I ran into this randomly and thought "Okay, three minutes of cringing and I'll move on". Nearly an hour later I'm whopping and clapping like I'm there. Fantastic performance. So much fun! And Matthew Hougland: that is one huge voice you've got there.
As a lover of both theatre and buffy I have watched quite a few once more with feeling stage adaptations and this is hands down the best one I’ve seen! The singing, acting, choreography (especially considering the obvious lack of stage space), comedic timing and overall direction are unparalleled. It embraces the inherent goofiness of both the episode and the process of bringing it to the stage. Nice job!
Also, even though they were not in the main cast and had 8 million bit ensemble parts, Kelly and Michelle for real tied this whole show together shout out to them
Love it! Old school Buffy fan here. But the audience didnt get the sadness in some parts unfortunatel. its not all a joke and i think you did great, the audience sometimes didnt get it.
Honestly, the audience didn't get the tiniest part of this, probably due to lack of knowledge and understanding of the Buffyverse. Hearing them laugh at Dawn's feeble "The hardest thing in this world... is to live in it" (which we all know to be a quotation from 5x22 The Gift, easily the pinnacle of tragedy in the whole show) drove me INSANE. Just shut the hell up and have some respect for my teenage traumas, will ya.
This was a very unexpected fantastic recreation of one of my favorite TV episodes of all time. It is not not a reimagining, but rather a faitthful adaptation for a live performance on a (very) small stage. I was first blown away by how many scenes of the original were reproduced in such a short time with brilliant improvisations for limited space and resources. More amazing, however, was that the mood was replicated so well. The pathos, the grief, the anxiousness, the humor all as in the original [audience cluelessness at times herein, notwithstanding]. Yes, I am a Buffy fan, though I never would have thought to be, put off just by the title. I"m a guy. I don't watch "Buffy" anything! Then, Marvin Kitman, a critic for the Long Island newspaper Newsday wrote an article entitled (if I remember correctly), "The best show on TV that you're not watching." So, I tried "Buffy." I was enthralled. One of the smartest shows ever, in my opinion. Kudos to this cast and to the adapters from tv to stage. I will watch this many times again, I'm sure.
You should also watch the spinoff Angel. You get to see Faith's redemption on Angel and a chance for her to act like the slayer without being in Buffy's shadow. Cordelia and Wesley also become much better characters than they were on Buffy
Wow!! This was awesome!! I’m a huge Buffy fan and have watched Once More With Feeling many times. When I came across this I was curious enough to watch a few minutes but before I knew it I was glued and watched til the end! The cast did amazing! All the dancing, the singing, the comedic timing, the costumes, the set... everything was awesome! The funniest and most clever part was the knife work at 33:32!!! 😂 Great work everyone!! Thanks for posting this!
This is without a doubt the best-directed play I’ve ever seen. Your stage is 12’x18’ and you need to stage an epic musical? Here’s the instruction manual. LEAN IN! :)
This is so clever and so well choreographed, blocked and staged and you can tell those involved knew the original without completely doing a copy. Loved how you managed to get the costumes close when you could and just blown away by the puppet masks. The bits of business in "I'm Under Your Spell," "I'll Never Tell" and "Standing" especially are so much fun. Thanks for actually making me laugh with this. As a NYer, I wish I'd known/gone to the Duplex to see this live.
Love this. A few live show hiccups but the cast and band handled it well for the most part. A few lyric issues, which made some songs feel under rehearsed for a show that would appeal to fans who would likely know the episode back to front. But still mostly got the meaning across. Great way to fill time during quarantine
For the record, if your group somehow produced a live adaptation of the whole series, I would buy tickets to every single episode, and buy it in every available format.
Oh man I'm so glad I discovered this!! An incredible rendition of the episode with amazing attention to detail! Such nostalgia watching this! I stayed up super late at night because I just couldn't stop watching once I started! Right from the intro, I could tell who everyone was playing because the outfits were so on point! Giles' acting was basically perfect. So was the choreo for Dawn's Ballet and What You Feel. Sweet, Xander and Anya all absolutely KILLED IT with their numbers! I loved how you guys did Sweet's color change! And the slow-mo training session during Standing was absolutely hilarious!! As was the bed scene in Under Your Spell (very clever making the bed vertical!)! And I gotta talk about Walk Through The Fire--there's a lot of moving parts, but you guys executed so well! It's very obvious that you guys were seriously hardcore fans to have gotten so many little details and nuances right from the original episode! And even the little extra things you added like Anya's thing about her song being a "retro, pastiche number that's never going to be the breakaway pop hit" were excellent and very in character! I could go on forever... So much respect and appreciation for you guys for creating this gem and putting on CZcams for all of us to enjoy!
