Author Topic: Dickens characters fired?  (Read 11272 times)

Preachin_Bill

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Dickens characters fired?
« on: June 06, 2021, 02:06:41 PM »
Well, I have not seen this posted yet so if I missed it my apologies.

The lead character as Scrooge for Dickens (Dave Wallace I believe his name is?) has apparently been fired by SDC (or “let go” as they say to make it sound nice) due to budget cuts. His girlfriend was also let go. These are two faces who have been there for awhile and of course incredibly talented.

This coupled with the news of the Sons means that Dickens must be on the chopping block, since one of the Sons was always Bob Cratchet, wasnt he?

SDC must not like a packed house for dang near every show. Makes no sense.

Hopefully I’m wrong as that was such a great production, pound for pound the best stage show I’ve seen.

Anyone else hear this?
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Preachin_Bill

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2021, 02:24:22 PM »
I have contacted SDC and will post if there is a response. I encourage other fans of the show to let your voices be heard as well in a respectable manner.
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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2021, 02:25:53 PM »
Well, I have not seen this posted yet so if I missed it my apologies.

The lead character as Scrooge for Dickens (Dave Wallace I believe his name is?) has apparently been fired by SDC (or “let go” as they say to make it sound nice) due to budget cuts. His girlfriend was also let go. These are two faces who have been there for awhile and of course incredibly talented.

This coupled with the news of the Sons means that Dickens must be on the chopping block, since one of the Sons was always Bob Cratchet, wasnt he?

SDC must not like a packed house for dang near every show. Makes no sense.

Hopefully I’m wrong as that was such a great production, pound for pound the best stage show I’ve seen.

Anyone else hear this?

Just to clarify, Rachel is not David's girlfriend.  She is his wife.
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Swoosh

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2021, 06:56:34 PM »
There’s a lot more to the story.  I wouldn’t count on seeing Dickens, Wonderful Life or even Rueben’s ever returning to the park and if they do, they will be completely different shows. 

And all 3 Sons were in Christmas Shows. 

In the end, the truth will come out... not my story to tell. 
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Dewayne

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2021, 08:45:42 PM »
For a while, the 2 skinny guys from the "sons" switched back and forth for playing Scrooge because they easily resembled each other. When 1 went on break, the other would come in. The bigger one played the first ghost, town cryer, and the third ghost (Bart had to tell me who played the 3rd ghost because I couldn't figure it out myself.). Catfish (employee before 2010) might have been the original person who played the first ghost. I know the role of town cryer eventually switched to the man who plays the deputy. As far as I know, Bart always played Jacob Marley. Bart was also in the saloon show for a year. I think I heard that the role of Tom Jenkins might have switched to one of the "sons" at one point. We all know Cassandra Haygood used to play the 2nd ghost years ago. That's about all I know.

Jemmicat

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2021, 12:23:36 AM »
Search on Facebook shows that Dave and Rachel are both working at Dolly Parton's stampede now... At least they were able to stay local.

I've got a couple friends who are in the band at the Dean Z show and both were still able to work there, but that isn't their only job. I imagine there are a lot of Branson musicians/singers who had to make a tough choice in the last year. Actually, probably not just in Branson

kbosch1

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2021, 09:43:27 AM »
There’s a lot more to the story.  I wouldn’t count on seeing Dickens, Wonderful Life or even Rueben’s ever returning to the park and if they do, they will be completely different shows. 

And all 3 Sons were in Christmas Shows. 

In the end, the truth will come out... not my story to tell.

I sure will be following this closely as these shows were my main reasons for re-upping season passes every year.  We loved Dave and Rachel and am shocked to hear they are gone.   What a shame and I sure hope the truth does come out.

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2021, 09:59:26 AM »
Those two were stalwarts of SDC entertainment for ages - at least a decade or more? I have heard grumblings that the park got into some copyright disputes from some of those shows - we all pointed out that most of the tunes belonged to Disney and were only slightly changed... Even if that is true, it shouldn't be that hard to work around and retool. Obviously there are plenty of community theatres around the country that manage to put on great productions all the time without raiding the Disney music vault. I wonder if they got scapegoated or if the park simply doesn't want to bother with these kinds of productions anymore.

The shows at Christmas especially were massive draws. Does SDC really think they can replace all their entertainment with karaoke style shows like other cheap amusement parks have?

