iTunes Exclusive Episode Dirty Dancing

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Good morning!
You brought my heart, cause I couldn't dance, you didn't even want me around, and now I'm back to let you know, I can really shake them down.
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My name is Rob and I am the Executive Producer of the Clubhouse podcast.
And I used to cut a rug back in the day.
I didn't shame to say it.
But I am not alone for this particular episode, our 113rd time exclusive.
Joining me for this particular episode across the desk is my co-host, and a man that has photo evidence
that he once owned a denim tuxedo.
He is Chad, welcome sir.
I still own said denim tuxedo.
Well, it doesn't fit, but it's still in my possession.
How much you can do with it?
I've been known to cut a rug too, within the grugs, started cutting back.
So that's true.
Yeah, I'm not going to debate that.
So I kind of backed off.
Also joining us is the official fact checker of the show, and a man who is once said he was
like the win, but it was only after Taco Bell.
You may know him as fun, don't go, but as my many of them don't, for what I'm going to
call him, don't, for how are you sir?
Those Doritos, localists, tacos are still the bomb.
Oh, yes they are.
I'm going to deny it, even though I'm on a, I'm on a Taco Bell band right now, because
I got where they're Spanish, Rice, not upset to me.
She had everybody likes to launch her a lime, Rice, I'm just saying.
Whatever we do, one of these, it is to review something, and this one is no exception.
We are here today to review a stage production.
That has been in the Dallas Fort Worth area for a few days, kind of, two week run, I think.
It is the stage version of the 1987 Smash hit film, dirty dancing, and it's called
dirty dancing, the classic story on stage, currently showing at music college fair
park.
First off, it is 12 days, and it runs through July 5th, and secondly, we got to thank
Francesco and everybody at Dallas, some musicals, and everybody at, uh, musical fair
park, friend by this, do this thing again.
Absolutely, there's so much better than it was.
This was a nicest guy.
He is so good to talk to.
Awesome.
If you've seen dirty dancing, then you know the storyline.
If you don't, then we'll go ahead and have you come out of your cave.
Basically, it is the story of the Houseman family, Dr. and Marjorie Houseman, and their
daughter's Lisa Houseman, and Frances Baby Houseman.
They're doing all right.
They're going for the summer up to Kellermans, to Kellermans, it's just a kind of
a resort that they spend at in a Catskills Mountain.
Yep.
And there's a lot of different activities one can do at this particular resort, not the
least of which of dance lessons.
And she comes across Johnny Castle, and when his dance partner for their big finale
at the end of the summer is sideline, which we're not going to go into if you don't
what happens.
He decides to have Baby Dance with him, and then things happen.
Chalice start with you.
This is a little bit different because this is based on material that we've seen before.
How do you think it measured up to the original source material?
Very well.
Very well indeed.
If you do a little bit of research on it, the writer, creator of this story, Eleanor
Berkstein, if you can kind of read between the lines, I think she kind of considers
this stage version, the definitive version of this story, because it's allowed her to tell
the story in a way that a film really couldn't necessarily allow her to do.
She saw how well people were responding to the film over the years, and there was a constant
demand for what else can you give us, so she put it a little bit up in the paper
and came up with this stage production.
I think it works beautifully.
Done?
I am not one of those guys who saw the movie from start to finish.
I saw a part here, a part here, and a part here.
So I have to admit, I never saw it from start to finish.
So I'm kind of going in with a little bit of blind eyes on this thing.
Okay, to say the least.
Do you want to go into the storyline on this first off?
Well, I want to tell you how it matches up to the expectations I thought, and it basically
looked up to what I thought it would be.
The production was beautiful, to say the least, but I do want to get into the plot later,
so I will do pretty you.
Okay.
I thought it was very faithful to the source material, although I am going to save a piece
of this.
I think for words, don't go in with it, because this is a very interesting study here
in a very rare occurrence that I don't know that I've ever seen before in something that
was adapted from screen to stage, because it's not the first time.
No, not at all.
It's definitely not going to be the last time, but there was definitely an anomaly here
that I don't know that I've ever seen before.
I'm going to save that for the final analysis.
From a visual standpoint, you ain't getting better than this, brother.
No kidding.
Like, incredible.
I don't know that I've ever seen a show that utilizes modern technology, the way this
did on this level, this successful.
Outside of newsies, which was the first time we really got a good example of what, no,
no, no, no, no.
I know what you're going to say.
It was a similar technology, but it was much better implemented on 30 days.
I will agree with you there.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the only thing we can really compare it to because they had a similar kind
of setup, kind of.
But I would like to say that it was something that I've never seen before when it comes
to use and basically LED screens.
Yeah.
And that's a lot of them.