They didn’t laugh at the funniest part when Giles says that Buffy needs back up... Doesn’t seem like there are many fans of the show in the audience haha
I came across this by happy accident as well. All I can say is WOW! I loved it. It was clever, it was funny, and best of all it made me cry in the exact same places. Great job!
Why have I not seen this until now?! This should be traveling the world off Broadway. I guess I'm a biased Buffy fan, but this was an amazing redo. Great job guys!
Deleted my account to reduce my digital footprint, so basically came back to make the exact two same statements.... four years later... 1) Best live performance of OMWF ever... 2) Buffy actress is totes gorge and has absolutely theee most beautiful nose profile I have ever seen! major swoonage.... be still, my heart. welp... if I delete this account I'll be back in 2027 to say the exact same thing once more... with feeling.
Are you them, their partner, or just obsessive? Cause they're definitely pretty but certainly not remarkable, and they do indeed have quite a large nose, not that there's anything wrong with that. Wait are you a nose fetishist?
I thought this production was amazing, down to the ringing bell of the magic box, the knives and even the actors nailed their parts! I sung along to it all!
Wonderful show with a fabulous cast. Absolutely loved how they nailed the choreography in every number. Natalie Wisdom filled some pretty big shoes as Buffy. You could tell they all loved the show and this was a great homage.
@@bexproctor360 they were just laughing at the complete lack of effects on the "magic". Not in a nasty way, just laughing at the limitations of a stage play really.
"Or maybe midgets..." Damn!!! 🤣🤣🤣 I watched this video when it was released, but deleted my original CZcams account 5 years ago so my comment has gone, I'm putting it back out there! Loved this whole performance...The cast was perfectly... ahem... cast with great acting and singing voices. Oh, and the production, lighting, stage management were all top notch! NGL the lady who plays Buffy has the facial profile of an Anime princess incarnate... Wow. She is gorgeous.
Hearing people in the audience laugh during Spike's song broke my heart :( it was such a heartfelt moment in the show, and this rendition made it into a laughable piece. Pity. Other than that, kudos to all cast & crew for trying, it was quite a feat.
Yeah that was incredibly disappointing, they made one of the most heartwrenching songs into a fucking comedy piece, not to mention the fact that he didn't even know the words 😫
I agree. The most heart wrenching songs were the ones that they made completely laughable. I've seen multiple live renditions of "Once more with feeling" and despite all of the positive comments on this video, I feel like it's the worst one I've seen. Its like they can't decide if they want it to be a comedy, or if they're trying to be serious about it. It feels like they we're given the script without even having had watched the episode. I'm pretty disappointed. Especially the way that not a single song sounds like the original. They're trying way too hard when they sing, and it ruins it.
This was awesome. 😂 Anya and Xanders song was probably the best. Spike messed up the lyrics after ‘willing slave’ but he was decent. Those puppet masks are fire btw. Wish I Could Stay reprise with Giles and Tara was beautiful. Let it Burn was done very well for a stage production where there can’t be voice overs. Overall this was done really well I enjoyed it. ^^ You can tell not everyone is a professional but everyone still brought their A game and sounded great!
It can be hard when there is so much dialogue and lyrics to memorize and they are doing it all LIVE! When the original episode was being filmed, all the music had already been recorded so the actors were lip-syncing to playback. Regarding "Spike" messing up his lyrics: James Marsters used to perform the song at conventions and he would even mess up at times. This isn't Broadway. We don't know how much theatre experience these actors had prior. I think they they did pretty damn good job. As a life-long Buffy fan, I am truly satisfied w/ adaption.
THE JOYCE SUMMERS GRAVE I WASNT READY
U JUST GONNA IGNORE THE JENNY GRAVE
Joyce I was ready for Jenny I was thoroughly unprepared!
😱
And they forgot poor Snyder
It’s *always* too soon for losing Joyce.
The actor who plays Giles just nailed Anthony Stewart Head's physicality.
Thx😉
I ran into this randomly and thought "Okay, three minutes of cringing and I'll move on". Nearly an hour later I'm whopping and clapping like I'm there. Fantastic performance. So much fun! And Matthew Hougland: that is one huge voice you've got there.
