re: Musical Theater Composers Composing for the Opera Feb 14
2006, 12:40:21 PM
Opera is damn hard to pull off, and can easily be unconvincing, as Scooter says. But when the whole cast and music just clicks somehow even the immensely improbably becomes dramatically transporting. It's not just about the singing, though I know that's what most opera fans concentrate on.
I hate to use Wagner terminology because it comes with such baggage, but opera really is a Gesamtkunstwerk (complete/total art work), and I think if you leave out the staging you're missing a lot.
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re: Musical Theater Composers Composing for the Opera Feb 14
2006, 09:27:16 AM
I'm very interested in seeing where this leads. Let's hope for some comedies. Modern opera is always so serious.
I hope they don't resort to microphones, though. Mikes in the Met would be a sign of the Apocalypse. Get a good orchestrator on the case.
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re: OUR LADIES OF THE CAMELIAS by Lillian Groag Feb 12
2006, 11:56:51 PM
Huh, that title is confusing. I immediately though of The Lady of the Camelias, the Dumas play that Sarah Bernhardt famously starred in and which was eventually adapted into Verdi's La traviata. But that's probably just me.
I take it they are related somehow, though?
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re: 'Faith Healer' Pre-Broadway Run (Minus Cherry Jones) - Reviews Feb 10
2006, 01:13:54 AM
I think it's better to call this an "Irish run," not a "pre-Broadway run."
I'll be interested in audience reaction for this one. I think it's a brilliant play, but it isn't at all a straightforward one, and the people who buy tickets to productions because they see names they recognize might be surprised.
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re: Broadway's Tragedies Feb 10
2006, 01:11:02 AM
West Side Story: Well, Romeo and Juliet misses the classical definition of tragedy in a few ways- too much coincidence and bad timing, mostly (and Friar Lawrence is a nitwit). I think WSS solves some of these weaknesses by the major changes at the end. I've never thought about whether it brings it closer to a classical tragedy, though- it's an interesting question.
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re: How much hate mail do you think Ben Brantley gets? Feb 6
2006, 10:32:17 PM
I'd guess that John Simon got (not sure about now) as much hate mail in a month as Brantley gets in a year. He was/is a great deal more antagonistic, and sometimes very personal and nasty.
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re: Chicago Lyrics in French Feb 5
2006, 02:00:30 AM
Donne-moi le vieux razzle dazzle.
Sorry. It's late.
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re: Poll: The most infamous name on Broadway is... Feb 5
2006, 01:56:58 AM
I'm suprised Ms. Donna Murphy has not yet been mentioned. Not that she out-infamies Merrick, but it can't be great for her career that any mention of her name is accompanied by a joke about not showing up.
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re: Ever seen an ensemble in The Last 5 Years? Jan 5
2006, 05:32:09 PM
I heard that the two-man I Am My Own Wife in Philadelphia was a bit of a disaster. Not to discourage creative directing, but this kind of thing often seems to turn out badly.
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re: Theatres? Dec 29
2005, 11:56:42 PM
If Drowsy can't bag a theater for this spring (it is nice to see so much intriguing clutter, I just wish more of the musicals sounded interesting to me) I strongly doubt they would open in July. Big shows don't open in July. Maybe they would open in the fall or winter before Christmas, a la Wicked. I wish more shows did that- spring and summer get so crowded that I always miss a few things I wanted to see.
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re: Title Parodies... Dec 29
2005, 11:43:16 PM
Marat/Todd is clever, up to a point. Like so many other things, I fake that I actually have had a cultural experience by getting the reference, but will readily admit that I have merely seen the movie. (At least this isn't a case of some important book that I embarassingly haven't read. *cough* Orlando *cough*)
Then there were the Beauxhommies....I mean the Beauxhommes, from Once on This Island. Yes, that was high school.
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re: 'Once Upon a Mattress' Time Dec 18
2005, 11:25:48 PM
I thought it was cheesy fun, if not what it could have been. I don't think Mattress exactly needs a realistic setting, so I was fine with the Styrofoam Castle- but I could have done with a director or DP who knew something about filming musical numbers. But you can't say that's a problem unique to this movie- no one seems to know how to film a musical anymore.
My dad of course had to remind me of that episode of Law & Order in which Denis O'Hare played some sort of creepy religious fa
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re: Looking for some material to write a musical on... Dec 16
2005, 01:24:54 AM
Watch out, Elphaba is really Sondheim in disguise.
Make sure you have a good book. Really. Maybe even find a playwright to help you with it. It has to tell a story before anything else. All the student-written musicals I've seen have been badly marred by bad books.
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re: This one's for the ladies Dec 16
2005, 01:20:51 AM
Also: this is a mistake many, many people make, but a Broadway baby, according to the song, is someone who in fact is a baby at doing the Broadway thing- new in town and hasn't gotten a job yet. Inexperienced. But the phrase has since acquired the meaning you're assigning to it as well, of someone who has been on Broadway since they were a baby or something like that.
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re: Who'll play 'Pirate' Jenny now?? Dec 14
2005, 08:52:26 PM
I like the idea of Ute Lemper. She knows her way around this kind of music.
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re: Broadway Celebrity Sightings Dec 13
2005, 12:07:12 AM
Also not Broadway, but I sat behind Nora Ephron at Third. Didn't ask her why Bewitched sucked so bad.
Saw F. Murray Abraham at Forbidden Broadway.
I sat in front of Someone That Looked Famous (had the aura thing going) at Piazza, but I still haven't figured out who it was.
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re: Interlochen Arts Camp/Academy Dec 12
2005, 08:08:03 PM
I know a bunch of people who went to the classical music and ballet divisions. It's not for the faint-hearted. Nor those who don't like a competitive atmosphere.
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re: Jena Malone makes her Broadway debut in Doubt Dec 7
2005, 12:00:07 AM
QMan03- It's all about the standing room, if it's still selling out. The play's only 90 minutes long, and the view is excellent.
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re: Weirdest role you have ever played Dec 2
2005, 10:47:27 PM
Mikewood: Hee. I'm directing 'Dentity Crisis right now. It's fuuunnn. Especially when the potato chips litter the stage and the bananas fall over. Our costume designer had fun, too.
When I was in 12, I played a senile old woman in a Chekhov parody. Of course, I didn't know anything at all about Chekhov, so I doubt I was very effective.
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re: Britney Spears TURNED DOWN 'Sweet Charity'?!?! Dec 1
2005, 01:29:00 AM
I bet if she had done it she would have made Donna Murphy's attendance record look like Harvey Fierstein's. Maybe that's cruel and preemptively (and, at this point, purely hypothetically) judgmental, but I doubt she would have the stamina or discipline for that many shows per week in a dance-heavy show.
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