iTunes Exclusive Episode Elf The Musical

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Welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast and I still believe.
I'm just saying.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode joining me across the desk as he tends
to do is my co-host.
And a man who's not afraid to wear a pointy shoes.
He is Chad.
I am a believer myself.
Also joining us is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man who's wearing pointy shoes right now.
You may know on this fun, don't go but his mom and name him Don Ford.
I'm going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome sir.
I'm also a believer.
Exactly.
But not a believer.
It's completely different.
Whatever we do one of these special additions is usually to review something and this is no
exception.
We're going to the stage in this one for elf the musical currently playing at the
music hall at Fair Park through December the 20th as part of the 76th season of Dallas
summer musicals.
It is in town based on the film directed by John Favro and starring Will Ferrell.
Before we get it.
We have to thank the man.
The man, the legend Francis go everybody at Dallas summer musicals and everybody at
musical Hall Fair Park.
They are so wonderful to us.
Thank you Francis go for it.
Will neither confirm nor deny that he got his name into the musical.
They're trying to find name to say.
But thanks again Francis go.
We do enjoy everything at Dallas summer musical.
That's for us.
Again this is based on the film.
It was it started as a Broadway musical in 2010.
It's picked up a couple of tonial wards as the kids like to say and now it is touring
the country and it is currently in our fair bird.
Buddy the elf who's played by Will Ferrell in the film is played by Daniel Patrick Smith
here as Chad pointed out when we sat into the theater.
Not a very big cast in this.
It's pretty sparse.
I mean the ensemble is almost as big as the main cast itself.
That tells you anything.
They are busy.
That ensemble stay.
He's busy.
This is the story of Buddy the elf who is a human raised by elves at the North Pole in Santa
and one day when he finds out that he is a human.
Santa tells them that he has an adopted, he has a human father who lives in New York City.
So Buddy ventures off to find him and hilarity ensues from there.
I want to talk first of all in this particular episode about the pacing.
The first act in this musical is a little bit longer than I think we've been used to
in some of the productions we've seen.
The first act before the intermission is almost as long as the film itself.
The film itself runs about 86 minutes.
The first the intermission takes place at about the one hour 20 mark.
Yeah roughly you ever take yeah.
I thought there was one point where I thought they are going to start the intermission like
when they went down right.
Right.
And I which I thought was an interesting choice but it didn't bother me.
Now the pacing here was done very very well.
It moved along nicely.
There was no point where I was kind of like where is the chase and how can I cut to it.
This worked really well for me Chad.
Oh I agree.
I agree 100% it was I was surprised to see that that much time had gone by when the curtain
dropped.
Absolutely.
Done.
Yeah I agree on the pacing.
The second half is not in our 20 minutes where you got to let the empire know that.
But so it's a little bit shorter but that's fine.
But the pacing I thought was good.
It kept me interested in reminding me of the movie.
And then in normal normal situations and it's the norm here, Act 2 goes a lot faster than
Act 1.
Yes it does.
But it doesn't sacrifice anything.
Now done you're the only person in this particular episode that actually seen the
film.
I've never seen the film all the way through.
Chad has an aversion to Will Ferrell that is well documented on this show.
Like my Michael Cole.
So you said it stuck to the film very well.
Considering overall yes there were no big did there's some stuff in the film with
this Santa Slia is all I'm going to say without being spoiler for you.
Because I do plan on watching the film.
Yeah yeah yeah.
Where there's a lot more action you could say but yeah some things were extended because
of course this thing is longer than the film but the basic plot storyline it's pretty
close considering and I have no complaints on that at all.
My one thing and I could have put this up my written review at the clubhouse podcast.com
that's our website the lead character who plays buddy Daniel Patrick Smith yeah compared
to Will Ferrell's character he's more of a happy go village, num school, you know Will
Ferrell there's a comedy and he's a little bit more serious than but he's like
he'll he'll he'll he'll he'll he'll he'll that's one big diff that's my only
little big difference I could say now don't get me wrong about it he he's incredible
actor has seen was incredible absolutely you know but uh that would be what my biggest
differential between the two I would call which which will go ahead and segue into
performance from there.