Max props to Anya and Xander - they killed i'll never tell
My god the toy fire trucks during the end of Walk Through the Fire gave me life. Such a nice attention to detail.
God job everybody!
Buffy definitely studied those dance moves. excellent job
I love hoow they did the "previously on Buffy" segment exactly like it was. Awesome job!
So impressed with Natalie Wisdom nailing those dance moves as Buffy!
As a lover of both theatre and buffy I have watched quite a few once more with feeling stage adaptations and this is hands down the best one I’ve seen! The singing, acting, choreography (especially considering the obvious lack of stage space), comedic timing and overall direction are unparalleled. It embraces the inherent goofiness of both the episode and the process of bringing it to the stage. Nice job!
Also, even though they were not in the main cast and had 8 million bit ensemble parts, Kelly and Michelle for real tied this whole show together shout out to them
Loved Xander and Giles! They both did really well capturing what the original actors brought to the characters
This is the best thing that ever ended up on the internet.
JOYCE AND JENNYS GRAVES LMAO IM DEAD
Great job to everyone involved. The woman playing Buffy did SMG justice. The knife throwing scene was awesome.
Love it! Old school Buffy fan here. But the audience didnt get the sadness in some parts unfortunatel. its not all a joke and i think you did great, the audience sometimes didnt get it.
Agreed, for example at 41:48 , I don’t see how this was something to laugh at...
Honestly, the audience didn't get the tiniest part of this, probably due to lack of knowledge and understanding of the Buffyverse. Hearing them laugh at Dawn's feeble "The hardest thing in this world... is to live in it" (which we all know to be a quotation from 5x22 The Gift, easily the pinnacle of tragedy in the whole show) drove me INSANE. Just shut the hell up and have some respect for my teenage traumas, will ya.
THEIR GILES IS SOOOO GOOD
This was a very unexpected fantastic recreation of one of my favorite TV episodes of all time. It is not not a reimagining, but rather a faitthful adaptation for a live performance on a (very) small stage.
I was first blown away by how many scenes of the original were reproduced in such a short time with brilliant improvisations for limited space and resources.
More amazing, however, was that the mood was replicated so well. The pathos, the grief, the anxiousness, the humor all as in the original [audience cluelessness at times herein, notwithstanding].
Yes, I am a Buffy fan, though I never would have thought to be, put off just by the title. I"m a guy. I don't watch "Buffy" anything!
Then, Marvin Kitman, a critic for the Long Island newspaper Newsday wrote an article entitled (if I remember correctly), "The best show on TV that you're not watching."
So, I tried "Buffy." I was enthralled. One of the smartest shows ever, in my opinion.
Kudos to this cast and to the adapters from tv to stage. I will watch this many times again, I'm sure.
You should also watch the spinoff Angel. You get to see Faith's redemption on Angel and a chance for her to act like the slayer without being in Buffy's shadow. Cordelia and Wesley also become much better characters than they were on Buffy
Wow!! This was awesome!! I’m a huge Buffy fan and have watched Once More With Feeling many times. When I came across this I was curious enough to watch a few minutes but before I knew it I was glued and watched til the end! The cast did amazing! All the dancing, the singing, the comedic timing, the costumes, the set... everything was awesome! The funniest and most clever part was the knife work at 33:32!!! 😂 Great work everyone!! Thanks for posting this!
Yeah I loved it !
This was actually really good. Loved every second of it.
Actor playing Xander is fantastic 👏
Old guy and Buffy fan. This was very well done and touched my heart as I remain trapped during this virus. Be safe
This is so good! I love the youtube algorithm bringing me here
This is without a doubt the best-directed play I’ve ever seen. Your stage is 12’x18’ and you need to stage an epic musical? Here’s the instruction manual. LEAN IN! :)
This is so clever and so well choreographed, blocked and staged and you can tell those involved knew the original without completely doing a copy. Loved how you managed to get the costumes close when you could and just blown away by the puppet masks. The bits of business in "I'm Under Your Spell," "I'll Never Tell" and "Standing" especially are so much fun. Thanks for actually making me laugh with this. As a NYer, I wish I'd known/gone to the Duplex to see this live.
I'm sitting in England at gone midnight watching this in my kitchen. Great job guys
Jelqius! As a huge Buffy fan I wish I was there live! I loved the Giles , Buffy and Spike actors,
Love this. A few live show hiccups but the cast and band handled it well for the most part. A few lyric issues, which made some songs feel under rehearsed for a show that would appeal to fans who would likely know the episode back to front. But still mostly got the meaning across. Great way to fill time during quarantine
For the record, if your group somehow produced a live adaptation of the whole series, I would buy tickets to every single episode, and buy it in every available format.
