I'm thinking about applying to Ithaca for MT and so I was checking out their website - I didn't know Matt Cavenaugh is an alum!? I LOVE him! What's he doing these days?
1) He and his wife just recorded an album 2) He's going to be in DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
I had no idea who he was before West Side Story and when I saw him, I couldn't believe that he could be on Broadway. And having looked at his credits, I can't believe people keep casting him. So bad! That voice was miserably nasal!
And having looked at his credits, I can't believe people keep casting him. So bad! That voice was miserably nasal!
I realize everyone one has an opinion and even I can understand why people don't really like his acting but that VOICE! C'mon, he has one of the best voices on Broadway. His control, timbre, and just overall sound is brilliant. That's probably a huge part of him getting cast, with his looks. Does anything please you bitches?
Have you heard him sing? Have you heard his overwhelmingly huge vibrato that prevents him from singing actual notes on even an eighth note? Have you heard him speak with that strange accent? Really, not the best singer.
"Does anything please you bitches?"
Yes, quite a few spectacular people. We just don't like when beautiful Bernstein scores are sung on Broadway by people who don't do them justice.
His voice is mediocre at best. He has an incredibly stunning song in 'Death Takes a Holiday' that he acts and sings poorly, as he does almost every material he's ever been given.
He has got to be one of the worst actors working today. The man can't act his way out of a paper bag. And to think that we're in Europe during 'Death Takes a Holiday' and he STILL sounds like he's visiting from Hyannis Port?
YAWN.
"I know now that theatre saved my life." - Susan Stroman
Honestly? Matt Cavenaugh had no place leading a Broadway musical. He's attractive, sure - but his voice? His acting? Nowhere near where it should have been. His replacements were much better than he was.
I saw Matt Hydzik, in WSS, and he was great. But, Matt C's voice on the cast recording is great, but that is judging solely from one album and no visuals/sense of acting. His voice doesn't sound nasal at all, but I'll look up some other videos/recordings.
Like many one-trick actors, he seems to have a standard performance that he gives in each show. Having seen him in Grey Gardens, A Catered Affair, West Side Story, and now Death Takes a Holiday, I really cannot differentiate between the performances. It's the same vocal inflection, the same posture, the same attitude. I agree with Theater Trash. He has a song in Death Takes a Holiday that is written to be a show-stopper--although it really doesn't have much to do with advancing the actual plot of the show--and he turns it into five minutes of pure boredom.
His voice isn't all that impressive, either. He does have a huge vibrato, and when he sings in straight tone, his voice becomes incredibly small and thin. Even in a theatre the size of the Laura Pels, you get the impression that he would have trouble projecting without a microphone. Really, I don't get him or his popularity at all.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body