And a lot of them.
In front, in behind, it was incredible, and I'll give this till the cows come home, maybe
in front of Montana, because we got no cows here in Texas.
But we'll have cowboys.
Exactly.
I did that.
But how they were able with the LEDs and stuff to go from scene to scene to so fast, it
was very, very good in some aspects.
A prime example for me was in the scene where baby goes into the dancing cabin for the
first time, where the LED screen separates, a door comes out.
They walk through the door, as the moment they walk through the door, the LEDs change
to the inside of the cabin, they turn around and it looks like they're just walking
into the cabin.
Absolutely.
Simplistic and GMAT brilliant.
It doesn't sound like much, but when you, I mean, describing it doesn't really do
it justice.
Yeah, you can't have to see how they did it.
And you'll sit down just like, oh my god, that's absolutely brilliant.
The perfect utilization of spacing technology.
The fact that they had a guy that was just set a designer, a video and projection designer,
that's his job.
That's all he did.
He wasn't the set designer.
He was his own entity that took care of this stuff.
Ever saw me get this place in 1963 to use this much modern technology.
Very bold choice.
But it works.
And it doesn't look like it.
You don't get lost in the technology.
It just helps to tell the story.
And really, if you want to demonstrate the technology itself and I don't want to give anything
away.
All I'm saying is the rehearsing of the lift.
Yes.
That's all.
I don't even want to go any deeper than that because you talked about having to see
something to really believe what we're trying.
Even if we tried to describe it to our listeners, it doesn't do it justice.
You have to see how this thing happens.
No matter how well we may try to describe it.
It won't, it won't conjure up in your head.
Correct.
How they had LED screens in front of the stage behind the stage, like the rain scene.
Yes.
I wasn't, I thought that was incredible.
Heck, what had to break into his own car because he locked his keys in the car.
That was cool.
Yeah, they worked with it with the sound effects.
It was immersive.
And this was a truly immersive theatrical experience.
And basically, the backdrop stayed the same throughout the show, but with the LEDs.
Right.
Except when I was certain that one scene, the wall goes up and there's the band of
top.
Yes.
Yes.
That was cool.
And then with the lighting, and that one scene, when the band's out there, it turns
pure red.
I go, that was beautiful.
That was beautiful.
The lighting and everything spot on 100%.
And which kind of segues us into the performances.
And the weird thing for me here is, I can't call this a musical.
It really, no.
Because it's, it's really not.
I mean, it's, to me, this was a stage production with a soundtrack.
To me, a musical is more or less like an opera where there's the majority of the
dialogue, or at least a healthy portion of the dialogue, is sung and not spoken.
And it really didn't have that here.
And they did have some piped in music during this thing.
This wasn't all live music, like what the orchestra, like we see in a lot of productions.
I mean, so there was, you know, recorded music used during this thing.
See, I, I don't know that I agree that all of it was, and any of it was recorded.
Some of it was, some of it was definitely recorded.
I can't.
Five.
You can tell.
I went back and watched a film again yesterday.
And again this morning, and I listened to the soundtrack, I'm like, yeah, that's exactly
what I heard.
But even, even if that was possible, some of the recorded stuff was even distorted to make
it sound like you were listening to it through a radio or on a record player, which was ridiculously
awesome.
I mean, the band up top was live, but with, like, for instance, Hungry Eyes, that was definitely
I heard things in that, that deleted from the record.
You'll hear things like at the, you know, in the big climax with, with, I've had the time
of my life on the movie version, there are, like, adlips that, what's his name?
Bill Medley.
Bill Medley.
And, and Jennifer, Jennifer warned, right?
That is correct.
Well, kind of throw in there that's not on the, on the soundtrack version or the single version.
Just a little bit of, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of stuff.
And I'm like, I don't remember that.
Look at that, I had to stretch it.
Yeah.
And I think maybe that's what you were hearing was in a recorded version.
It's possible, but man, because Solomon Burke's cried in me was definitely Solomon Burke's
cried in me.
And there was no orchestra of, frankly, life music was up on top.
Right.
Yeah.
But there was still a conductor down below, keeping everybody on track.
But from, you want to talk about performances.
Can I just give you two words?
Generally shallow.
Yeah.
And rushing it.
She's only one of two actual vocalists, or three technically.
But two main vocalists in the film, the carpenter being the other one.
Well, no, you had Adam Roberts, the guy that did the, in the soul of the night.
Adam Roberts was the carpenter.
I thought that was the carpenter.
Was it?
Yes.
I don't show him as a specialty soloist in my list.
Which kind of surprise?
Because that song isn't listed as a specialty solo.
But the dawn, that's why I thought the dawn interlude was.
