Profile for Hey, Zelda!

Cast album of the Godspeed production quietly dropped yesterday, apparently.

"Big", a musical about the tension between the freedoms of youth and the wisdom of age, should perhaps have had a writing team with a median age under fifty.

Melissa25 said: """A new dance thriller" is certainly a new sobriquet.

The path from "gmorning, gnight" to an Internet detox musical is a winding one.

Worth mentioning, too, is that the most gruesome kill—being burned alive—belongs to Mrs. Lovett. This could very well be a reflection of her villainy being repaid in kind, or, as I've seen proposed, it's a reflection of Sweeney Todd's cock-eyed chivalry turned on its head into something ugly. Like, he expects the men of the world to be vicious and cruel and trample upon the innocent like they did his beautiful and virtuous wife. For Lovett to betray her sex is a step too far for him, it seems...

Charley Kringas Inc said: "There's a reason the best plays about Hitler don't actually feature Hitler, and I think the same applies to Trump. The impact he's had on people is much more interesting than the man himself, who is so well-documented and shallowly psychotic that there's very little to actually excavate dramatically. I don't know if a Trump-centric play would be anything more than a back-patting political cartoon, when what's really needed is an exorcism in the average living room."...

"I understand, but it doesn't have to be that way."How would it function otherwise?"Insert that "It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" quote here.Also, per Playbill, Meg Wolitzer, the original novelist, was joining Sarah Ruhl on book detail.

She's been pretty active for the last decade-plus up in her native Canada, I gather, but I'm putting in a good word for Britta Johnson. I thought her "Life After" (at the Goodman in Chicago) was exquisite, and I've listened to a short promo for "Kelly v. Kelly" more than one would consider healthy.

From Playbill: "The Interestings could turn out to be Ruhl's first foray into musical theatre, though she previously adapted her Eurydice into a libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera version of the work."Already with the Face in the Crowd erasure. Also, Wonder at A.R.T. just happened, no?

KevinKlawitter said: "The songs are all well-performed (Tilda Swinton in particular absolutely nails her big solo number), and there's real charm in how Oppenheimer choreographs dance numbers for characters who have never danced before."Or characters who arguably don't really lend themselves to song much.Joshua "Adding Machine-slash-Minister's Wife" Schmidt's involvement is what got me in the door. Over a bed of lush Golden-Age-of-Hollywood strings, just about everyone sings from some half-st...

Chaz Hands said: "Zoe Sarnak feels VERY close to breaking out if any of her shows in development make it to Broadway.Recent shows of her include: Galileo, Empire Records, Afterwords, The Lonely Few, etc."Add Particle Fever to that list, co-written with Bear "Battlestar Galactica" McCreary.

There was chatter a while back about mounting Psycho in a site-specific nightclub space. I wonder if any of that bled into this production. Like, "Okay, maybe we can't build a whole new nightclub, but why not key the set to a contemporary nightclub?"

Kad said: "Taymor seems like the sort of figure who will receive a big re-examination sometime in the not distant future and be newly re-appreciated."Heck, this re-examination may even include Turn Off the Dark.Not to diminish the pains that that show wrought, but, in certain pockets of musical theater fans and comic fans (and fans of both), there seems to be a cock-eyed appreciation for the fact that Taymor was allowed to take such a huge swing with the property at all. Which is inconceivabl...

BrodyFosse123 said: "She’s currently working on THE GRAND DELUSION,an upcoming musical project with composer Elliot Goldenthal. It isan adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella THE TRANSPOSED HEADS. The production has undergone workshops, including a notable session in May 2024."Not her first go-around with the property.

I dig the music, for sure, so color me jazzed:

Resurrecting this from the dead, having just gotten my hands on this after falling down a Turn Off the Dark rabbit hole.Alas, I can't say there's a whole lot to be gleaned about the early days of Turn of the Dark's development, but since Brian Bendis's involvement predates Glen Berger's, you get a glimpse of the conceptual wrestling match that was already going on between Marvel and Julie Taymor. (Hard to believe now in the wake of the superhero movie-industrial complex, but Marvel wasn't qui...

There was that recent production in Houston for which the writers made some revisions, no? It'll be interesting to hear from the Psycho-faithful if any of those changes have stuck.

Amanda Seyfried brings up workshopping Thelma & Louise in a recent New Yorker profile: Click Here To Toggle Spoiler ContentWould you ever think of doing a Broadway show?No. I was working on one, but it’s too much. The last time I won a Golden Globe, for “The Dropout,” I wasn’t there, because I was doing a workshop for a musical adaptation of “Thelma & Louise.” It was just like how Michelle Williams missed winning hers this year, because she’s in a play. I remember going over to my friend’s ho...

Kad said: "I generally like the use of the historical figures in Ragtime. They add texture and context to the narrative and symbolize the social upheaval and rapid progress happening in the era. Radical or new ideas, technological innovation, celebrity, and wealth were affecting the lives of average people in new ways every day. Ragtime is an epic, almost allegorical story about America, not just an intimate melodrama about a handful of people, and the use of historical figures helps build th...