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City Of Angels review



This musical possesses 6 Tony Awards and 5 nominations (incl. best musical, best actor & best libretto); 8 Drama Desk Awards & 4 nominations; 1 Edgar Allan Poe Award; Three Laurence Olivier Awards and seven nominations. It, however, had its biggest success on Broadway, where it lasted almost 900 performances.

In the West End, in spite of the many awards and nominations from there, it hadn’t managed to gain the successful box office – it lasted there for 4 months only. Maybe the reason for that was a convoluted plot and sugary ending, which negates all the developments of a storyline along the plot. However, according to one version of the musical producers, on its failure in the West End has influenced not weak storyline, but economic downturn and falling of public interest in musicals, including a decrease in the proportion of wit minds of the audience in the total mass of spectators. Hey, producers, do you believe yourself in the articulated reasons? You have a bunch of awards for it and these reasons are too subtle, to be able to hide behind them. Plot, in which reality and fiction are intertwined, can seem so complicated that even the audience from West End has decided not to devote time watching it.

However, this is only one possible view of the reasons for its failure, because in USA it had good – about 900 hits – success that has given work to many people involved in its production for 3 years, from 1989 to 1992. Successful national tour only confirms this. Perhaps the reworking of the story that took place in 1992 has been ambiguous. Is it possible that because of it, the audience on the other side of the ocean turned out to be immune to the vicissitudes of the plot where reality and the inner world of a man intertwined with his illusions? This is one of detective stories, where the plot appeared flat and uninteresting, many things are not explained but served on a plate as obvious and inalienable. As if this was a movie where the plot worked out so badly that it had to be masked behind the acting.

Thanks to a very successful promotional campaign of its producers, the musical’s tickets were sold at USD 18 thousand, and the total fees for the premiere were UDS 0.3 million. Although the opening day turned out not absolutely successful – the reviews were mixed. However, there were much more positive ones. Critics agreed that music, nice mixture of jazz and pop, very profitably emphasizes story and infects the viewer with a positive mood, as well as nourishes the line of narration with smooth transitions that allows this creation to be a soft mixture of comedy and detective where an invention is an integral part of real.
Last Update:April, 06th 2016

City Of Angels Lyrics

  1. Act 1
  2. Prologue
  3. Double Talk
  4. What You Don't Know About Women
  5. You Gotta Look Out For Yourself
  6. The Buddy System
  7. With Every Breath I Take
  8. The Tennis Song
  9. Ev'rybody's Gotta Be Somewhere
  10. Lost And Found
  11. All You Have To Do Is Wait
  12. You're Nothing Without Me
  13. Act 2
  14. Stay With Me
  15. You Can Always Count On Me
  16. Alaura's Theme
  17. It Needs Work
  18. L.A. Blues
  19. With Every Breath I Take-Duet
  20. Funny
  21. I'm Nothing Without You
  22. Epilogue

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