They spent all that money on Ruben's... I know it wasn't that great of a show, but I expected it to be improved over time. The stage setup was pretty sweet at least...

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2021, 10:16:53 AM »
Those two were stalwarts of SDC entertainment for ages - at least a decade or more? I have heard grumblings that the park got into some copyright disputes from some of those shows - we all pointed out that most of the tunes belonged to Disney and were only slightly changed... Even if that is true, it shouldn't be that hard to work around and retool. Obviously there are plenty of community theatres around the country that manage to put on great productions all the time without raiding the Disney music vault. I wonder if they got scapegoated or if the park simply doesn't want to bother with these kinds of productions anymore.

The shows at Christmas especially were massive draws. Does SDC really think they can replace all their entertainment with karaoke style shows like other cheap amusement parks have?

They spent all that money on Ruben's... I know it wasn't that great of a show, but I expected it to be improved over time. The stage setup was pretty sweet at least...


 :-X :-X :-X
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cowboy

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2021, 11:12:15 AM »
Those two were stalwarts of SDC entertainment for ages - at least a decade or more? I have heard grumblings that the park got into some copyright disputes from some of those shows - we all pointed out that most of the tunes belonged to Disney and were only slightly changed... Even if that is true, it shouldn't be that hard to work around and retool. Obviously there are plenty of community theatres around the country that manage to put on great productions all the time without raiding the Disney music vault. I wonder if they got scapegoated or if the park simply doesn't want to bother with these kinds of productions anymore.

The shows at Christmas especially were massive draws. Does SDC really think they can replace all their entertainment with karaoke style shows like other cheap amusement parks have?

They spent all that money on Ruben's... I know it wasn't that great of a show, but I expected it to be improved over time. The stage setup was pretty sweet at least...


 :-X :-X :-X

Music Copyright can be very much policed and there can be really big fines. I know in one of my videos I did for St. Jude - just some regular instrumental music was $1,000 for the right to use it - so we found some free music, but it just didn't have the same feel.

I owned a gym and there were fees just to play music for people hear while working out.

But probably similar to SDC, my local high school had to completely change their Show Choir performance because they couldn't get the rights to some songs. I also filmed a video for the school and we had destroy it because of contested copyright issues.

I just don't know though what constitutes infringement - some popular songs today sample so much from other popular songs - but no credit is mentioned. Just listen to the new Jonas Brother's song Leave Before You Love Me.....and Wham!'s Last Christmas. Way too similar to not give credit to the original writers.

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Jemmicat

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2021, 12:19:32 PM »
There was someone making the rounds in places in Springfield, MO to check to see if people had paid their licensing fees. One had to stop having live music because they got a cease and desist or pay up notice and they only had live music on Friday nights and were primarily a sports bar. Several other places got fines. It was a mess...

The bad thing is that it is a racket. The money they collect never actually makes it to the artists... But they have you over a barrel

I kind of figured that SDC would be smart enough to get the licensing though... Kind of surprised they didn't.

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2021, 04:04:42 PM »
Most of the music in Dickens was lifted directly from a well established musical.  Most of the music in Wonderful Life was listed directly from 4 musicals.  Most of Rueben’s was lifted from Disney (Super expensive to get rights)
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sdcfan88

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2021, 08:31:14 PM »
Kinda makes me wonder how much longer it will be before we see the Time Traveler queue music suspended for similar reasons if this is indeed what has been going on. Unless it has indeed for sure been given rights to use.

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2021, 08:48:15 PM »
Kinda makes me wonder how much longer it will be before we see the Time Traveler queue music suspended for similar reasons if this is indeed what has been going on. Unless it has indeed for sure been given rights to use.

There’s a difference between a cover and being lifted.  Also it’s been said that those covers will never be sold for profit
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sdcfan88

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Re: Dickens characters fired?
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2021, 12:07:19 AM »
Kinda makes me wonder how much longer it will be before we see the Time Traveler queue music suspended for similar reasons if this is indeed what has been going on. Unless it has indeed for sure been given rights to use.

There’s a difference between a cover and being lifted.  Also it’s been said that those covers will never be sold for profit

Gotcha. So its similar to the "fair use" clause.

For anyone else wondering about this:
https://flypaper.soundfly.com/hustle/how-to-legally-cover-a-song/

"Fair and Transformative" use:
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html
« Last Edit: June 08, 2021, 12:15:04 AM by sdcfan88 »