One that I just remembered, although it's the music that does the heavy lifting and not the scenery: the transition from Vegas back to New Jersey in the finale of "The Wedding Singer."
We get a quick blast of the show's main theme from "It's Your Wedding Day," and then the band transitions (for the only time in the show) to playing New Jersey-style rock and roll, glockenspiel and accordion and all, to signify we've made it back to Jersey. It's a
Taylor Louderman’s honesty Sep 12
2019, 07:43:41 PM
I'm glad we're getting to the point where theatre is a church, and actors are priests and nuns of the Divine Stage. It's an art form, and it's a job. And like any other art and any other job, it's human beings doing it. You struggle. You burn out. Whatever you do every day, no matter how lucky you feel to be doing it, it's work.
Rupert Everett did SOMETHING of an American accent in "Inspector Gadget" (which I know because it was filmed in my hometown), but it was more of a "classical sophisticated sissy" thing, so not QUITE full American.
It has occurred to me that I mentioned the actual "male belting equivalent" sound is rare in the theatre for its somewhat ugly and unnatural quality, but I did manage to think of a fairly iconic example: Michael Shaeffer as Annas in the 2000 "Jesus Christ Superstar" film. He sings neither in falsetto nor in a chest-voiced scream, but in the somewhat harsh, barking sound of male power mix. I don't think you'll ever hear a protagonist or a romantic lead singing that
Male belters Sep 11
2019, 07:26:43 AM
The common blanket statement is, “men’s voices work differently than women’s, so they can’t belt,” with the caveat that “some men can go into a weird power-mix that essentially replaces their falsetto, but it’s an unusual and somewhat off-putting sound.”
The main example of that sound is Geddy Lee of the band Rush, who goes into the odd power-mix in most songs where others would either push their chest voice into a scream or switch into falsetto.
I keep telling people, expecting Stephen Schwartz to write a straightforward representational show that isn't fourth-wall-breaking presentational theatre or story theatre is like expecting Sondheim to write "Tarzan" or "The Prom;" nothing in his career highs OR lows would indicate that he is either capable of or interested in going there.
If it's a dramatic miniseries expansion of the show's inherent concept, it's going to feel like a mediocre dramatization of reality television. Consider the structure that makes ACL work: "a diverse group of performers trying to get their break, while being simultaneously auditioned and interrogated from a seat in the house by an inscrutable, cold but not entirely unfeeling industry insider." Some variation on this exact drama plays out two nights a week, but
And in regards to "Can't Fight This Feeling," I saw a production at Pittsburgh CLO with Ace Young, and the direction there played up the fact that Lonny and Dennis were both bisexual. It was subtle, but before their love duet, you could catch both of them ogling the men and the women alike.
What's next for HERCULES? Sep 3
2019, 09:49:34 PM
Counterpoint; Alan Menken wrote about half a dozen “new Aladdin songs” in the ten year gestation of the stage version. Some you can only hear in the Disney Parks show, some only in Aladdin Jr, etc.
If we're remixing the script anyway, I've said for years that Bobby, male or female, should probably be turning forty in a production set in modern times. Thirty-five isn't the "middle aged" milestone it used to be; hell, neither is forty but it's a more recognizable epoch number.
Richard Linklater - Merrily We Roll Along Aug 29
2019, 06:01:46 PM
Will it work on camera in real time with actors today? The ravages of middle age look much subtler today than they did in the seventies. Ben Platt will not be stout and balding with a cigar and whiskey voice and gin blossoms on his nose in twenty years. He’ll look like a slightly greying, well preserved version of himself. And Beanie has the sort of round facial structure that ages into itself well: see Katy Mixon, who looks better now than she did ten years ago.
This is my bet: this production is a workshop disguised as a publicity stunt. The last few times Disney has stage-tested B-list properties (and Hercules, like Hunchback, is a beloved cult hit that never trended as hard as the princess shows did), they've presented the material in intentionally "wacky" ways that didn't look like licensing pilot productions. For example, their long-gestating revue "When You Wish" was debuted as a series of super-sized arena spec
I don't know how it looked, but I music directed "High School Musical 2" during its soft launch in 2009, and there's some extremely "dramatic" music for the scene change from the high school to the country club. It must have been designed to play up a grandiose transition, but nothing is noted in the script and it was just a blackout in this production.
That could almost be another thread: "things the music tells you that the licensed script does not ev
Interesting that Alfred Molina read so unauthentic as Tevye (I didn't see his performance live or on any official/unofficial footage); I've been watching the Marvel movies, and he reads as very Jewish in "Spider-Man 2." I only really noted it because the Jewish sensibility and humor was very essential to the conception of so many of the modern Marvel characters created in the 1960s, whether they were explicitly created or coded as Jewish or not.
I'm not sure how true the "Shining was intended originally as a play" thing is; what I believe to be the case is actually that early drafts of the novel had a theatre-based structure with acts and a prologue, and would feature more theatrical imagery throughout.
The original "prologue" is out there among King's apocrypha and uncollected stories.
West Side Story Revival Marquee-What are they thinking? Aug 22
2019, 08:22:50 PM
Isn’t there a line in the script, “you’re too dark to pass [for white]?” I’m completely against brownface, but I’m willing to buy that colorism is a thing and that the Sharks are a mostly indigenous-looking, dark-skinned group by necessity or choice, not by coincidence.
The whole use of Downton Abbey in this argument is disingenuous; the show is neither whitewashing nor using "forced diversity." If I recall, the second to last season dealt with issues of race explicitly, as a white member of the aristocracy was challenged in her desire for an interracial relationship with a black American musician.
Stunt Casting Aug 20
2019, 04:41:02 PM
The Chicago OBRC has a second disc of rarities and performances by some of their most notable stunt casting stars. I actually liked Lynda Carter and John O’Hurley better than the Mama and Billy on the OBCR- O’Hurley in particular made a campy meal of the tongue in cheek “All I Care About.”