Oh man I'm so glad I discovered this!! An incredible rendition of the episode with amazing attention to detail! Such nostalgia watching this! I stayed up super late at night because I just couldn't stop watching once I started!
Right from the intro, I could tell who everyone was playing because the outfits were so on point! Giles' acting was basically perfect. So was the choreo for Dawn's Ballet and What You Feel. Sweet, Xander and Anya all absolutely KILLED IT with their numbers! I loved how you guys did Sweet's color change! And the slow-mo training session during Standing was absolutely hilarious!! As was the bed scene in Under Your Spell (very clever making the bed vertical!)! And I gotta talk about Walk Through The Fire--there's a lot of moving parts, but you guys executed so well! It's very obvious that you guys were seriously hardcore fans to have gotten so many little details and nuances right from the original episode! And even the little extra things you added like Anya's thing about her song being a "retro, pastiche number that's never going to be the breakaway pop hit" were excellent and very in character!
I could go on forever... So much respect and appreciation for you guys for creating this gem and putting on CZcams for all of us to enjoy!
They didn’t laugh at the funniest part when Giles says that Buffy needs back up... Doesn’t seem like there are many fans of the show in the audience haha
Ikr? That's my fave line. I was just in a production of this and no one laughed then either. But it's so funny
I came across this by happy accident as well. All I can say is WOW! I loved it. It was clever, it was funny, and best of all it made me cry in the exact same places. Great job!
Same here, exactly!
The Xander and Anya rocked this!!
I am shocked by how good this was. really improved my quarantine to watch it :)
Xander being late on the cue and Giles tapping him is a perfect character moment
Time stamp?
@@johnsmi213 42:14
The best stage production I've seen of Once More With Feeling 👍😊🥰
Why have I not seen this until now?! This should be traveling the world off Broadway. I guess I'm a biased Buffy fan, but this was an amazing redo. Great job guys!
I think it is very funny that they did the previously on.
The dude who played spike looks a lot like OZ
Deleted my account to reduce my digital footprint, so basically came back to make the exact two same statements.... four years later...
1) Best live performance of OMWF ever...
2) Buffy actress is totes gorge and has absolutely theee most beautiful nose profile I have ever seen! major swoonage.... be still, my heart.
welp... if I delete this account I'll be back in 2027 to say the exact same thing once more... with feeling.
Are you them, their partner, or just obsessive? Cause they're definitely pretty but certainly not remarkable, and they do indeed have quite a large nose, not that there's anything wrong with that. Wait are you a nose fetishist?
Congratulations to the music team , both performing and arranger. Must have been a difficult job. I’m dead impressed.
Whoever came up with this idea, I LOVE YOU!
That intro was gold! And the rest great gems 💎
Definitely made my quarantine! Grear job guys
This is hilarious, u guys nailed it!!!
i just found this, after searching for a cover for the songs.
i didn't knew i actually needed a re-done of the episode.
you guys are great!
Oh, that was *awesome*!! You guys did an incredible job!!
This is pretty much how I expect Buffy to carry on after the apocalypse when there's no more electricity or DVDs or anything.
This and cave paintings.
Excellent cast, acting, singing...very enjoyable.
I thought this production was amazing, down to the ringing bell of the magic box, the knives and even the actors nailed their parts!
I sung along to it all!
this is so well done by all involved!
Such a great job lmao was obsessed with that episode back in the day xD
Wonderful show with a fabulous cast. Absolutely loved how they nailed the choreography in every number. Natalie Wisdom filled some pretty big shoes as Buffy. You could tell they all loved the show and this was a great homage.
You guys nailed It, love from Brazil 🇧🇷
What a great Show, i had so much fun watching you! I loved that episode and u did it all so well! It was funny and on point
One of the things that brought me happiness in quarantine and across the ocean :).
Fantastic job. I love the touch of performing the episode recap.
this is good but i wish the dude who played spike knew the words to rest in peace lol
Not gonna lie hated first 5 minutes....then I got it...bloody brilliant ! Well done !
I ended up on that video by accident, but WHAT A HAPPY ACCIDENT THIS IS !! This is perfection ❤❤
Wow, amazingly done. Thank you. And the "flying knives"... you really got the humor of the original show.