I liked his portrayal because there was enough that you knew
like there was a will fair performance at some point.
But it wasn't so much where he was doing Will Ferrell.
That makes any sense.
Yeah.
He had enough of his own personality in it
that didn't make you go, okay, this guy's just doing Will Ferrell.
Like Will Ferrell did, that's the difference, you know.
And I liked his portrayal again.
I thought it was seeing.
Oh, yeah, absolutely magnificent.
Also, but for me, if you're, if you're going to talk
what you got to talk about, Ken Clement is Santa.
Yes, that's my, that's my highlight.
This guy made you remember that Santa's a real person
because it's this guy.
Yeah.
Like it's, and what I really liked about his portrayal,
it was an honest, he wasn't over the top, whoa, whoa, whoa,
kind of a thing.
Here's a more real life model that was Santa or Dracula,
but he was a more real life Santa.
And he was around it and what I really liked about the way
that the production was done, there's some nice little local
references that they do that don't seem shoehorned in.
It's not the, the Mick Foley cheap pop that we get in there.
There's little things put in there that make you go,
oh, I see what you did there right here in Richard's.
Yeah, I just, I thought that he did an amazing
job, even for the limited amount of time that he was really
in it because he was really in the beginning and he's in like a
little bit at the end, but I think he almost steals the thing.
Yeah, if you go, my rune v at the clubhouse podcast.com,
which is our website.
He is one of my two shining stars.
He is incredible.
My other guy is the Michael Fisher, his former,
I read your review, which is at www.theclubhousepodcast.com,
which is our website.
I loved him as the store manager.
I thought his attitude that the character well, I loved
his singing.
I just, he reminded me, he reminded me a lot of
original Del Johnson, all that was missing was some
Twinkies.
Yeah, policeman's uniform.
And Erkel.
I mean, I thought, I really, really liked him.
I thought he played a really, you was my favorite and a whole thing.
I don't know that I outside of Santa because I thought
everybody did a really job, but if I had to pick my
favorite, it was him.
Maggie Anderson as Jovi, the love interest, I thought they
had really, really good.
That was a great chemistry.
Yeah.
You have two different people playing his younger brother, Michael.
You have Harper Brady and Nikki Torcia.
I'm not sure which one we saw, but the young man that played
him did a very, very good job.
The only thing that he kind of rushed things a little bit
sometimes in his singing, words got a little jumbled
sometimes because of it.
And he got a little lucky with his choreography.
I did notice that a little bit.
But I thought he did a good job overall.
I also really enjoyed Gabrielle Mirabella playing Emily.
The stepmother to buddy.
She brought a real kind of no pun intended here, a human element
to that character that I really dug.
And you really got the feeling that she cared about her son
and wasn't really sure about buddy.
Walter played by D. Scott Widders, really enjoyed him as well.
I mean, really this whole cast worked really, really well.
And some people played multiple roles.
Sometimes they were, sometimes they were an elf.
Sometimes, you know, like I said, I'm fishery.
He played like one of the sanders at the end and kind of things.
So a lot of these people, the wardrobe people in the back,
they were busy.
And what I really, really dug to from a technical aspect,
this is a fairly simple production.
You're not getting lasers and you're not getting bouncy balls
and you're not getting elaborate set pieces.
Yeah, in the set, they have very simplistic.
They get this really simple and almost technicolor.
But I like what they did with this.
Oh yeah, I'm saying I liked it a lot.
Yeah, I had a fixed story really well.
Like I had to take Kacey vibe to the color palette.
Almost.
But what they used is basically like curtains that were
our backdrop curtains and they, how were they able to go from scene
to scene to scene very good by just having a lift to curtain.
But the artwork on those things were incredible.