I just, I thought that it was those two ancillary characters that you don't even see.
Well, you see Billy in the, in the film.
But you do not see her.
Her character.
Oh, shoot.
What was her character's name?
Um.
I'm flipping through the video.
Elizabeth Elizabeth was generally a generally character where they kind of have like a
thing for each other, but it's not really, they're, they're afraid to take it to the
next step or whatever, and it's slowly, but surely evolves off camera quote unquote, right?
And it kind of culminates and it's very well done.
And it's, it's almost like they're the, they're the other characters that we're rooting
for without even realizing it.
I mean, they're very beautiful.
I've had the time of my life just crushed it.
Uh-huh.
His performance of in the soul the night.
Oh, the crowd was just, especially towards the end where it goes completely
Occupella nailed it.
Your two leads.
This is a weird thing for me because I really think that, uh, Jillian Abbott, as baby, like
she really was channeling Jennifer Gray, I mean there's no doubt my mind.
But Samuel, per Gandhi, or per, I can't even say that.
I hope I didn't speak out too bad.
It's kind of a tough one.
It was like the more she was channeling Jennifer Gray, the less he was channeling Patrick
Swazzy and I don't know if that was a conscious choice.
I just kind of got like a more of a Danny Zuko from Grease vibe than I got a Johnny
Castle from dirty dancing vibe from him because apparently he's played, uh, the, the
he'll rob me.
Yeah, he played the role of Johnny and you can kind of
tell why.
And the dude was Matt Talon said, yeah, don't get me wrong.
Jafri Ballet credits to his name as, you know, as, as well as the other phenomenal dancer
Jenny went and playing Penny Johnson, my God and heaven.
What a dancer this girl is.
He's talking about style and grace, my brother's doing line.
With legs all the way up to her neck, but my thing was, I thought they were both
great, both leads, but the chemistry there wasn't there for me.
Chemistry was there when they were dancing, but when they were there was dialogue to be spoken,
that, that sizzle just wasn't there, that, that, that, and I know it's unfair to compare
it to Patrick Swazzy and Jennifer Gray, but you kind of, you can't help it.
You can't help it.
You can't help it.
I mean, they had a chemistry and on-screen chemistry throughout these two, whenever he was
talking, it just kind of went into a little bit.
You know, it's not that he, the guy's not talented, but it's just this role when it came
to his speaking role, it just didn't fit him that well, but when he was dancing, it was
unstoppable.
Yeah, both, I mean, they're, both of their dancing.
And when you can dance, it's really hard to convey that you can't dance, like, like,
like, I was asked to in the beginning, but she did that really, really well.
Well, so did he, he had that one movie couldn't nail, and he, he kept on having to
screw it up on purpose, and he was like, you know, he could pull this off without even
trying, but he made it look like he couldn't do it, but he managed to do it.
But the, and the really neat thing was, though, even though the chemistry wasn't there
for me, it didn't take away from my enjoyment.
No, not at all.
Which was good.
I enjoyed watching them together.
There wasn't, there wasn't a, one of those, well, I got to deal with this again.
Yeah, it just kind of flowed well for me.
Yeah.
But that dancing was incredible.
Oh, I see it in a singing one.
Poor guy.
Well, he's not that shards.
Might my non-leading shining star goes to Herman Patreus, who played Mr. Schumacher.
You didn't do right?
I didn't really, I didn't really, I'm very loud at what it is.
Mr. Raymond.
Yes.
That was, Don Ford.
Please send all hate me, I'll to Don the Clubhouse Podcast account.
Don, he's just, when he was on stage, he always ended that kind of comedic presence, but
it very well where it didn't take away from the leading roles. I really enjoyed him on that.
Put the nonleading roles like he's my little shining star I thought.
I really liked Jerome Harman Hardeman. He was kind of a utility man in this.
Oh, you band leader Tito? He was the band leader. He was also the, you know, and the best friend.
But literally when they say he was a band leader, he was band leader. Like he was up there and
all of a sudden he's back down on the lower level, working, interacting with the characters.
I really dug him a lot in this and he was kind of Johnny's mentor Yoda type character.
He would always go to him for sage advice to kind of think. Any standouts for user?
Oh, we already, we already covered that. Just you're, you're generally in, and Doug, the, the, the
the vocals on these two cook. Anybody else you want to point out though?
Well, I mean, and I don't think I really said enough about Jenny went as a, as a, as Penny Johnson.
Some of the best, another Jafri ballet veteran, beautiful, graceful.
I was, I was shocked. I mean, and those had to act to the back of the room. Like the father back
you sit sometimes you lose part of a performance because you're not so close that you could see.
