Swing Joined: 3/23/09
A real life glee club ... plus the cast of Glee! (And some great ladies from Long Island)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKlfKl8QU4k
Umm....songs from CURTAINS and NEXT TO NORMAL in show choir??? They must have one of THOSE music directors...
I agree how amateur it is for them to sing Show-tunes in a show choir.....What was there director on.....So not cool.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
lol you guys would have HATED my show choir... I think everything we sang was from musicals.
You know we are joking right?
I'm referring to the fact that they're singing very recently written material. Who the heck in Bumbutt, Ohio is going to know what shows those songs are from?
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
"I'm referring to the fact that they're singing very recently written material. Who the heck in Bumbutt, Ohio is going to know what shows those songs are from?"
I think I disagree. When I saw the recent documentary on three HS musicals in the midwest, I was surprised to see their choices: Starmites, Zombie Prom, and an original piece about a Hawaiian princess written by the director. I watched the show expecting to see choices like The Music Man or Oklahoma.
Hi. I actually live in this "Bumbutt, Ohio" (Columbus, Ohio, the capital of the state) and am a member of this show choir, the Olentangy Keynotes. I'll have you know that we "Bumbutt, Ohioans" are acatually well aware that there is a world outside of our dairy farms and football games. And yes. Some of us do get out of "Bumbutt, Ohio" and come to the magical world of NEW YORK-LAND to see shows.
It was extremely rude and offensive to just make these assumptions.
So what you're saying is that, unless you live within a 15 mile radius of New York City, you are FORBIDDEN to have any knowledge of such OBSCURE shows such as Next to Normal. I am quite sorry.
Educate yourself: http://www.olentangymusic.org/keynotes/
"So what you're saying is that, unless you live within a 15 mile radius of New York City, you are FORBIDDEN to have any knowledge of such OBSCURE shows such as Next to Normal."
That sounds about right.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
Also keep in mind that Ohio is the home of two prestigious music conservatories- Oberlin and CCM.
That counts for San Francisco too!
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/05
I just don't think "Alive" is a good show choir choice. It's such a... malevolent song and to hear it sung so cheerfully and innocently is strange.
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/28/09
Ohio gets an awful reputation, but it's really not fair. Don't forget, Cleveland (where I live) has the second-largest theatre center in the country, second only to Lincoln Center. Most of my friends have certainly heard of next to normal (and, for that matter, a great many have SEEN it on Broadway), and it's completely not right to say that people from there don't know about theatre.
Mad Brian- It's not just the midwest. My upstate NY HS did Zombie Prom, revival version Anything Goes, Little Shop, and... HS Musical (you can imagine how that went and how it was met by a group of cynical people- myself included). I would have to say our school enjoyed the original musicals far more than saturated than HS musical and really, up here is no different than 'Bumbutt, Ohio' except we could never claim to be the stomping grounds of The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs (Oberlin). One of our most famous alumni is first cello in Cleveland's prestigious symphony orchestra, don't judge Ohio.
Oh and up here plenty of people are familiar with Broadway. Phantom stayed 3 weeks here to constant packed houses at Proctors. Plus there is always the Amtrak down to NYC.
wicked1492, yowza's you are easy to offend. My comments didn't pertain your CHOIR knowing what shows these songs are from, but your audience, who I assume is a lot of parents and residents, no? I live in Bumbutt, North Carolina (Greensboro, a city with a theatre community, too.) and outside of our theatre community, the audiences that come to even the professional theatre productions here would generally have no clue as well. So don't get your tits in a twist, you know it's true! If you think otherwise, poll your audience. Ask even ten audience members who you would call "visitors" to your show what "I'm Alive" is from. I bet you 9 out of 10 don't know.
As for shows such as ZOMBIE PROM, STARMITES and the like -- those shows have been in existence for quite some time. They've had time to build a name for themselves in the theatre market -- even if they are more rarely produced than the OKLAHOMA's. NEXT TO NORMAL and CURTAINS are "fresh."
So KUDOS for exposing Bumbutt, Ohio to these "fresh" tunes and raising awareness of the shows, but I stand by my statement. Who the heck in Bumbutt, Ohio is going to know what shows these songs are from?? (Again, prove me wrong.)
Who cares if no one knows the songs?! Until it reached an audience (a rabid, insane one), no one knew the songs in Next to Normal itself.
Why does it matter if 9 out of 10 people don't know these songs? We're doing new, "fresh" songs from musicals to avoid doing the same songs as everyone else and their mother. Maybe someone in the audience might ACTUALLY appreciate hearing a song other than "Don't Stop Believin'" and "One Night Only". Maybe we might pique the audience's interest to buy the CAST RECORDING or so see the show.
We try to be unique here in Bumbutt, Ohio. I was in no way saying EVERYONE in the audience would be singing along, but to say that NO ONE here would have ever heard of these songs is atrocious.
And then to admit that you're from Middle-of-Nowhere, NC. Do you wanna be the kettle or the pot today? You choose.
I give up. I don't think you're understanding what I meant to begin with. Yeesh.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/30/09
I really don't like the idea of a show-choir doing "I'm Alive", but just because I don't think it works well as a group number, not because nobody has heard it. My sister's show choir is performing "Show Off" from The Drowsy Chaperone, and she was the only one who had ever even heard of the song before. We live about an hour from downtown Chicago, where each person in the choir could have had the opportunity to see the show's national tour when it came here, but just because they didn't doesn't mean they shouldn't perform it. I always get excited when choirs sing Broadway songs because those are the only songs I've heard before, usually.
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