Joe said:
Mwhinva, I could very well be wrong, but I think Damon was also the singer who sang in the "Phantom of the Opera" bit (sorry, I am not familiar with Broadway stuff and do not know the song's actual name) in On Broadway (which I thought was the best show KD has seen in a long time). He certainly was among the most talented performers in the show. It is very cool to see a performer work his way up the totem pole of performing, from KD to BGW to (real) Broadway and beyond. If I remember correctly, Entwined's Prince and the 2012 Dr. Freakenstein also started out in one of Kings Dominion's 2011 shows.
Jeff, (Prince/Dr. Freakenstein), performed at Kings Dominion for 2 years before he headed to BGW (Summer 2011 "All Access" show [video on YouTube]; Fall 2011 Haunt Show "The Night Shift"; and back again for the Summer 2012 "All Access" show at Kings Dominion.
After the 2012 version of "All Access" closed mid-August, Jeff headed to BGW to finish the rest of the 2012 "Entwined" run. Course, you folks followed his performances that fall and following summer. Just curious, did Jeff perform in any of the 2012 Christmas Town shows?
Damon certainly has the potential to hang with BGW. He comes across as someone with a classically trained voice. Maybe, he could sing in the Irish show or "Entwined", or even "London Rocks" [Course, I am not sure of his vocal skills outside of the Broadway music he sang at Kings Dominion. The entertainment production company, that did the performer hiring for KD in 2013, appeared to be gunning for folks with classically trained voices for "On Broadway" - makes sense to me].
Hopefully, Cedar Fair, will invest more money in live entertainment in the future. It feels they were investing about 50-55% of what was spent during the Kings Production years of live shows [1975-1992] in 2013. I'd like to see them get to a spending level of 75-80% of what Kings Productions spent on shows, say in the next 3-4 seasons [in today's dollars]. Kings Dominion has some catching up to do related to entertainment venues (improving existing ones and building new ones); that is not cheap and it is not an overnight fix. Plus, Cedar Fair's debt load is still too high for them to pour money into entertainment for some type of quick fix. Slow, steady as she goes.
Theme Park shows are just one step on a very tall ladder of entertainment options for performers. Even though I'm sorry to see them go, I know it's their wonderful talent, that I got to experience, that is taking them to bigger and better places.