Tha'ts amazing!! Great performers!!!
This was bloody brilliant. Especially the Previously On.
giles is more giles than giles
This is everything goals
Really fantastic performance! I was slightly frustrated with the audience laughing during Under Your Spell though..... I miss Tara so much!
im with you....
I didn't understand the audience laughing either
They were laughing at the staging gimmicks
@@bexproctor360 they were just laughing at the complete lack of effects on the "magic". Not in a nasty way, just laughing at the limitations of a stage play really.
Everyone is talking about how they didn't demon up sweet but the actor absolutely smashed "I know what you feel" and just the acting in general
And that "see you in HEEEEELLLLL" was awesome
Yeah he was great, no demon make up needed.
Love this musical. So funny and clever!
Love the 'previously on' lol I've watched the ep so many times I've got that stupid thing memorized too
Lol
Bloody priceless!
Oh man, I love stuff like this. Great big smile 😃
That was so good! Watched from the UK 🇬🇧🇬🇧😍😍
omg I'm obsessed with this
This is amazing genius wow
"Or maybe midgets..." Damn!!! 🤣🤣🤣
I watched this video when it was released, but deleted my original CZcams account 5 years ago so my comment has gone, I'm putting it back out there!
Loved this whole performance...The cast was perfectly... ahem... cast with great acting and singing voices.
Oh, and the production, lighting, stage management were all top notch!
NGL the lady who plays Buffy has the facial profile of an Anime princess incarnate... Wow. She is gorgeous.
I loved!!!!!!!
This made me SO HAPPY! Brilliant job
33:28 omg I am dying! 😆
Amazing loved it!!
This is so wonderful, 'Once more with feeling' is one of my fav episodes!
Hearing people in the audience laugh during Spike's song broke my heart :( it was such a heartfelt moment in the show, and this rendition made it into a laughable piece. Pity.
Other than that, kudos to all cast & crew for trying, it was quite a feat.
Yeah that was incredibly disappointing, they made one of the most heartwrenching songs into a fucking comedy piece, not to mention the fact that he didn't even know the words 😫
Not to mention Giles' song Standing becoming a laugh a minute comedy act instead of an incredibly emotional piece laying out Giles' feelings 😔
I agree. The most heart wrenching songs were the ones that they made completely laughable. I've seen multiple live renditions of "Once more with feeling" and despite all of the positive comments on this video, I feel like it's the worst one I've seen. Its like they can't decide if they want it to be a comedy, or if they're trying to be serious about it. It feels like they we're given the script without even having had watched the episode. I'm pretty disappointed. Especially the way that not a single song sounds like the original. They're trying way too hard when they sing, and it ruins it.
The amount of restraint not to sing along is impressive
I didn't even know that I needed to watch this, lol!
I would love to perform this
this is so good! Respect to all performers etc!!! So much detail and heart poured into this not to mention... this is funny!! Great job people!
I watched the entire thing , incredible !!!!
this is sensational!
I loved it! Awesome.
This was awesome. 😂 Anya and Xanders song was probably the best. Spike messed up the lyrics after ‘willing slave’ but he was decent. Those puppet masks are fire btw. Wish I Could Stay reprise with Giles and Tara was beautiful. Let it Burn was done very well for a stage production where there can’t be voice overs. Overall this was done really well I enjoyed it. ^^ You can tell not everyone is a professional but everyone still brought their A game and sounded great!
It can be hard when there is so much dialogue and lyrics to memorize and they are doing it all LIVE! When the original episode was being filmed, all the music had already been recorded so the actors were lip-syncing to playback. Regarding "Spike" messing up his lyrics: James Marsters used to perform the song at conventions and he would even mess up at times. This isn't Broadway. We don't know how much theatre experience these actors had prior. I think they they did pretty damn good job. As a life-long Buffy fan, I am truly satisfied w/ adaption.
I love that this exists!
I loved it verrrry much. Great job, guys! Thank you. 👍😊😊
this is absolutely amazing!
This is awsome!!! Congratulations! As a fan of the show, I really enjoy it. Thank you!!
It was amazing!! OMG!!! I LOVE IT!
This was wonderfully done, no not perfect but very well done. Love the knives.
This was amazing! What a talented group!
WOW! Just fantastically wow! Loved it!
bloody brilliant!
This was an awesome version of the show! I didn't expect to laugh as much.,..if not more than the original. This was amazing!
This is great thank you for sharing 😄
This was GREAT!
Incredible!