Coraline musical to play in San Francisco

Stephin Merritt's Coraline musical will play at the San Francisco Playhouse.

*Buy Coraline toys at Amazon.

Photos from the Coraline Musical opening night part (and more)

First, a photo gallery from the opening night party for the MCC Theater's Coraline musical. Pictured is January LaVoy.



Second, go here for a desktop wallpaper featuring Nike Coraline Dunks.

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Two more reviews of Coraline the muscial

Two more reviews of the MCC Theater's Coraline musical:

1. John Soltes:

It works, for a bit. Then the experiment begins to feel tedious. The differences between the real world and the other world are small — this new world doesn't feel escapist in any sense, except for three neon lights. The pianos, too, begin to cause one's teeth to grate. And eventually what began as clever becomes mundane, for all the tricks up the creators' sleeves have been already been showcased.

2. David Kennerley:

The momentum, and the magic, cannot be sustained, stalling about an hour into this 90-minute, intermissionless production. Atmosphere chokes the narrative; the gleeful whimsy grows stale.

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MCC Theatre's Coraline musical reviews

Three reviews of the MCC Theater's Coraline musical. The NY Times review was definitely the most kind.

1. NY Daily News: "It's naggingly repetitive and, at 90 minutes, long outstays its welcome."

2. Reuters: "Book writer David Greenspan's adaptation is choppy and disjointed, failing to compellingly capture the source material's narrative tension and making the evening feel much longer than the 100-minute running time."

3. NY Times: "the droll, dry and very cerebral production . . . is less like a full-bodied show than the idea of one."

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Photos from the MCC Theater's Coraline Musical

Go here for a Coraline musical photo gallery. Pictured: David Greenspan as Coraline's Other Mother.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Lots of positive reviews of the Coraline musical (and more)

1. Variety has an article about the MCC Theater's Coraline musical:

The instruments -- uprights, grands, baby grands, toys -- are all things to all performers. Chen plays them, Coraline's nameless cat friend (Julian Fleisher) perches sarcastically on them, and when the actors need noises like creaking doors or scurrying rats, they use everything from the scraped strings to drumsticks on the keys as Foley. The resulting atmosphere is so scary that reactions from kids in the audience range from thrilled to worried.

2. Here's three positive reviews of the Coraline musical on Twitter.

3. Elementary school kids draw Coraline book covers.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Video of the Coraline musical (and more)

1. One of the toys exclusively available at San Diego San Diego Comic Con, July 22-26, will be Coraline in Star Spangled Sweater:

This special edition figure of Coraline from Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman's hit stop motion film features a brand new outfit and facial expression not available anywhere else. Coraline also sports a fully poseable bendable doll body and articulation at the neck, wrists and boots, and comes with a doll stand for display.

$20. Look closely, even the toy they used for the photo had the paint rubbed off its nose.

2. Finally, go here to see video footage of the MCC Theater's Coraline Musical. Yes, you'll see Jayne Houdyshell as Coraline.

*Buy Coraline posters at eBay.

Review of the Coraline musical (and more)

Go here for overall negatives reviews of the MCC Theater's Coraline musical. (Praise for Jayne Houdyshell as Coraline, however.)

And go here to bid on some signed memorabilia from the musical.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Photos of the Coraline musical set

Vanity Fair has photos of some of the 35 pianos that star in the MCC Theater's Coraline musical.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Stephen Merritt continues to try to discourage people from seeing the Coraline musical

Here's another long interview with Stephen Merritt about the Coraline musical. Not too likely exchanges like this will convince anyone on the fence to buy a ticket:

D: Casting the very adult Jayne Houdyshell as the 9-year-old Coraline is also a very bold choice.

SM: Her 9-year-old girl is not remotely convincing, of course, on one level. She doesn’t look like a 9-year-old girl and she doesn’t sound like a 9-year-old girl. But you completely forget that she isn’t a 9-year-old girl after watching for a little while. It’s so odd. And then when she stops acting, you have to suddenly wake up and remember that she is, in fact, your pal Jayne. And that she has an American accent.

Read more along those lines here.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

One more Coraline box (and more)

If I understand this right, one last unique Coraline box was received - - but the woman it was intended for died of illness. So her husband has it to remember her by. Via.

Relatedly, considering they have Blogspot and Tumblr blogs and a Twitter feed, the MCC Theater sure has managed to say nothing about the Coraline musical. (I can't comment on the podcasts since I haven't listened to them.) Interesting tactic.

*Buy Coraline posters at eBay.

"I had a fantasy of doing Coraline entirely naked, so there would be no children in the audience."

An article in The Village Voice about the Coraline musical starts:

"When I am dictator," intones Stephin Merritt in his distinctive dour baritone, "compulsive homosexuality will remove the problem of children. Soon, I will be dictator. Until then, small children should not come to Coraline."

Lots more along those lines here.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

A bit more information about MCC Theater's Coraline musical

I've still seen and heard almost nothing about MCC Theater's Coraline musical, which starts on Thursday, but here's a video featuring David Greenspan, Jayne Houdyshell, Stephin Merritt, and Leigh Silverman speaking about it.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Stephin Merrit interview (and more)

Go here for an interview with Coraline songwriter Stephin Merrit, including this fun exchange:

Do you have a favorite character in “Coraline”?
Mr. Bobo. [He]'s a crazy old man who runs the mouse circus. Our actor Elliot Villar rolls his Rs both backwards and forwards, which is something I've never heard before. So I've written a song in which he can roll his Rs backwards and forwards.

Also, here's some bug furniture concept art from the movie.

*Buy Coraline Dunks at eBay.

Is Jack Skellington in Coraline? (news roundup)

1. Jack Skellington makes a cameo in James and the Giant Peach and Henry Selick says, "I can’t admit this for legal reasons, but Jack might be in every film I’ve done."

2. Neil Gaiman says "it's the opening night party [of the Coraline musical] that'll be webcast, not the opening night."

3. Stephin Merritt, David Greenspan, Leigh Silverman, and "others" involved in the Coraline musical will participate in a talk April 21st with various journalists. The event will include a public performance of one of Coraline's songs by Merritt.

*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

Opening night of the Coraline musical to be broadcast on the web?

Opening night of the MCC Theater's production of the Coraline musical is set for Monday, June 1 at 7:00 P.M., and apparently will be "broadcast streaming via Blip.tv."

You can listen to samples of some of the songs here.

*Buy Coraline keys at eBay.

Coraline Musical podcast

I haven't listened to them yet, but the MCC Theater has started posting podcasts to promote its Coraline musical. Maybe they'll shed some light on the unusual casting choices.

*Buy Coraline posters at eBay.

Poster for the Coraline stage production

This is apparently the poster for the Coraline stage production at the MCC Theater. Not much to get excited about. And maybe I'm totally not understanding the nature of the production, but it seems that a man (David Greenspan) plays Coraline's Other Mother and that this is the woman (Jayne Houdyshell) playing Coraline:



*Buy Coraline toys at eBay and Amazon.

The cast of the Coraline stage show has been announced

The Coraline stage show opens May 7 in New York. Per this article, the cast will be Jayne Houdyshell, David Greenspan, Julian Fleisher, Francis Jue, Elliot Villar, William Youmans, and January LaVoy, who is pictured above.

*Buy Coraline keys at eBay.