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colemckenzies · 11 months

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Groundhog Day Musical, West End 2023

after six years i finally saw my favourite musical of all time in person 🥰🥰 so here is my write up of the staging, lyric changes, general commentary etc.

it's worth noting that i imagine the staging is more similar to its original west end run than the broadway version, but i didn't see it back then and couldn't find any footage so I'll just be comparing to the broadway ver. it will also all be based off of the One west end performance i saw and One broadway performance that was filmed cus yk live theatre and all that. i'm also only one person so this def won't be comprehensive. if there's anything you particularly want to know that i haven't mentioned please ask!!

for major overarching changes, there was no turntable which significantly affected the staging, especially for songs like night will come. it's also a much smaller space and much more condensed cast than on broadway.

anyway without further ado lets go woodchuck chuckers 😎 in chronological order

the opening video is completely changed. rather than showing phil interacting w his producer, it just shows his forecast segment in full. he explains more about what groundhog day is as a holiday and that this is his fourth year attending. also includes the line 'we can't all have good weather because we're not all good people'. banner along the bottom read 'up next music: white wine in the snow' as a little tim minchin ref :)

only one person sang the 'i was born on a punxutawney dawn' opening section of there will be sun, pretty sure it was buster. lot of solos for the rest of the song as well but not specific townspeople i think

everyone came out of the mist as in broadway version, but everyone was dressed in the top hat costume. they stood a line across the stage and took a group selfie w a selfie stick

phil turns off the radio after 'that's right woodchuck chuckers, it's groundhog day' so there's none of the subsequent lyrics/banter. i'm also 90% sure the radio recording was from the soundtrack

FIRST LYRIC CHANGE. there's an extra line in day one that goes 'their dumb superstitions and vacuous chat, their total unawareness of the fact their trapped, perhaps you don't miss it if you don't know you lack it, I'm sure there was a pack of xanax in this jacket' (EDIT - thank you for the correction @jackhkeynes )

^not a huge fan of this change tbh but only bc the original rhythm is one of my favourite parts of the song.

there's no hallway in the b&b, the kitchen set is the back end of the bedroom set. this means jonathan is downstairs the kitchen rather than meeting phil in the hallway, so the scene ends up as him, phil, and mrs lancaster. the tourist couple do not come in (or exist), mrs lancaster says the popsicle line.

there's a couple of extra new jokes in the dialogue. lmk if you want to know specifics lol

since mrs lancaster comes straight into this scene they skip the 'think i'll lose it all together' little bit of music

all the dancers are part of the marching band and they all join for the selfie with phil

phil getting hit in the head by the groundhog guy is because the hot dog guy (here played by one of the newsies i saw LOL) yells 'GO PHIL!!!' every time so the groundhog turns around to wave

buster uses an alt melody for his announcement - 'prognostication' goes down rather than up for the last note

they get punxsy phil out on the 'this brown log' line, so they skip the 'the finest specimen you will find' section

nancy sings the 'kinda both but not quite either' line over buster, which i actually really like because she does it in this really peppy cheerleader :DDD way that adds to her being a Prop. she even has pompoms.

wilbur in this version is sooooo good he's a lot more physical and really leans into his megaphone

when phil comes back from the blizzard rita seems a lot more genuinely concerned about him than just laughing

she accidentally orders her drink with a 'tryst' before 'kiss' and finally 'twist'

NEW LYRICS in day two - since there's no radio chatter in this version, after 'how many days is this holiday?' phil sings '[something] clearly failed to mention the owner showing signs of early onset dementia, one groundhog day is surely more than enough, even hicks must get sick of this stuff'

rest of the song continues as normal, again rita seems more concerned about phil, shouts 'maybe i can help!' when he leaves the diner

she then sings her diary section quite differently, like alt melody AND alt rhythm, she seems flustered

actually she also has a lot more variation between days than a lot of the townspeople, like she's more responsive to phil acting differently

LYRIC CHANGE in stuck - 'rhino foreskin' is now 'monkey foreskin'. lyric changes that push me dangerously close to googling 'do rhinos have foreskin' (EDIT - tim apparently said this was because white rhinos went extinct so it made him sad - thank u anon!)

the enema takes place behind a screen, a bit like the silhouette technique used for the shower in hope

at the end of stuck when everyone lists their thing again (karma/toxins/etc), phil says no!! after each one until alcohol and then he goes 'oh thank god'

nothing hugely notable to say for nobody cares, just that it skipped over some of the dialogue at the beginning just to make the scene tighter. i will say that ralph and gus are Exceptional in this version

the staging is mostly the same, except jack and wilbur get their own little cars to follow the truck in :)

in philandering, phil tells nancy he's a war correspondant rather than working for the nyt

again the dialogue throughout the song is a lot more streamlined

the little pillow fight section is replaced by a party in phil's room where you just see everyone going in and out of the door that's set up like when he slept w nancy. he gets his big fur coat from a coke dealer.

in one day, rita doesn't comment on phil's choice of drink, so there's nothing about 'frou frou lady drinks', she just orders right after him and the day restarts

not a new thing but. i forgot about the soixante neuf line and it made me choke

rita and phil sit on a bench to the side of the stage after the snowball fight, not on the floor

joelle's voice is extremely pretty in this ver:) I think the harmony may be slightly different?