They did a really, really good job.
I could tell they were curtains, but it's like man,
that looks like a building.
They've been the great actual set pieces that were used
were moved on and off very smoothly.
There wasn't any weirdness to the transition
from scene to scene, which I also really dug.
Anything else that we want to talk about?
Because I mean, there's, there's not really much
that you can say that we can't praise about this production.
I mean, at first of all, it's December.
It's the holiday season itself.
It's Christmas.
I thought the mix of the music and the singing
did not drown out of each other.
I agree.
Absolutely.
Lighting was good.
Of course, it is a call fair park here in something
and they're you.
It's incredible.
Great, great orchestra.
Oh, yeah.
They worked with and they had the sound.
There was one little piece where one of the microphones went out.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That was times actually.
But what they had over all, they handled the good one.
They handled it very, very well.
Very professional.
And I, you know, I always look to that point
of in the beginning that you have that balance of music
and vocal that worked really well.
All of the cast members that were doing all the costume
changes and doing the different roles.
I thought everything was top notch here.
One thing, oh, I just lost it.
I'm sorry.
That's OK.
Oh, it's good for the entire family.
Absolutely.
Great, it's a great fit.
Look at the film's a family film.
Yeah.
Any fails we want to talk about before we get to the final analysis?
I got to give a prop also to Audra Quali who played Deb, the office manager.
Oh, yes.
She cracked me up.
She was good.
She reminded me of Denny from Dream on a little bit.
Oh, I'm a big deep on you.
The whole time I'm watching her, I'm thinking,
she, this is the kind of role that Edie McClurg would have played
in the mid 80s when she finds the pencil in her hair.
Exactly.
And besides, I figured you would have loved her, don't you?
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
A steeler, Spain.
Yeah, she's a big steer, Spain.
Oh, she's a big steer, Spain.
It's pergnated.
So you're right up.
All right.
And yes, we should.
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.
We don't give you stars.
We don't give you a 1 to 10 ranking or audience who we affectionately
refer to as the empire is better than that.
Here's what's going to happen.
I'm going to ask you gentlemen, two questions.
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, since this is a Broadway stage production,
we're not going to ask how far they're willing to go.
I want to know if you see it again, where do you want to sit?
Because that's going to dictate how much they enjoyed this film.
Chalice, sorry, or this production.
Chalice, sorry with you.
Oh, yeah, it's easy to get.
OK.
How far you want to go?
How much will you play?
I would love to sit right where we sat.
Where we sat was staged, staged, right?
Just a little bit past center.
Right.
About two thirds of the way back in the lower section.
That was fun.
Anywhere within the more just seats.
Yeah.
No complaints here at all.
Done.
Which is again?
Yes.
Where do you want to sit?
I would say the upper floor, the back part of the floor.
OK, behind the big aisle.
Yeah, right behind the big right in the front part there.
I'm closer to where we're done.
I would definitely see this again.
It's very, very enjoyable.
I kind of like that back row right before the aisle.
Yeah.
Sitting that center section and you get a really good view of the entire stage.
But anywhere you sit with this is going to be a great seat.
And we're not what it's supposed to call it fair park, which was an amazing place
to see a show.
Number two, this isn't one of those shows that if you're off to the side, you're
going to miss stuff.
Everything's right there for you.
I guess I'm really a fan of that back row, because you had to worry about hitting the
knees of the people.
Yeah.
It's a fair point.
Yeah.
Friends, that's what we are not complaining.
Thank you so much for the invite to tell us about everybody at Dallas, summer musicals.
They take care of us on a level that they don't have to musical fair park really enjoy
everything they do for us.
Anything else?
That should do it.
All right.
Let's get to the plugs.
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And Julia's one look looks like she had a good time at this.
She really did.
She really did.
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So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the Empire.
I am Rob.
Brittany Palmer, I'll take you at an elf costume or a Mrs. Clause.
I'm good either way.
Listen to me people.
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