I work as a music director for educational and non-profit theater and as a freelance writer. My main webhub is my entertainment media blog Cue the Media.
The original Broadway production is among my favorite performances. I'm so excited to get to revisit this with a new interpretation of the material. Just having a different Caroline could make such a huge difference and Sharon D. Clarke's Oliviers' performance is so different from Tonya Pinkins' Tony performance of Lot's Wife.
It's spectacle. I originally saw it in Toronto and hated the show. I saw it a few years later on Broadway and appreciated it a lot more. The book is not strong, but the costumes, puppetry, and choreography are excellent. Of the new music, I like Shadowland and He Lives in You.
I'm pretty sure when they first revealed this was going to happen they said it was going to be state of the art and incorporate live actors with technology. I think they want to include animated elements in the live production, hence specifying Shaggy as the voice of Sebastian rather than Sebastian. I seem to remember a delay in this happening for technology reasons. Maybe that was at D23 a couple years ago or a similar event? This definitely isn't the first I heard of a live Little M
I don't think anyone should have their phone on during a show. I've had to not got to shows before because of emergencies because I knew I wouldn't be in the right mindset to see a show if I thought that I needed to be with my phone. It sucks. I would just rather not disrupt everyone else's experience.
Amour. It has a wonderful score and the cast sounded great on it.
Scottsboro Boys is easily one of the best shows I've ever seen.
Wild Broadway Stories? Jul 21
2019, 10:14:03 PM
I got to see John Lithgow stop a performance of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Norbert Leo Butz was out, so his understudy went on. Sometime between the scene where the two men are in the balcony and their return to the stage, the understudy hurt himself and needed to sit out the rest of the show. However, they had just released the standby and were literally trying to track him down, get him back in the theater, and get him in costume to take over.
The show still works, for sure. I've music directed enough productions to last a lifetime at this point. I do think the shift to more cartoonish elements towards the end of the show--the disguises, Christmas decorations, FDR showing up to save the day--aren't always leaned into as heavily as they could be to bring out the humor in Rooster, Lily, and Hannigan. They're villains, but they're meant to be funny villains.
The Finding Nemo runtime is easily going to reach 60 minutes for the JR version. Disney has, in the past, added songs from other films to their JR versions to make them run a little longer (Alice in Wonderland has Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, for example). They'll add in reprises, extra choruses with a larger ensemble, and additional instrumental scoring to expand book scenes with movement and/or dances. There's also usually a pretty lengthy song at curtain call.
I remember when she was promoting Hereditary, a few critics asked her about coming back to Broadway. She basically said she would if it was the right project, but she goes where the work is and likes to challenge herself. Mame feels like a good match and I hope this turns out to be true.
It's also a more avant-garde show that schools are going to be able to justify field trips to. It's Greek mythology as a musical, after all. My middle/high school students are talking about it a lot, too.
Beth Leavel was great as Florence Greenberg in Baby It's You. The whole show was ill-conceived, allowing only 30 seconds to 2 minutes of most of the dozens of the songs licensed for the show. The show would introduce a plot point and then jump to a brand new location and time in the story and never bring it up again. Still she found a way to make a compelling portrait of a talented songwriter out of very inconsistent material. The end of Act I (Soldier Boy) was particularly effective
Bob Martin and Beth Leavel in The Drowsy Chaperone
Jefferson Mays in A Gentleman's Guide...
James Corden in One Man, Two Guvnors
Mark Rylance in Richard III and Twelfth Night. Rylance made Richard III's opening monologue one of the funniest moments I've ever seen in a Shakespeare production. The audience was roaring. Twelfth Night was more consistently funny (as it should be), but that soliloquy is worth the shoutout, as well.
I really liked Brooklyn. The score was fun and the cast sang the hell out of it. The story is utter nonsense and that's fine by me. I remember the review that said you can't leave the theater whistling the costumes, but I remember quite a few of those tunes and have used them with students for years. Now that the rights are available, I'm working on convincing people to try stage the show in my area. I'd love the music direct that score.
She wrote quite a few plays with her brother David in the 90s and performed in them, as well. They went by The Talent Family. I'm pretty sure The Book of Liz was their last stage collaboration and that was in 2000 or 2001.
AEA AGMA SM said: "John Adams said: "I am ecstatic because of Adam Guettel's nomination for Best Original Score! I finally have something to root for!"
I know this isn’t the first time a play’s score has been nominated, but has one ever actually won the award?"
No play nominated in the original score category has ever won, even in years with multiple plays nominated for scores. A musical has always won when the category w
Every time this kind of thing happens, I blame the administration of the school. I can't think of a school program in my area where the theater teacher or adviser does not have to jump through hoops to get shows approved by the administration. They're asked to provide scripts, recordings, explanations for why the show is good for the school, and go to numerous meetings over it. Every time this happens, there's suddenly a review of the script right before the show opens that means
I've worked with a few different schools who opted not to do Millie because of the racist content. It's close to the same level of recognition as, "Why don't we do Peter Pan?" Uggawug, that's why, and another show is chosen.
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