King Kong to Broadway in 2018

Savage is a great description. They really are brutal. Makes for great reading.

They are complete jerks . And mostly worng (see what i did there). They keep randomly attacking me

Yes exactly. And this video is then projected onto the back wall.

To clarify:
Green Screen technique works when you have two layers of video, one on top of the other. One with lots of Green in it, on the top layer. You then subtract the green channel from the video signal of the top layer creating an invisible channel allowing the video underneath the show though.
There is no way to do this with the human eye.
Projectors work by shining red, green and blue light at a surface. If you were to project the resulting video (say just blue and red channels as you have 'removed' all the green) onto a screen, no matter what colour, you would just be projecting the red and blue video. If someone stood in front of the screen wearing green, they would just appear there normal with the red and blue signal projected on them.
My ability to coherently explain this isn't great, but if your able to, watch a video on youtube on how green screen works.

Well tonight was the night I watched this. When the show was originally announced, it was certainly on my list of shows to get a ticket for while in NY, with some excitement that ticket was purchased for the Mezz section of the theatre as I thought I would get a better perspective higher up than being at stage level. Ok, ticket purchased, sit back and wait. Then I read the early reviews on the Broadway World site which were not exactly filling me with much joy. Had I made a mistake in getting a ticket?

Well, as a visual spectacle, you cannot fault what is on stage. It is simply mind blowing over the 2.5hrs. You get plenty of projections, smoke and lasers for your money. The projections used really are fantastic and are used to set the different scenes in the show rather than actual sets (though there are some used). Though there is one effect early on which cleverly uses the stage which is very impressive. Then we come to the main event, Kong himself. WOW! As a puppet, I thought watching how they did War Horse on stage was great, but this is on a totally different level. While you know there are people operating the puppet to bring him to life, you forget that they are there, the movements created by the guys at stage level and those up in the stage balcony operating the ropes create something truly magical in being able to bring Kong to life and give him a range of emotions. It’s only when you see Kong standing up do you get an idea on how big this puppet is and the effort it must take to create the movements.

Now with respect to the musical score, this really is in my opinion not particularly great. It certainly isn’t a score that when I walked out of the theatre it was one that blew me away or that I would want to listen to again. For me, there weren’t that many numbers that I thought were memorable. It didn’t help with there being a range of styles from 1930s jazz numbers some more rock style ballards. Also, a lot of the music used is more incidental music rather than your traditional musical score. The first Act numbers really did nothing for me, while in Act 2, there where the more modern style of music with a couple of decent songs. As other people have said, most people are going for the spectacle rather than the music. It will be interesting to read the reviews to see what the critics make of the musical score.

As for the cast, Christiani Pitts as Ann Darrow plays the role well, giving the character a bit more of a feisty edge rather than your tradional damsel in distress that is portrayed in the films. Vocally, I cannot fault her performance tonight, particularly in the rockier Act 2 songs. I just wished we had had a bit more of that in Act 1. Eric William MorrIs as Carl Denham came across well as the scheming film producer and vocally was ok, but nothing special. At the bows at the end, it was nice to see the guys operating Kong getting a chance for the audience to show their appreciation.

A big shoutout to the FOH staff, they were certainly lively tonight having to deal with those people who felt the need to record parts of the show. Though the staff did that with minimal disruption to the rest of the audience.

Overall, was it worth the ticket price? Definitely.

I have a contender for my favourite review line of the year "green spaghetti with phlegm balls."

That review is actually more creative than the show it appears! 

i would love to see the show

Eddie has had a less then 'perfect' reviews recently. Will he be used in the future?

I have a ticket booked for February, but suspect it won't survive until then. Shame - I missed Dance of the Vampires, although did catch The Pirate Queen. I like an occasional car crash show - makes you appreciate the good stuff more - and also encourages me to take a chance on Off Broadway/West End/Fringe shows, where you often find better quality and more enjoyment (not that it stops me going to see big overblown shows as well, of course!)

King Kong's performance on the Macy's thanksgiving parade took a lot of mystery sirounding the puppet away for me but, the performance probably sold some tickets to the regular tourist audience.

I've seen on the Broadway World message board that someone knows someone "in the know" who has said this will be closing by the end of Winter. Obviously it's hear say and we learn not to listen, but it wouldn't surprise me considering the expense of it!