Longtime readers of this blog will know that i kind of get a bug up my ass about Celebrity Casting, in particular Hollywood-Stage-Dilettante-Casting on Broadway (Jennifer Garner, Katie Holmes and Julia Roberts being the sort of Unholy Trinity of this).
The latest revival of Guys 'n' Dolls has me thinking about all of this again in that the producers seems to have really missed the boat vis-a-vis celebrity casting. It seems to me the goal of Celebrity Casting is to generate Press and Ticket Sales that will be independent of the quality of the show itself. Therefore, you want like a Big Name. If you can't get (or heaven forbid don't want) a Celebrity Name Person, then casting someone who is a Big Name in theatrical circles becomes the priority. (John Waters quip on the Daily Show about how when a musical opens, it's filled with theatre stars and then as its run gets longer its eventually stuffed with rejects from American Idol seems apropos here). Theatre Stars of course have the added benefit of actually having proven skills at performing on stage.
So here's where I think the producers of G+D missed the boat... Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham don't really fall into either category. Neither of them are Huge Stars and neither of them are in that eschalon of really-well-respected-and-liked theatre performers. It seems like a really odd choice to me. I have no idea how well they'll do in the show (although advance word ain't great) but from a commercial producer stand point it seems weird.
Of course, I think that they are reviving G+D again while the memory of Nathan Lane and Faith Prince will be still lingering in reviewer's minds is a pretty strange decision anyway.
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