Jim Steinman - Dance Of The Vampires (2002 Preview Version Act 2 - Minskoff Theatre Live Recording)

1 Introduction Act 2
2 Vampires in Love
3 The Castle
4 Books, Books!
5 Carpe Noctem
6 For Sarah
7 Bedroom
8 Something to kill our Time
9 Coffins
10 Death is such an odd Thing reprise
11 Herbert
12 When Love is inside you
13 Sarah's room
14 Eternity
15 Graveyard
16 Confessions of a Vampire
17 Minuett
18 Never be enough
19 Flight
20 Braver than we are reprise
21 The Dance of the Vampires
Creative Team
Music:Jim Steinman
Lyrics:Jim Steinman
Book:Michael Kunze, David Ives, Jim Steinman
Director:John Rando
Choreography:John Carrafa
Costumes:Ann Hould-Ward
Lighting:Ken Billington
Music Supervisor:Michael Reed
Setting:David Gallo
Orchestrations:Steve Margoshes
Cast
Graf Von Krolock:Michael Crawford
Sarah:Mandy Gonzales
Alfred:Max Von Essen
Professor Abronsius:Rene Auberjonois
Magda:Leah Hocking
Chagal:Ron Orbach
Rebecca:Liz McCartney
Herbert:Asa Somers
Boris:Mark Price
Nadja:E. Alyssa Claar
Zsa-Zsa:Erin Leigh Peck
Madame Von krolock:Dame Edith Shorthouse
The show started previews after technological and creative delays at the Minskoff Theatre on October 18, 2002. Initially, the seemingly final result was an altered version with a lot of campy humor that differed considerably from the original show. Although the show initially went well in sales based on Crawford's name (for a time, the show played to packed houses in previews, and was in fourth place in terms of high-selling Broadway grosses without even having officially opened), the humor received some laughter and much criticism.
An attempt was made at arriving at a comfortable middle between the "two shows at war with each other," and original author Kunze was finally consulted for his opinion of what should be changed (far too late, in his view). Ultimately, thanks ironically to the German author of the original piece, the show arrived at much of its final form: during previews, 30% of the dialogue was cut to allow room to expand the score and arrive closer to the original almost sung-through concept; the vampire costumes were redesigned to look less freakish; a new staging of the shock ending set in modern times suggested by Kunze was inputted. Other suggestions, such as cutting a new dramatic death scene for the Count and restoring some of the original German lyrics, met with more dissension, and Kunze withdrew those suggestions, not wishing to cause any trouble. On a lighter note, entertainment mogul Howard Stringer, a friend of Crawford's, rang the final death knell for the weight-hiding costumes by telling Crawford he looked silly; from that point forward, the ruffled collars were gone.
Those major changes aside, the show seen in previews was still in flux, and a show that changed huge amounts of its material nightly, which caused some trouble with the cast. Crawford was regularly changing his dialogue and inserting his own jokes, testing the strength of the material, to the point that co-star René Auberjonois became paranoid about all of his jokes being cut, and the two of them began trying to step on each other's punchlines.By the time of opening, however, this mutual tomfoolery seemed to have been reined in; producer Bob Boyett had no complaints about Crawford's behavior, calling him "a great star and a total professional" and saying that he "didn't find him to be difficult at all." Another unfortunate side-effect of the changing material was that with Steinman out of the picture, there was no one around to write new lyrical material as necessary in some cases, and so the English version (of necessity) borrowed a lot of new material from Steinman's lyrics for the previous English versions of what songs were recycled in the show.

[@Zedela123]

My goodness, this preview is so much better! More of a serious atmosphere! The closest it'll get to the german production.✨️👌

[@EntertainmentFilms26]

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