How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
#1How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/9/10 at 1:07pm
Hey everybody!
For my high school senior project I am doing rock musicals and need a little help.
My thesis is: The rock musical is concerned with social issues, inspiring its audience, as well as its actors, to take action. Broadway's two most famous rock musicals, Hair and Rent, have successfully motivated people to rise up against social wrongs.
Here is where you come in.
How have Hair and Rent inspired YOU?
I really appreciate the help! Thanks very much!
#2How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/9/10 at 1:27pm
I know you'll find this cynical, but I'm afraid I can't agree with your thesis.
HAIR was a reflection of a well-established hippie movement, not the cause of anything. Peace protests had been going on for years before HAIR appeared on the scene (1967 Off-Broadway). U.S troops were not entirely out of Vietnam until 1975, an action begun by Richard Nixon when he realized that he would be thrown out of office if he didn't take steps to end a ruinously expensive and unwinnable conflict. Moral considerations, contrary to what we would like to believe, did not play a part in his administration's decisions.
Regarding RENT, I can't imagine what social action resulted from that show. I don't believe that you can argue that HIV/AIDS research and funding was magnified by actions of people inspired by it, or that it generated affordable housing for artistic "bohemians" in New York City.
#2How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/9/10 at 1:39pm
Hair is a satire of war and the draft, sexual oppression, gender roles and inequality. When they are singing let the sun shine in they are trying to promote people to make changes. I believe the cast going down to the equality march is a perfect example of Hair inspiring people to stand up for what they believed in.
As for Rent, it promoted AIDS awareness and had a message of living life to the fullest. For this I found the connection with Friends in Deed and Broadway Cares as evidence.
#3How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/9/10 at 2:27pmI know that Rent School Edition has sparked a lot of heated debate in schools about gay rights. When schools have wanted to do it and there has been opposition from adminitrators or parents due to the "content" (translation: there are gay characters), students and teachers have prostested and fought back. They have also created educational ways to introduce student who might not have a lot of education about gay rights to the issues. In the end, most schools have been able to do the production and the students, faculty, adminstration and parents have all learned from the experience.
#5[title of thread redacted]
Posted: 4/9/10 at 4:05pmRent inspired me to kill an dog named Evita (not Patti).
....but the world goes 'round
#6How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/10/10 at 10:47am
Thanks BwayBaby!
Has anyone else been inspired?
#7How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/10/10 at 12:45pm
My dad has let us watch Hair the movie since I was in elementary school. So even though I've been exposed to that early on, the musical takes things to a whole new level.
It is a fun, energizing musical with fabulous songs. As the show goes on, it becomes less about the people and more about the various issues at stake, such as he draft, war itself, and others. And then it all comes together and the people and their struggles come together, leaving you with a deeper need for peace and to help those around you.
People leave that show different, whether or not that wares off or they apply it more into their lives is another story though.
Goshen doesn't do High-School-shows.
#8How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/10/10 at 2:04pm
hmm... have to disagree with your thesis.
Rock music is simply one kind of score a composer could use to write a musical. Rock in musical doesn't have to imply a social issue any more than any other form of music...
Plenty of rock musicals (Spring Awakening, Passing Strange, The Who's Tommy) and plenty of "lite-rock musicals" (Next To Normal, Jesus Christ Superstar, heck even Mamma Mia and Little Shop of Horrors) use rock or a contemporary sound without overtly pushing "social issues, inspiring its audience, as well as its actors, to take action" beyond the stories they're telling...
The contrary is also true. Plenty of musicals have dealt with social issues using their music that was not rock: Show Boat, South Pacific, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, Ragtime, Taboo, Anyone Can Whistle, La Cage aux Folles...the list goes on
#9How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/10/10 at 2:59pm
I don't think HAIR (the original in 1967/6
inspired much of anything but it attracted an audience who saw their concerns being reflected on stage in a contemporary format. It did break some taboos as far as language/nudity and open displays of sexuality on stage.
RENT was Larson's attempt to meld traditional Broadway story-telling with an urban contemporary sound, but again aside from attracting a youthful audience to the theatre it did not cause any major social upheavals.
Rock music by its very nature is angry and aggressive. Sometimes it can be used to exhibit joy, but the range of emotions it can inspire is limited. Part of the problem is that very few rock musicians are trained in any other style of music, and they tend to think than an album of songs thematically linked will automatically transfer to the stage. These shows (AMERICAN IDIOT being the latest) are put on by people who do not understand or bother to learn about the musical theater's history. They don't know how to use music in a specific scene to heighten emotion. (They also seem to favour burying the vocals which runs counter to what good theatre is about: The text!)
I think it is wonderful that shows such as RENT, SPRING AWAKENING and NEXT TO NORMAL have attracted a new generation of theatre goers, a group that the industry had pretty much ignored from the late 1960s through the 90s. But it seems the only thing that they have been inspired to do is to go back and see the same shows over and over.
Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!
I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com
#10How Have Rock Musicals Inspired YOU?
Posted: 4/10/10 at 3:11pm
frontrowcentre2 - I was hoping you'd join in here....always enjoy your perspective. :)