LYRIC CHANGE. in arguably the most bizarre lyric change, jonathan is no longer addicted to fried chicken takeaway, but rather camembert. which you may notice does not rhyme with 'day'. the full line is: 'one day, i swear, i'll kick my addiction to camembert. my doctor said one day my heart will stop beatin', if i don't ease off this cheese eatin'.' (EDIT - changed due to this track being played by a black actor, though the one i saw was white - thank you anon!)

the diner waitress doesn't exist in this cut down cast, so it's debbie who can't sing. fred is very supportive :)

something cool they do in lieu of the turntable is for Larry's repeated 'ok phil we're on in 5...' they have multiple larrys, similar to the body doubling in hope, who keep running up to phil and fading away

ACT TWO

the act opens slightly differently - since nancy is kind of part of the marching band in this ver (tho not in full uniform), it opens with a quick section of who is that! who is that? emerging from his burrow -. nancy sings her 'kinda both but not quite either' line, and then drops one of her pompoms on 'until we hear it from old punxsutawney -' and then as she goes to pick it up that music stops and playing nancy begins

LOVE that it cuts off just before 'phil' bc it has the same effect as even choosing to open w playing nancy anyway. she was an incredible nancy as well she's not got many credits yet but oh my god? this was so striking and moving irl and it's already one of my favourite choices of the show

there's a lot more use of Red Lighting when phil kills phil. rip.

staging for hope is almost exactly the same, but minus turntable, so it doesn't have the part where lots of Not Phils are dying simultaneously, just the three main deaths

the scene where phil exposits about everyone in the diner goes jeff -> debbie -> freddie. there's a great exchange that goes 'you're welcome jeff.' / 'do you two know each other?' / 'no???' / 'that's jeff.'

also phil doesn't insist debbie wants a diamond (since she ends up w a doorknob anyway), he just goes CLOSE THE DEAL FREDDIE!!!

since this version establishes this is phil's fourth year covering ghd and debbie and fred met on ghd four years ago, there's a pretty good reason why they're such big fans of him :)

not a difference but the 'i'll never have a birthday' line always hits so hard

if i had my time again is THE single most different song between versions. the musical arrangement is quite different to my ear, different harmonies, and there's alt melodies and rhythms as well as some extra lyrics

as i have already seen noted on tumblr, 'and one dude when i was bored' has been upgraded to SOME dudes. also rita goes 'sure..!' she's like ok u bi bitch. also they're still on the benches at this point but she's jumped onto his.

even when they are on the move there's none of the stuff w the townspeople hounding phil for photos/autographs, they're just hanging out

the section where phil 'shows Rita his hometown' has actually been moved to near the end of the show, so they just get on the tilt-a-whirl immediately. also they share a car rather than having separate ones.

the staging for this part was so beautiful it actually made me cry lol. w strings of lights coming down

LYRIC CHANGE - 'i daily eat a dozen donuts' is now 'i eat a dozen donuts every day'

FURTHERMORE, the second 'why' is actually directed at rita's 'i would learn piano', and she replies by singing 'why?? I'd just give everything a try' and then their 'these revolving rides' section is a completely different tune going into a brand new ending where she's lying on his bed and he has a balloon, with:

NEW LYRICS - rita: 'go to all the parties that i missed, kiss all the boys i was too afraid to kiss (why am i not surprised you have a list?), try to have more days that end like.. this :)'

the next couple of scenes play out as in the bway ver

the order of vignettes leading up to and in night will come are switched - phil brings jenson the thermos of soup on the second day and takes him to the hospital on the third day as the song begins, with the scene w the nurse taking place after the first verse

obviously the staging is quite different without the turntable, ned wanders about between verses and then stands still/sits to sing

ned has a lot more of an 'annoying' exaggerated nasally voice in this ver

in his post-song broadcast, phil pronounces 'phi' like 'fee' instead of 'fie'

in philanthropy, phil saves jonathan from choking rather than the tourist, which does end up feeling a bit random since he also gives mrs lancaster a new coffee pot in this song iirc so along with the sheriff and debbie it's established he's solving the problems from 'one day', and jonathan is clearly Not choking on camembert lmao

the singer at the party at the end is debbie!!!

during seeing you, when phil takes rita up to the observation deck, she calls it 'romantic' sarcastically after the toilets/garbage/etc, and then That's when he points out the duck pond, school etc, and she says it's like he's showing her his hometown

MORNING OF FEBRUARY 3RD EVEN MORE DEVASTATING FROM THIRD ROW OF STALLS.

ending is the broadway one, watching the sunrise :) except it's just phil and rita and no one else

so yeah IT FUCKED andy karl I would die for you. as i say lmk if you have any other questions and i will do my best :)

#groundhog day musical #ghd musical #groundhog day 2023 #groundhog day west end #andy karl #groundhog Day

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larielmusic · 1 year

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Yep, it’s February 2nd, 2023, Groundhog Day! And I’d like to take this opportunity to share about one of my favorite movies of all time, Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, on its 30-year(!) anniversary.

