Will a true "A Cappella" musical ever work on Broadway?

[willrolandsframes]

Posted: 6/2/17 at 9:51pm

Obviously we all saw what happened to In Transit this year. The "A Cappella" musical just didn't work.

There really hasn't been a true 100% A Cappella musical until In Transit. This begs the question. Will an original musical that is 100% A Cappella ever work on Broadway? Furthermore, is there any composer out there who could even construct something like this and actually make it work?

Obviously it just didn't work out for Kristen Anderson-Lopez and her team. But is there someone out there? The only people I could ever see pulling something like this off are Ross Baum and Ben Holtzman, but they're so young and are just getting started with what they're gonna likely do with RANGE in the future, but considering that this duo has directly arranged most of RANGE's covers says something about their talents, whether or not they are ever exposed on a grand scale.

Outside of this pair, is there anyone else out there that could make an A Cappella musical work?

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 6/2/17 at 10:37pm

Who could possibly say? I do think it might be a while before we see another a cappella musical in the style of In Transit which was very show choir with the voices mimicking instruments and featuring beatboxing and those kinds of vocal effects. It would be interesting to see other voice-heavy traditions of music like folk or gospel. But I think even then small orchestra/band productions are more likely than entirely a cappella shows unless there's a plot-motivated reason for the lack of instruments. 

[haterobics]

Posted: 6/2/17 at 11:34pm

There is no specific hunger for an a cappella musical. If some great story is told with a cappella music, then sure, why not. But that isn't really a hook for me... 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 6/3/17 at 12:05am

I see more appeal in a musical with un-amplified voices, at least for the songs. 

[rattleNwoolypenguin]

Posted: 6/3/17 at 1:17am

Acapella is very "less is more". It's impressive and effective in shorter segments.

It's enjoyable but never is acapella a 2 and a half hour affair. 

The gimmick would wear thin. 

 

 

[Rainah]

Posted: 6/3/17 at 10:53am

Definitely. Everyone I know who saw In Transit liked it - said it wasn't Hamilton, or anything, but a pleasant night of theatre. In Transit's problem was the godawful marketing and the fact that they couldn't get the word out about it.

[Sunny11]

Posted: 6/3/17 at 11:17am

I think that a juke box musical featuring songs famous as sung in  acapella such as The Longest Time by  Billy Joel or The still of the night cover by Boyz II Men could be interesting. 

What if a show centred on a fictional cover band acapella group ? 

[coreman009]

Posted: 6/6/17 at 3:09pm

I personally loved In Transit. True, it wasn't the next great American musical like Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen, but it had a great score, enjoyable plot, and it made for a damn impressive night at the theater. I completely agree that the marketing doomed it. I'm a huge Broadway fan and even I didn't have much interest at first. 

[JennH]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 11:13am

rattleNwoolypenguin said: "Acapella is very "less is more". It's impressive and effective in shorter segments.

It's enjoyable but never is acapella a 2 and a half hour affair. 

The gimmick would wear thin. 

 

 

 

"

This right here. I'm a music nut in general and am of the belief that pretty much every style and kind of music has it's place but a whole two hour acapella has always felt more like a passing trend/ a gimmick to me. Good idea in theory but not in practice. Acapella, to me, has always felt more like a a style of music that serves singing groups and the concert arena better, just for the fact that it's acapella. Now...there are musicals that do the "less is more" narrative very well but that in terms of staging and design, not necessarily the music. The music in musicals is basically a character unto itself and to take it even further, the instrumentation/orchestration characterizes the music and the whole aesthetic of what a show is supposed to feel like when it's written well. To take away an orchestra is almost like taking away a good chunk of a show's identity. I applied the attempt and acapella is a wonderful music form that I love dearly, but the very nature of acapella doesn't seem to serve stage musicals very well. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 11:45am

I believe it can be done but hasn't been done well yet. Consider this: nuanced "college style a cappella" has only been around for about twenty years since Todd Rundgren mixed the sound of black a cappella R&B with vocal approximations of contemporary pop music mixing and arrangement techniques. Broadway and musical theatre are an ever evolving beast, but it took almost forty years since the ascent of hip hop to create a convincing and authentic hip hop musical that mixes live and electronic and sampled elements in the same way pop music does.

I say give it time- it'll happen but not soon.

[theaterdrew]

Posted: 6/7/17 at 3:21pm

Ironically, Pitch Perfect might work as a musical but not as an all-a cappella musical.  Rather, something ala Hamilton that mixes non-traditional and traditional musical theater forms.