The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

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The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

Posted: 2/15/05 at 12:49pm

Interesting story from today's Times about the creation of "Mamma Mia," "Good Vibrations," "Lennon" and other jukebox shows:
You Can Name the Tune, but Does It Fit the Plot?

"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie [http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/] "The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney

re: The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

Posted: 2/15/05 at 1:14pm

Great article - I love that they interviewed Arthur Laurents about it!

But I won't live alone in a house of regret.

re: The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

Posted: 2/15/05 at 10:53pm

im still undecided on this topic... i think a lot of artists write songs about their lives so sure weaving a story in could work very well, but i guess you just gotta pick your artist well.

re: The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

Posted: 2/16/05 at 12:09am

So in many places, Ms. Keneally's creative team - including the director John Carrafa and the book writer Richard Dresser - was forced to rely on staging that had to substitute for some of the lyrics, which were themselves trimmed to make the songs jibe more closely with the plot.

The process of making Good Vibrations, as described by the article, sounded like the bad science all my teachers indoctrinated me against in high school. You don't ever try to make the data fit your hypothesis. You make your conclusions fit the data.

It's the same thing with songs- if they don't fit the story, maybe you should have written them for the story in the first place. re: The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

Mutilating the pre-existing songs you're using to sell the show so they fit the "plot" (and boy am I using that term loosely here) is bad form any way you look at it.

Updated On: 2/16/05 at 12:09 AM

re: The Art (?) of The Jukebox Musical

Posted: 2/16/05 at 3:42am

I do think that jukebox musicals shouldn't be considered original musicals because they're not. They are plays with old music pumped in. If anything they should be in the Theatrical Event category or something. They're not musicals. I feel the same way about Movin' Out and Contact, even Fosse. I'm not even a fan of catalog revues like You're Gonna Love Tomorrow or Smokey Joe's Cafe.

Lennon does sound interesting. I'm still not a fan of jukebox shows, but at least they've got an interesting concept to weave all the songs together. Sounds like I might actually enjoy that show.

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