The film, known as an “existential comedy” by the great Harold Ramis, is now considered by most theologians to be one of the great depictions of a universal spiritual lesson - what the hell are we doing here, what is our purpose, and when do we achieve enlightenment? To Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors, it means having to live the same day over and over until he finally gets it right.

There's a popular phrase in 12-step rooms - "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." There are innumerable ways and means in which I was the Phil Connors in my own life story, reliving the same experience over and over, furious and terrified and bewildered as hell, wondering why nothing was changing.

So, throughout my life as a creative, in order to pay rent and live, I would take these office jobs. It was the quintessential day job, trying to strike the perfect balance of little responsibility (entry level) and no demand (I'm not spending one fucking minute after 5PM at this bitch.) Because, I AM AN ARTIST. I don't have time for you people. I would look down my nose at the other workers, the interns, and of course the bosses, privilege and contempt dripping from my pores. You dare to ask me to wipe down the conference table or order lunch? I graduated magna cum laude! I studied Shakespeare, assholes! And, the years would pass and those interns would turn into my next bosses (meetings may be temporary but kale salad orders are forever.)

Sometimes I would try and pull a geographic - I'd quit the job in a dramatic fashion (oh, please, who am I kidding - I'd give a month's notice because I was sooooo indispensable), start looking at grad school applications in other states, or even move across the country. But somehow, no matter where I went, there I was - somehow with the same job, the same boss, the same misery and giant ol' chip on my shoulder getting ever heavier.

But what about your creative endeavors, you ask? Didn't you focus your energy and attention to working on your craft, using every possible free moment, each available cellular unit of energy, to create? That would be a giant fucking NOPE. Instead, I just became obsessed in the pursuit of it, much like Phil Connors' pursuit of Rita.

Just like Phil memorizing French poetry, I thought maybe if I KNEW all about the music industry, then I could finally break free of my self-imposed eternal prison. I turned into one of those annoying people you meet at cocktail parties, spouting expertise and blabbing about all the current trends in music, etc (I even made a podcast!). But to actually sit down at the keyboard and create??? Oh HELL no. My art was placed on such an insanely high pedestal, adrift in the waves of "if onlys" and "somedays" that it became the Moby Dick to my Captain Ahab, somewhere out there in mystical perfection, my hopes of ever finding it getting dimmer by the day.

Once Phil realizes that he can't escape this eternal day loop, the wheels come off and he starts acting out, in fun ways that eventually turn dark. For me, faced with my endless loop, It was far easier to "get busy dying," to quote my other favorite movie. Just stay in the shit, endlessly complain about this boss or that stupid-ass project, eat and drink away any notion of taking personal responsibility for my circumstances, and find whatever distraction I could* to relieve the anguish that I was a failure, a joke, a victim of life's cruel sense of humor. (*dive bars, Netflix binges and doom scrolling are a few favorites of mine)

So, what's the turning point, the solution, to all of this? For Phil, it's coming to terms with the fact that there is no solution. He's tried everything, including several creative ways to off himself, but he keeps waking up at the same time, in the same place, every day. He's had to let go of the illusion that he could control anything, least of all the possibility of a tomorrow.

He starts to poke around the walls of his self-imposed prison and starts taking a sincere interest in his fellow cell mates. He learns how to play piano (nice one, Phil!) He learns ice sculpture. In addition to self-improvement, he becomes a friend, a counselor, a comfort and a support to everyone in the town - a George Bailey of Punxsutawney, if you will. He learns to love without any expectation of return. And he tries to make each day, each "same" day, the best day of his life.

So, have I personally achieved Phil Connors' Nirvana? Um, no, because my life is not a movie. Have I been inspired and humbled by Groundhog Day? God, yes. When I stop and think about it, some of the coolest people, the smartest people, the most thoughtful and creative people I have ever met in La-la land were from these office jobs. Some of my most enduring friendships have come from office jobs. So much kindness and generosity came from the very people I resented - the bosses who asked about my music, came to a show, donated to my tip jar, championed me and protected me from far worse outcomes and possible destitution that I never realized until much later. Saved my ass, basically, and asked for nothing in return.

“Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.” – Ai Weiwei Being an artist is tough. For whatever reason we have to support our art, sometimes over several lifetimes, until it can support us. However, the jewels of inspiration are in the fabric of the every day, the life we are living in this very moment. Sure, I'd rather be inspired by the whitewashed walls of Rick Rubin's studio than the gray matte fabric of an office cubicle, but life's what you make it, with the tools you've been given. To quote Phil Connors, "I think people place too much emphasis on their careers. I wish we could all live in the mountains at high altitude. That's where I see myself in five years. How about you?"

#groundhog day #punxsutawney phil #groundhog day 2023 #groundhog day movie #bill murray #phil connors #harold ramis #spiritual enlightenment #spiritual lesson #spiritual awakening #art #creative #creative life #musician

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