עוד "קצת"
"The most amazing thing about [The Bitter Suite] is that it was not done just to grab ratings. People will be very surprised at what the actual intent of this musical is. It actually serves a purpose within our universe. The fact that it´s a musical, well, so much the better." -- Steven L. Sears, XWP writer, from the article "Xena´s Destiny: Warrior at the Crossroads", Topps Official Xena Magazine #2, February 1998 "Xena has this sort of tango dance she does with Ares. She was originally meant to do that in the charioteer´s costume, but I just knew it was wrong for that scene. So at the last minute, we made another costume which was the Death costume. the only time she wears it was in that tiny tango bit, and to me, that was a real highlight: to make that kind of last-minute adjustment, and then to pull it off successfully." -- Ngila Dickson, XWP costume designer, from the article "Bitter Suite: The Making of a Musical", Topps Official Xena Magazine #3, May 1998 "The story itself went through several different versions. When you have two characters who have grown that far apart from each other, either they never get together again, or there is one huge step that has to be made before the other questions in their lives can be answered...and this was that huge step. The story, in al its incarnations, always needed to point out to our characters that the most important person in their lives is the person they currently hate. There´s more to their relationship than what the common person has, and, in this case, Xena´s son Solan gave them the chance to find that out." -- Steven L. Sears, XWP writer and co-author of The Bitter Suite, from the article "Bitter Suite: The Making of a Musical", Topps Official Xena Magazine #3, May 1998 "The problem with this episode is that there are so many different ways to portray the different levels of healing. The one that I´m particularly fond of is the Chamber of Echoes...they can´t hear each other as long as they´re blaming each other. And that´s pure therapy. You can´t start to fix a problem if you´re too busy blaming the other person, because you´re not listening to them. And the moment that Xena asks Gabrielle ´What are you feeling right now?´ and Gabrielle says ´I hurt inside,´ that was the moment of connection...they realized that´s what they shared." -- Steven L. Sears, XWP writer and co-author of The Bitter Suite, from the article "Bitter Suite: The Making of a Musical", Topps Official Xena Magazine #3, May 1998 "We decided to use an orchestra and chorus for the episode. We also brought in a Broadway director/choreographer named Jeff Calhoun, I had a chance to work with some wonderful lyricists; all the things that wouldn´t be part of an ordinary episode. There are seven main numbers, as many as you would find in a full-length musical. As you tend to find with any Xena episode, we cram that TV screen with music and images and special fx, and this episode is no different." -- Joe LoDuca, XWP composer, from the article "Bitter Suite: The Making of a Musical", Topps Official Xena Magazine #3, May 1998 "I´m just the worst dancer. I told Jeff Calhoun, the dance director of GREASE who choreographed The Bitter Suite, that dance has been bred out of my people. It doesn´t come naturally to me. But I enjoyed that piece [the tango with Lucy] because it was such a slinky, lascivious song. Lucy and I rehearsed the routine individually, and we had only one time together before we shot the scene. The woman I worked with in rehearsal was quite a bit shorter than me, but it just made the switch to Lucy easier because I didn´t have to bend down so far." -- Kevin Smith ("Ares"), from the article "Bitter Suite: The Making of a Musical", Topps Official Xena Magazine #3, May 1998 (on why she had such a small role in The Bitter Suite) "I was only in that one scene in the beginning. I was actually shooting another film down in Wellington at the time, in October of last year, so I came up and did that scene at the beginning of the day." -- Danielle Cormack ("Ephiny"), from the article "Ephiny of the Amazons", Topps Official Xena Magazine #4, September 1998
