You're right, of course, but I love to see fans' photos, especially the ones taken when he's talking or listening to others because I think they sometimes capture something of D's essence.

 

 

 

When he's organising people as well. He's so serious then.

Have you been "organised" by Darius? I don't think I have.

He trys. I have pics of him organising others as well. It's only fair he should try and organise me as I certainly do the same to him.

I am looking forward to the accounts and photos of people attending, I doubt I will get any photos, as I am not taking a camera - and I am to near the front to try and do some sneaky recording on my phone!

Not a very good bit of promo from The Stage.

 

Chit Chat - Bad case of wind

Published Monday 31 March 2008 at 10:55 by Tabard

 

Gone with the Wind, Trevor Nunn’s latest West End offering, is soon to open at the New London.

 

It is, of course, not the first time that the great novel has been given the musical theatre treatment. Nor is it its first West End outing.

 

Back in 1972, it played at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in a production that was - rather bizarrely - made in Japan. In Tokyo, to be precise.

 

A couple of years earlier, the show had opened under the title of Scarlett, and clocked in at a mammoth four hours of running time. It was cut down and renamed when it came to Drury Lane, but was still not without its problems.

 

On first night, memorably, a horse did its business on stage.

 

This led Noel Coward, who was in the audience and had also found one of the young performers in the show rather obnoxious, to comment: “If they’d stuffed the child’s head up the horse’s arse, they would have solved two problems at once.”

 

Let’s hope no-one suffers a similar fate in Nunn’s new version.

 

On a side note, Tabard is wondering whether this first version of Gone with the Wind might be the first and only time a show has transferred to the West End from Japan? Answers on a postcard.

 

 

It's more about a production from years back that none of the present cast/crew had anything to do with.

Even the promos are coming through with the 5th on them.

 

Gone With The Wind opens in West End

One of the world's greatest love stories has been adapted for the West End stage and is set to wow audiences from across the country.

 

Gone With The Wind, which opened at the New London Theatre on Saturday, will star actress Jill Paice as Scarlett O'Hara and Darius Danesh as the irresistible Rhett Butler.

 

Directed by Trevor Nunn, the musical is set in 1860s Atlanta during the Civil War where Scarlett finds her world turned upside down by conflict and love.

 

Originally a novel written by Margaret Mitchell in 1936, Gone With The Wind was first adapted for the big screen in 1940, when iconic stars Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable played the two main roles.

 

The film, which features the legendary line "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn", won eight Oscars and was nominated for five more.

 

Speaking to the Times about playing the part of Scarlett in the latest stage version, Ms Paice said: "It is completely intimidating. But also thrilling."

Posted by Graham Greenaway on the 31/03/2008 13:40:16 | More news from FHR

 

 

the way the articles are worded you would think GWTW had been done before, I got the impression that the Mitchell Estate were notoriuos with the copyright? and it took Martin some time to get them for a musical.

I had thought Scarlett, and Bonny the previous productions were not GWTW, but a way of bringing related stories from the book to stage?

 

I'd like to see what the Japanese version was like

There are clips from that on youtube I think.

 

Neither of those musicals had the rights to GWTW from the Mitxhell estate. This is the first "official" version.

Well, we'll know more what it's like, hopefully, by the end of the week.

It's sad that if Darius's first preview is Saturday, nobody from the sites , as far as I know, will be there.

with thanks to rachel on .net

 

 

 

WOS Mag: Redgrave Magic & Gone With the Wind

Date: 31st March 2008

 

The latest issue of our sister print title What’s On Stage Magazine is out today, available in 35 participating London theatres as well as selected hotels, restaurants and tourist bureaux.

