarella is a good example of a show with superstars (Drew Sarich for example) that nevertheless floped.

Yeah, it's definitely neccisary to get some star power in Rudolf, and I agree that they shouldn't rely completely on the current stars. It's a relatively new show as far as productions go, and those are nice for getting new faces out in the open.

The U.S. is definitely guilty of making income-based casting as well. Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth's careers continue to sky rocket mostly due to popularity-- not skill. They're even adjusting roles for Chenoweth in major opera houses, but people don't understand that opera is generally un-miced and she is always miced in performances.

But back to voice problems-- a lot of today's music theatre rep is awful on untrained voices. And let's face it, most theatre singers aren't that well trained vocally. Not to mention that the human voice doesn't fully mature until the age of 35+ (depending). When Rent was on broadway, every single member of the main cast suffered from vocal problems. That's why I think it's awful that high school productions are popping up all over the U.S. Now we're killing young singer's voices early on.

Well true, some of the younger actors aren't fully vocaly trained, but then again, many producers prefer people that can act and strecht some singing, instead of some kids that know how to sing but can't act at all. You can see that in European shows like Romeo et Juliette, Notre Dame de Paris and Autent en emport le Vent. French/Italian Musicals relly to much on vocally trained people instead of people who can act, and at the end the show totaly flops because they were turned into a Concert instead of a Musical.
Another thing...if we were always waiting for musical actors voice to mature then we could have no young characters in musicals because it would look pathetic to have some 40 year old guy playing a 20 year old don't you think? :P

Well, you're asking the wrong person about this because I'm an aspiring opera singer, so I'm taught from that point of view. From the get go, we're told what repertoire we can sing profesionally at our age and what repertoire we need to wait until we're older to sing if we want to have a voice in later years. You don't neccisarily have to wait until a voice is fully mature to perform, but too many singers today misuse their voices at young ages and end up developing vocal problems in later years. Some of the disorders can even be cancerous.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a stress on acting training, but vocal training should be just as important. Uwe and Julie Andrews are good examples.

It WOULD look a little strange to have a 40 year old playing a 20 year old, but 20 year olds should stop trying to sound like 40 year olds and manipulating their voices to play a role they probably shouldn't be playing anyway. Then the vocal problems will decrease drastically.

Well but Opera isn't exactly the same as Musical Theater :P
The problem is that many times its not the 20 year olds choice to do that, its the producers. Some producers just make them stretch their voice to the limit and manipulate it to get what they want and many of the young actors are trying to get a career so they many time have no choice.

Of course vocal training is as important as the acting either in Opera or Musical Theater, but while many schools train you to go Operattic, little train you to Musical Theater, so many times the Musical-actors-to-be leave vocal training because their teatchers are going Operattic and that's not what they want. ;)

This is somewhat true, but there is always a choice. Young actors choose to ruin their voices by not getting properly trained, and they choose to accept the producer's orders. They make the choice to hopefully have a career, but most of them won't anyway. AND by the time their voice is fully matured, it will be completely mutilated.

This is also only partially true. The fact is that there is basic technique that all musical theatre and opera singers are taught (or should be). A good vocal teacher won't try to make a singer sound operattic if that isn't what their natural voice sounds like that. I won't deny that some do, but generally it's the student's stupidity for thinking that they are starting to sound too "operatic" when that's just how their healthy singing voice sounds.

It's the voice teacher's job to show the student how to sing healthily. It's then the student's choice to put any of it to practice. A lot of musical theatre students don't because they think they sound better without the technique.

Well I dunno how it workes in the USA, but believe me, most of the vocal teatchers I've knowned in Europe had that terrible mania of making the students go operattic. I dunno why, but then again, I am no singer, I have no plans of becoming one so I'm not aware of the kinds of tricks that are taught to make you have a healthy singing voice apart from some Teas and no smoking. I have a friend that got vocal training and she quited as soon as she was able to reach the high notes of Christine in PotO... if the training was enough or not I dunno, but the fact is that she's only 22 and she is able to reach those notes...but then again...maybe they are not that hard to reach for someone trained...

I wanna see Uwe there... For God's sake! He is Uwe Kröger :) Although, I get your point...

Saw Uwe twice as Tod in Elisabeth this summer in Berlin. Did he an excellent job?
Yes he did!
Of course his voice has change with his age. But that don't always have to be bad.
You youngster will realize this when you are as old as Uwe and I ;)

Well I didn't saw him in Elisabeth, but I saw him in Rebecca and he failed to hit the notes quite some times... :unsure:
Of course he's getting old, that's why he would do well in rest is voice and adapt his singing to his age and stop singing like a teenager pop-star :P

dude... spriech nicht von Uwe.... seriously

Und warum den nicht? :blink:

'cos! He's awesome :)

Uwe Kröger is a really amazing actor, singer and dancer!
If he wouldnt be in that biz, we would miss something.
You can feel him, if you´re sitting in the theatre. He has a special aura (is it the same word in America??) and the force to lead a cast.
I have seen him playing different roles. Sure there are roles, he can show more of his talents and in some roles less. So p.e. the DEATH is a very special role to him and the MAXIM less.
Many of the young talents in the scene can take a leaf out of his book ;)

Great reply Mina, he truly is a legend of musical theatre :)

I know it has nothing to do, but could someone please help me get the Dracula Graz lyrics :s I can't find em :(

Thanks :(

Uwe is great. BUT lately he is becoming slappy. He is clearly losing the ability of reaching the high notes as he used to reach, and denying that is just lying. I still like him very much, he's a great actor and there's no one who will ever replace him as DER TOD. But today he's simply not that great anymore. He's old, and he better start noticing that. ;)

As for the Graz lyrics to Dracula, you'll only find them if anyone has given the trouble of writing them down, because the CD booklet didn't had them. <_<
Try to search in google, you may be lucky :unsure:

yeah i kinda had that in mind, if somebody could help me by writting 'em down, mostly Zu Ende and Roseanne, but I'd enjoy the whole lyrics very much, I would love to give somethng in exchange :)

E-mail me if you can help me

ichbleibeinwien@hotmail.com

Thanks!

Ahh...you made the same request on LJ right? :P
I will post the lyrics to Graz Dracula on the Dracula boards. The ones I can find or take the time to write down anyway ;)

hahah yeah

great!! Thank you very much! :;)

Is anyone here in the vicinity of this production? If so, what's the buzz like? There's only one mention at the Musical Vienna site with a small version of the new logo (It's also on Jack's site.) Nothing on the main pages yet.

well, Vienesse casts tend to be filled with superstars. I Love that, when Drew told us about this offer I inmediately thought of his old buddies, Kudra, Mark, Stephen, Pethon, blah blah, and I said to myslef... oh oh... Haha

But of course they are going for a more serious touch, all I know is that Drew has signed that contract, and Ann unfortunately rejected it.

I can't wait for a cast album, well, i wanna see the cast first haha

The Vienna Cast will probably be announced around October. So far the only thing that people know is that Carin Filipcic (Mrs.Van Hopper from Rebecca) and Maya Hakvoort (Lisa in Vienna J&H) made castings for a role. Rumors were that Pia Douwes also made a casting, but I doubt those are true, since Pia will be in the same time in Holland playing the role of Norma Desmond.
There's also the rumor of Uwe and apparently Drew as Rudolf. But I guess soon we'll have news.
You can always drop an e-mail to VBW to ask if they have a date for the Cast announcement. You can write in english, they'll reply ;)

Thanks, I'm going to try that. Watch this thread.

in October, we´ll know more :lol: