I think Damn Yankees is the one musical I have trouble remembering. I know I've seen it, but I can't seem to recall any of it at all. Reading over the synopsis on this site, I'm completley lost. I don't remember baseball at all.

Anyway, that's not to say it is forgettable. It seems like a fun musical. I was wondering, those who have done it, do you think it is suitable for a high school? How many people are roughly needed? & as for the content, is it sexually explicit? Or does it depend on the choreagraphy & blocking how raunchy the play is?

As for the character of Lola, if my high school does this play I plan to audition for her. Any advice? Also, if anyone has the songs "Who's Got the Pain", "A Little Brains, A little Talent", and/or "Whatever Lola Wants" on their computer, would they be willing to share? I'm having trouble finding the film in video rental places & I would like to hear the songs in their entirety.

Thanks in advance for any help. So far, this board has been a wealth of information. I've already learned so much about the characters & plot from you all.

xoxo claire

Well this is a little late, but...
yes, my high school did Damn Yankees. What's more, my camp (ages 8-15, you had to be 10 to be in it) did it.
The hardest thing to figure out with this is how do you deal with old Joe/young Joe. My school considered making Old Joe a completely separate part... though as it turned out, the guy playing young joe was African American, and the guy who would have been Old Joe was blonde haired, blue eyed.... we weren't going to just ignore that, we were going to make young joe even more surprised at his new, young body. We had trouble casting it, because Boy 1 for joe went great with girl A as his wife.. and boy 2 for Joe went well with girl B. But we really wanted boy 1 and girl B.. and they didn't really have chemistry. Oh well.
We considered having the devil be female, because there was someone who did a really, really good job. We also considered having 2 devils, one male and one female, because the guy who eventually got the part, and the girl we considered, had incredibly good chemistry. But we figured that a female Devil would really change the way things worked, so we decided not to.
I actually know the song Whatever Lola Wants from Murder at the Rutherford house... we used it as a song for The Baronnes Greta Von Keepsen... "whatever Greta wants... greta gets...." with a kind of interesting accent.
I don't remember how many baseball players we had... 9? 12? 16? They all had lines, but most didn't have distinct characters, so you could condense or spread out the lines as much as you want.
It needs a lot of strong male leads, though.... or girls who are willing to dress up as male baseball players. Since guys who can sing and act (esp in high school) are in short supply, it's a challenge.

~rachel~

I did it too. If doing Damn Yankees... you must, must, must remeber that it's a dancing play. The dancing makes it fun. There isn't too much sex themed things in it. I just did it over the summer of 2005, which was the summer before this school year. The songs are decent all around and as for roles... there's Mr. Applegate (my favorite), Joe Hardy, Joe Boyd, Lola, Gloria, a couple reprters, Mr. Van Buren (the coach), Mr. Welch (manager), and Mrs. Boyd. Oh yeah! You'll need a couple of baseball players too! The one thing you must know though is that Joe Hardy and Joe Boyd are the same people, only the difference is that Joe Boyd is the older versoin of Joe Hardy. (Mr. Applegate, the devil in disguise, changes Joe Boyd, the older man, into Joe Hardy, the younger version of Joe Boyd.) You could either cast two different people to play two different Joes, or have one person play Joe Boyd, and then have a quick change into Joe Hardy... that's what we did.

why would anyone use the same actor as joe boyd and joe hardy??

plus it doesnt matter if your joe hardy was african american and joe boyd isnt..Applegate changes his looks completely....actually its more interesting because it would really disguise joe from meg.

Okay... geez... does it really matter if the two joes were the same. You could tell the difference and many people think that our Joe was two different people. Is that alright with you?

no.

whatever!

I find it interesting that you used the same person to play both Joe Hardy and Old Joe.

This really is meant to be two seperate roles entirely. So I understand people's distaste for it. Not to be of offense.

entering into this thread over a year after the original posting...

It could be very interesting to have the Joe's played by the same actor.
So, I agree- "whatever"! That's why you don't get sent to jail for being creative and having your own interpretation! Bravo for being inventive and trying something new!

Innovative and creative as it was, Red, the point is that when a group purchases the rights to a show, they sign a contract to perform the show *as written*. Since DY is written with two separate roles for Joe Boyd and Joe Hardy, that's the way it must be performed unless the group in question gets special permission *in writing* from the company that holds the performance rights. These companies do send representatives to productions unannounced to see that rules are being followed, and the group can get into big trouble if they aren't. While they seem to turn a blind eye to minor changes, at least for amateur performing groups, larger ones would violate the contract. I don't know if casting the same actor as both Joes would constitute a major infraction, but why take chances?

Thank you! Brand new here, but there seems to be a lot of stupid people here who don't know much about theatre!

I don't think it would be a problem with rights. A lot of Ameture/Comunity productions have the same person playing more than one role, simply because they haven't got enough cast members. Plus conversly school versions of "Little Shop oh Horrors", often cast diferent actors for all the parts that the actor cast as the dentest normaly plays, and no one complains about that.