 

Amongst the great features on offer in the April 2008 issue are:

 

# WIND OF CHANGE - First the book, then the movie and now a new musical version of Gone With the Wind is about to premiere in the West End. Roger Foss meets Jill Paice and Darius Danesh, the new Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, and explains why everybody loves Margaret Mitchell’s story. (An abridged version of this article is also on the main website)

 

 

 

Here's the abridged version from the website:

 

Why We Love Gone With the Wind

Date: 31st March 2008

 

As Trevor Nunn and Margaret Martin’s new musical of Gone With the Wind prepares for its West End premiere, Roger Foss takes a closer look at Margaret Mitchell’s epic story – from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the Oscar-winning film – and why it became a modern classic.

 

The epic novel – Margaret Mitchell was born on 8 November 1900 into a segregated Atlanta, Georgia. She worked as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal Magazine, but was forced to quit because of arthritis. While spending time at home in bed, she began to write about what she had learned from the stories told to her as a child, eventually producing what turned out to be one of the most popular novels in the history of publishing, Gone With the Wind, a 1,037-page “story of the Old South, the Civil War and Reconstruction”. Published in June 1936, by October GWTW had sold one million copies. In 1937 Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her first and only book. After the film premiered in Atlanta, in 1939, she spent her life and wealth working on a variety of charitable projects, including funding black and white emergency clinics at an Atlanta hospital. She died in 1949, after being hit by a cab while walking to a theatre. The novel is now one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 28 million copies.

 

The epic movie – David O Selznick’s 1939 production of Gone With the Wind won a then-unprecedented ten Academy Awards and has sold more tickets than any other film in history. Selznick acquired the film rights to Margaret Mitchell's novel for $50,000 – a record amount at the time. But with 50 speaking roles, 2,400 extras and a record $4 million budget, “Selznick’s Folly”, became cinema’s greatest epic, shot in three-strip Technicolor and boasting an immortal cast in a timeless tale of tortured romance, and all underscored by Max Steiner’s soaring soundtrack. A three-year casting search for Scarlett ended in young British actress Vivien Leigh landing the role, after more than 30 others had been considered, including Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Lucille Ball and Mae West, while MGM star Clark Gable was the obvious Rhett Butler. Directors came and went, including George Cukor after less than three weeks. Victor Fleming, who had just directed The Wizard of Oz, completed the picture and MGM director Sam Wood was also involved when Fleming pulled out due to exhaustion from working on the greatest blockbuster of all time.

 

The epic story – Headstrong heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, struggles to find love during the catastrophe of the Civil War and as the wind of change sweeps through Georgia she finds refuge at the family plantation, Tara. As the Yankees march triumphantly against the losing side, Scarlett takes control, defending Tara and fighting starvation, finally marrying her “bad lot” admirer Captain Rhett Butler, although her frigidity towards him in their marriage, fueled by her unrequited passion for her sister-in-law’s husband Ashley Wilkes, dooms their relationship. When Rhett is about to walk out, she begs, “Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?” His answer? “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” But Scarlett is not down. She returns to Tara, declaring, “Home. I’ll go home, and I’ll think of some way to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!”

 

The epic theme – According to Mitchell, “If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people able to come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those who go under...? I only know that the survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption’. So I wrote about the people who had gumption and the people who didn’t.”

 

The other theme – Mitchell captured the social hierarchy in the Antebellum South, where black plantation slaves were segregated at the bottom of the pile. Even Mammy, the family house servant (Hattie McDaniel in the film), sees herself as a cut above field girls like the childlike Prissy (Butterfly McQueen). McDaniel, the first black woman to sing on the radio in America, won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Mammy, the first time an African-American had ever been so honoured. But when GWTW premiered in Atlanta, black actors in the film were barred and excluded from being in the souvenir programme. McDaniel did, however, attend the Hollywood premiere and the Oscar ceremony. When, later, she was criticised for playing beneath herself, she replied, “I’d rather play a maid than be a maid”.

 

Gone With the Wind on stage

 

In the new musical of Gone with the Wind, American Jill Paice and British recording star Darius Danesh star as Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. The premiere production is directed byTrevor Nunn and designed by John Napier, who worked with Nunn on blockbuster page-to-stage adaptations of Les Miserables and Cats, the latter finishing its 21-year run at the New London in May 2002. The piece has music and lyrics by Margaret Martin, making her theatrical debut.

