Point taken Coco. I always thought Hair had to be a young cast. That's always how I've seen it done. But I guess I should have known the script better before I opened my mouth.
Guess I was harsh. This is part of the blog that pissed me off BTW. And Coco your username is freakin GREAT.
How often is a sibling an integral part, maybe the most integral part, of making history. Words are being used in reviews along the lines of "saving musical theatre" with comments alluding to it being above the staple pieces such as Sweeney Todd and Rent when considering their scores. The references to it being more precise, and moving, and timely than such musings as Hair - and Duncan being named the Man of the Hour in all of it.
For almost the exact amount of time that the production team of SA talk about their life with the piece, I have been living my life surrounded by Musical Theatre, and the bubble of a world that that life entails. Here it has been broken. They are not breaking ground, they are breaking into the bubble and making it accessible, instead of a clique that you must be accepted into. The album is a rock album, not an Original Cast Recording. The actors are really in their teens and barely early twenties, instead of accredited Broadway actresses of 35 years old wearing wigs to young them down. The adaptation, the direction, the set, the mood, the environment that each person has contributed to creating is "bubble breaking"....and now since it has burst - the theatre world that we have all been making do with, trying to be accepted into, has to learn how to accept us - the new voices. We were out in Las Vegas trying to be true to a rock genre in a tug of war with a theatrical concept. The jukeboxes are trying - our friends are in companies of the Jukeboxes that are constantly being shut down - a few thriving in their own right, in the small towns, in the far off place from Manhattan. And here lands SA - fearless. Other vehicles have turned around from even an attempt at throwing their guts into Broadway, fear of the critics, fear of the subscription blue hairs....all the while itching to break the bubble.
He has scored a piece of history - he will accept a Tony for it. He will accept that he has won a Tony, completely humbled by the idea that a rock star can change a medium that was asking to be changed. Will classical musical theatre be affected - it surely holds its own...Fiddler and Grease revivals and updated Mary Poppins will still thrive. Absolutely...but In the Heights is just around the corner, and so are countless, hungry, songwriters who are now walking through an open door. With a high standard to follow, a bar has been set - try to conquer it - you won't...but make your own. Creation is open again ---
You have these young actors and actresses - follow these kids to their next projects, see how their lives will be changed because of these songs and these words that they are singing. All involved are better for it...all that go to see it...are better after it.
Take a minute to ingest what is truly happening in the Eugene O'Neil - insert your own adjective - magic, beauty, wonder, excitement... emotional outbursts of young kids getting their chance to get through. You will sit with a jaw drop through Touch Me - without even knowing half the string section is off stage left. You will think "this is huge" and be amazed at the pure volume (not sound levels) but thickness of what is being accomplished by an ensemble of a dozen or so 18 year olds with hand held mics standing on wooden chairs and singing about Purple Summers and Words of Their Bodies -- and the beauty of it all is - that they understand it...and it makes sense. They speak about reaching the younger audience, pulling it in. Saving the day, really. That's what they are doing. Saving musical theatre is a grand way of looking at it...but isn't it nice to save something at all?
My brother is going to win a Tony Award. I am superstitious. I hate jinxing my own life, let alone others...but I don't have a doubt in my mind. It has been a transcendent feat accomplished - It will be properly acknowledged. Or there will be repercussions*....
Updated On: 9/11/08 at 05:46 PM