She was acting that that people in the back row. Yeah. And so if you were anywhere in that room,
you could see what was going on with her. And it's kind of sad that her, that the role calls for
her to be sideline for the, for more than half of the, of the production because you just wanted to
see her keep dancing because she was, oh, good. I thought Emily Rice who played Marjorie,
Maybe sister. She, she made you want to give her a swirly. Well, but at the end,
she really, she nailed the part though in the, in the auditions for the talent show.
Oh, who the song? Yes. And, and, and Jules, my wife Jules just, just,
she hates that point. But it was come. She goes, here we go. Okay. Anything else for we do the final analysis?
Yeah, the one thing that I wanted to bring up. And so I was waiting for her. From the written review
from the cobbastplacast.com, which is our website. I thought with the changing of the scenery so fast
because of all the LEDs. It was a blessing, but also curse. I don't blame that on the L,
on the LED's though. I, I blame it on a possible. Yeah, but this, it made a possible for the script
because it went from so many scenes too fast. There was one point where they went in three
scenes in about a 30-second time period. And some of them were not needed to go, they didn't have
to put that in there. They didn't have to put that part in there. And it's just like, so they get
this ability to go so fast so fast. And the people in front of us even said, this is going flowing
way too fast. And that was a major turn off for me on this. I don't know that there was any
fact that needed to be trimmed. I think a lot of it, a lot of the fast paste scenes were helping
give you depth to the story for me. And this is what we were talking about earlier that I was
going to say. And we're going to say it now. This is the rare occasion that I honestly believe
you need to watch the movie first. Yeah. And then if you're going to see the production because
things do move so fast, there's going to be details that you miss if you don't watch the movie
first. And that's, I don't think I've ever said that about anything. You're the kind of
guy that discourages reading the book before the movie comes out. Same here. But I'm telling you
now, if you're going to go see this new haven't seen the film, you need to see the film because
it's going to give you a deeper knowledge of what's going on because as Don and I agree with him,
this story moves fast. And there's like one scene that's like, oh, you're sad. Let me fix
your hair. And that wasn't literally about eight seconds. It's like that. But what that, what that
scene did though was it was giving you more insight into the relationship between the two of them
and how it evolved. But our creative work didn't sink in for me as a guy. And again, I watched
this film again this morning. And that's about how long the scene took in the film. And that's
all it really. It's like six a.m. Where you been? And that was about 10 seconds there, too. I just
thought the two fast pace, but don't be wrong overall. I really enjoyed it. Dancing, the singing,
the lighting, the stage. I was really impressed. All right. So we ready to get to the final analysis.
Uh-huh. The way we do the final analysis on this show, we don't give you thumbs up thumbs
down. We don't give you letter grades, number grades, stars, anything like that. Our audience,
the empire is better than that. It's a two-pronged question. Question number one is,
would you see this production again? If the answer is no, then we're done here. If the answer is,
yes, we kind of change it up when we do stage productions because we want to know if you do see it again,
how much of you willing to pay where would you sit to do this? So Donald will start with you.
Would you see this production again? This is going to be kind of surprising. I was almost at the
know. Okay. But because of the lighting and the dancing and the singing, I would say,
yad to see it again, but I recommend it kind of upper balcony. Okay.
Chad, would you see this again? Absolutely. Where you want to sit? Wherever I could.
Anywhere I could. I agree with you. I loved. I would absolutely see this again, and I love it so
much. I wouldn't care if I was on the balcony or if I was in the front row. As long as I'm in the room,
and there's not people on the second row taking pictures. But that's just me.
This has been one of my favorite productions that we've seen since we started doing this.
Oh, absolutely. I didn't want to love everything about it. You know, the music was dead on.
There's just outside of the pacing and a little bit of chemistry issues. But it didn't take
way of how much I enjoyed this production. It really didn't. Don't get me wrong. I did like it.
It's just like that. The fast pace. But again, we got to think Francesco. He's so good to us.
And everybody at Dallas, some of musicals and musical fair park. Thank you for inviting us to this thing.
You've had a hiccup of 75th anniversary. Yes, thank you. You're in line. And it's not done yet.
I want to go. All right. We're going to do the plugs. Yes, we are.
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Email Don for information on how we can come to a live show at your particular establishment. We love
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Somebody to go out and say and I am Rob at the clubhouse podcast.com. I am Chad at the clubhouse podcast.com.
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest and Jules Womit. She was there. She had a great time too.
I loved every second of it. Our normal show. Your one stop shop for all pink sports entertainment
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We're cool with that as well. So until next time for Don, for Chad, for the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed. Do you really need me to go and do a Britney Palmer reference here?
Seriously. I think you can figure this one out on your own.
Get a little bit of a go. Why? Because I have to.