Profile for darquegk

Any time that song comes up in conversation, I love sharing this story. A decade or two ago, I went to see a community theatre production of South Pacific. They had cast a very dignified older actor in the lead, but he couldn't sing a note. So he spoke his lyrics dramatically, a la Sebastian Cabot.

The other trouble was, he wasn't very good with accents either. So he shot for an Italian accent, but came away with a Hungarian one instead. And do you know what it sounds like when

It feels like there were three Sondheims: the “god” with his carefully crafted persona, the relatively conventional for his era gay man, and the enthusiastic, eccentric nerd with a number of spectrum-adjacent traits and quirks. 
 

He reminds me much more than I would have expected of another cult hero, Edward Gorey, who also shared that holy trinity of curated personalities. The one big difference I can think of? Gorey was a technophobe while Sondheim was fam

Big musicals never left. Great Gatsby is crammed with sets and pyrotechnics, Lost Boys is attempting a Spider-Man level of immersive special effects. What's changed is that most musicals are shooting for a midbudget instead, and the current musical theatre sounds rarely demand casts of sixty or more and an orchestra over 25 pieces the way they used to.

If you think every new musical is Two Strangers or Mincemeat levels of pared-back intimacy, you're just raising a strawman. The

The tone of the two pieces is completely different. Lippa's show is a rollicking, winking dark comedy that mixes 2000s Broadway pop with jazz sounds and film noir winks. It's an intentionally sort of sleazy, tacky "fun" show that leans into the more grotesque elements of the original novel: the characters are one dimensional stereotypes on purpose, because that's the kind of nightmare-party world Joseph M. March wrote about. It's a blast, sometimes intentionally offe

It wasn't BC/EFA, and I know I've told this story on here before, but it's sort of followed me through the theatre community, so I'll tell it again.

Back in summer 2009, I was assistant-directing a production of Sweeney Todd in the Pittsburgh area. (It wasn't a very good production exactly, or at least not a very faithful one: someone described as "Muppet Sweeney Todd," since Sweeney and Mrs Lovett played everything straight as an arrow while the rest of t

The thing that makes ACL so interesting, a historical discussion, is also the thing that makes it increasingly a relic: its "living documentary" presentational style. Still frozen in time from the original production 99% of the time, and constantly restaged to be as accurate as possible, it runs the risk of becoming not just a museum piece, but a human Audio-Animatronic display. If you've seen one really good Chorus Line, there is at least an argument to be made that you've

joevitus said: "darquegk said: "I wonder if there's some legal thing going on where they don't have the rights to any of the classic iconography or fonts? It's also notable that they aren't billing the show as "Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show," which I believe has been the official legal billing for the last twenty years or so."

To be honest--and I say this as a fan of the show for over 40 years--I've never b

I'm fascinated and optimistic about the really positive word of mouth on Paranormal Activity. It feels like the last thirty years have had a series of serious attempts at honest-to-god horror in American theatre, but few have pulled it off before.

Closest I've ever seen was what I believe to be a non-replica production of The Humans at Pittsburgh Public Theatre. It was EXTREMELY horror oriented with multiple jumpscares and a very strong Mulholland Drive era David Lynch feel. (W