 

But this is by no means the first time that Mitchell’s epic has been brought to the stage. Previous offerings include the following…

 

# Scarlett – Harold Rome wrote this musical adaptation, which was performed in Tokyo in 1970 in Japanese. An English version, reverting to the Gone With the Wind title, opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1972, with Scarlett and Rhett played by June Ritchie and Harve Presnell. The cast included a young Bonnie Langford as Scarlett’s daughter Bonnie. On the first night a horse nervously defecated on the stage, prompting Noël Coward’s famous remark: “If they had shoved the child’s head up the horse’s ar*e, they would have solved two problems at once.”

 

# Frankly Scarlett – Peter Morris and Philip George’s frenetic farce about “the making of the film about the book that could never been filmed” opened at the King’s Head Theatre in April 1997, and followed David O Selznick’s search for the perfect Scarlett O’Hara. Vivienne Leigh was played in drag by Earl Grey, who was also Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead.

# Moonlight and Magnolias – Given its UK premiere at the Tricycle Theatre in 2007, Ron Hutchinson’s screwball parody of the workings of Hollywood involved movie mogul David O Selznick shutting down production of Gone With the Wind and engaging the reluctant services of a “script doctor” in a hilarious attempt to rewrite the shooting script. Andy Nyman starred.

 

Gone with the Wind opens on 22 April 2008 (previews from 4 April) at the West End’s New London Theatre, where it’s currently booking until 27 September. A longer version of this interview – including an in-depth interview with stars Jill Paice and Darius Danesh - appears in the April issue of What’s On Stage magazine (formerly Theatregoer), which is out now in participating theatres.

I wonder which 35 theatres have these magazines. It seems like a fairly extensive article if that's the abridged version.

I am looking forward to the accounts and photos of people attending, I doubt I will get any photos, as I am not taking a camera - and I am to near the front to try and do some sneaky recording on my phone!

 

 

You know, I don't think you'll get any photos in those circumstances either.

 

Maybe someone will take some for you. I would, but i can't do many weekends. I'm sure someone will.

It is sad if no-one from he sites is attending. Because the first preview night is changed I suppose there will be no pictures etc and is thatnight also the premiere or is it the first official night. I really dont understand how one night later will make a difference to a sprain would have thought it would take longer. Did wonder how things would go in view of the way they have gone about the promotion. They need to get their finger out and do some tv.

A few of us will be there. Not necessaryly the people I was going with to see the 4th show - it has spoiled that and that is upsetting but, I will be there anyway. I'm sure someone i don't know about will turn up, well, I hope they will. It sometimes seems to just ask for trouble to let people know you're going.

But as I said before, if all but those seats with restricted views have sold, what would be the point of doing a TV promotion exercise just now?

 

IMHO, the priority just now should be to keep the stars working at the theatre doing full run throughs and tighten the show by making any necessary changes to the book and songs to bring the piece to a manageable length and make it all flow as seamlessly as possible. They haven't been in the theatre that long and now they've lost 3 days.

I really don't think all those seats have sold. They wouldn't be able to offer to rebook people if they had.

 

Did one of my posts make you think they had? If I did, I really didn't mean to. I only meant to say that there were very few reduced price seats for the size of the theatre.

 

Edited March 31, 200817 yr by megham

I usually take it that they need to sell tickets if promotion is heavy, many a time they have been hyping up a production on TV and it goes belly up shortly afterwards, so perhaps GWTW is waiting to sell as much as possible before going for the promo - as said it would be a waste if they over did it before they needed to. ?? who knows.

kevin Spacey was saying something about LLoyd Webbers 13 weeks tv progames, saying it amounted to 13 weeks of promotion for LWs musicals unfairly and why shouldnt his plays get that