On An Open Sea

Hello Im Yang

He/they, 🇮🇳🇺🇸

Minor

William Finn enthusiast

Artist

My favorite musicals ranked:

I’m also a fan of:

Queer media/culture

Linguistics

Sailboats

Prehistoric species (Tully monster)

My favorite artists (besides Bill Finn) are:

Keith Haring, Alison Bechdel, Stephen Sondheim, and Charles Schultz

Here’s my discord if you wanna meet some cool Bill Finn fans

Charley was originally the one who wanted them to all be friends again

In fact he was this really bizarre mix of the Charley we know and Mary (He was the one to initiate Old Friends- Like it Was (but Mary still has her “Charley, why can’t it be like it was?”) also in Old Friends it originally was going to be all three of them kinda switching who was the voice of reason while the fought, besides Frank… whenever Charley and Mary were arguing he didn’t really try to fix it 🥹)

But it is true to Jonathan Crale, the character he’s based on in the original 1934 Merrily We Roll Along play

Well, he’s franks lawyer

Not a whole lot was like cut from his character

But when Jim Walton played Jerome, in franks later years, it’s very clear that Jerome is a close friend of Franks

Probably as something of a Charley replacement

Look they play backgammon!

So sweet ❤️

Jerome’s last appearance as a character is in Beth’s first scene

Because frank was probably too poor to afford a lawyer

I guess you could also compare him to Gussie in a way, because he’s one of the forces advising him to choose things (movies/money making projects) over his friends

Here’s his biggest scene

All of these images btw are from a very early script form May 1981 (it opened to previews October 1981) that’s free on internet archive

Very cool if you wanna check it out

Anyways… Jerome is just kinda like a “first act Beth”… and by that I mean they only appear in one act (kinda), but the act they do appear in, they’re pretty important

If you guys didn’t know, Frank was first played by James Weissenbach, but he was fired during previews and replaced with Jim Walton, who was originally casted as Jerome

So, they probably just scaled back on Jerome entirely because of this pretty sudden shift

The only reason I said he was as important as these other characters was because on programs it would have Jerome up on their level, not to mention a lot of images of the “leading actors” included Jim Walton

Also I think it’s important to mention that originally a lot of these lead roles were much much smaller

Like Joe was on the same level as Jerome in how important he was

Beth and Gussie barely appear on the album (although they both had songs (Honey and Daring respectively) that were cut during previews) (also Beth and Frank constantly traded not a day goes by, they’re really weren’t sure who should sing it)

Yall know Jerome

😭😭😭

At the very start of merrily

He was on the same level as Beth, Joe, and Gussie

Now he’s CUT

he’s in the DUMPSTER

Like… in one preview it ended with him sarcastically saying “we had a good thing going- Inc!”

LIKE DOES THAT NOT FEEL SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE ONE WE HAVE NOW

It also works so well because (this was cut from early previews, but) people criticize Frank for “only writing one song” (Good Thing Going)

Because in the world, for Frank Good Thing Going is what Send in the Clowns is for a Little Night Music

It’s like the most impactful most wonderful song ever, and if you’ve heard of this show/person in any capacity it will most likely be through this song

And the fact that Frank kinda sorta kinda defiantly just left his music career behind lowkey… this defining song he wrote might as well be the ONLY thing he wrote

Yes so anyways

Just imagine Charley bout to start seizing on the floor with anger… or sm.. and he ends the damn song with this sarcastically happily tonned “We had a good thing going!”

Not even sung, just fully spoken

An obc merrily historian

I can’t tell you a single birthday for any of my loved ones off the top of my head

But BOY do I have things down for merrily….

Opened Oct 8th 1981

Closed Nov 28th 1981

With 16 real performances

And… scary many previews

James was replaced like Oct 19thish… it’s not very clear 😢😢😢

And. Scratch obc historian IM A FRANKLIN SHEPARD INC HISTORIAN

Dude

Dude 😭

Charley Kringas 😭😭😭😭

Charley and Mary are deadass hold hands in every scene

3 thumbnails turned into fullish drawings 👀

R u full yet falsetto fandom 👀👀