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You’ve seen her Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-winning television show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, you’ve downloaded her songs, you’ve bought her sheet music. (I know you have – you’ve asked me to transcribe her sheet music for you, and she has generously allowed me to do that.) You’ve even seen her in her viral, break-through, Youtube channel... As her hit show sets off on its fourth and final season, I sat down with the one and only Rachel Bloom... and asked her the nine most pressing questions I had. Here’s what she said:

The article 9 Questions for Rachel Bloom appeared first in 

Musical Theater Today, Volume 2.

When I was twenty years old, one of my high school friends got drunk and fell through the open window of a college dorm room and died. Everyone was drunk that night because it was one of those school-condoned “first-day-of-spring” rituals that colleges love. Community bonding, right? I took the call in my boyfriend’s dorm room. He had a single that year. It was small, impersonal. I rubbed my feet against the cold linoleum while I listened to another friend sob through the information. The phone can ring and your life can change. Except it doesn’t change all that much because you’re still alive. 

The post Behind the Lyrics of "Go Tonight": Grief and Nothingness appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Gioia To the World (The #Lorte Has Come / #Gioiatress) The first time I met Michael Gioia, I was upset. I was upset because I had just finished playing the Piragua Guy in In the Heights and since I was seventy pounds heavier at the time, it’s easy to be upset for no reason. Mostly, […]

The post When Friendship is More Important Than Being #Famous: An Expose-heyyy on Playbill.com’s Michael Gioia appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

A while ago, I was surfing through Buzzfeed and ran across an amazing article called “Yes and…No. Standing Up To Sexual Harassment And Assault In L.A.’s Comedy Scene.” This is a beautiful, inspiring article on how a group of female comedians stood up against sexual assault and harassment in their industry and won. I started thinking […]

The post “Say No To This”: A Call to Stand Up Against Sexual Assault in Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

#ServerLife Everyone should work in the hospitality industry so that we can all share the common experience of how much it sucks. Almost three years ago, I started working at a restaurant in Jersey where I met a girl who told me that her cousin worked at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Of […]

The post A Case of Kismet, Girl Power, and the THEATRUH! How I Met Kimberly Eaton, Producetress Extraordinaire appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

My last post on production budgets took us through the beginning of a show’s development all the way through the first preview; here, we’re going to talk about how expenses are budgeted on a week-by-week basis after the show gets up and running. In the simplest terms, the show’s producers want the gross box office […]

The post Broadway Budgets 101: Breaking Down the Weekly Budget appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Recently, I got in touch with Broadway veteran Betsy Struxness. While she’s currently performing in Hamilton, Betsy’s career has taken her through many national tours and Broadway shows. Her journey is one that many people pursuing show biz can relate to; she started performing at a young age and from there it’s been a long […]

The post Cutlets, Casting, and Karate: An Interview with Betsy Struxness appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Anyone with a passing interest in theatre will probably have thrown around terms like “big-budget musical” at least once in their life, and anyone who’s borne witness to the staggering successes (few) and spectacular flops (many) on Broadway will wonder just how much money was made or lost in the process. From Hamilton to Honeymoon […]

The post Broadway Budgets 101: Breaking Down the Production Budget appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

This post originally appeared on hesherman.com. Republished with permission.  If you’re a dedicated fan of the musical Hamilton, or if you follow me on social media, you may well have come across the streetside #Ham4Ham show videos I’ve been sharing since late July. As I write, they’ve collectively been viewed on YouTube about 890,000 times – […]

The post What’s My Deal With All The “Hamilton” Videos? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Imagine yourself eating lunch at the food court of your local mall. Everything about your day so far has been totally normal. Then, out of the blue, the people around you – a food court employee, a janitor, a fellow mall-goer, even the security guard – start singing to each other. This may be the […]

The post “Musicals in Real Life” and the Magic of Spontaneous MT appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

First off, I am excited to share that this is my first NMT blog post as a college graduate! In order to celebrate my big graduation, I wanted to do something special that would be the perfect farewell to my time at California State University, Fullerton. I am a BA Theatre Arts student with an […]

The post The Journey To Creating My First Cabaret appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

Ever wanted to know how much actors on Broadway get paid? Look no further. Before we start, it’s important to note that every item that goes into constituting a total salary is determined by the actors’ union, Actors’ Equity Association, several years in advance; they actually publish salary rates, which automatically increase every year in […]

The post The Bare Minimum: Breaking Down Broadway Actor Salaries appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

After approximately two weeks of rehearsal and two days with the creative team, the day of the staged reading was upon us! The MFA Musical Theatre Class of 2016 was dressed in “hip clothing” and ready to show the San Diego theatre community the beauty of On the Eve. The day started with a few […]

The post Workshopping ON THE EVE – Week #3: The Performance appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

The SDSU Class of 2016 (plus two guests) learned all the music for the staged reading of On the Eve in about a week (only using 2 hours of class time a day to learn it as a group)! Once that was finished, it was time to move on to dissecting the script and staging […]

The post Workshopping ON THE EVE – Week #2: Finding Character appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

I am thrilled to be able to share an exciting experience with you all – a real life look into the creation of a piece of new musical theatre! The MFA program at San Diego State University is collaborating with La Jolla Playhouse to workshop a new musical, On the Eve, to be presented on […]

The post Workshopping ON THE EVE – Week #1: New Show, New Key Signatures appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.

I am sitting in a dark corner of Cielo, a club in the West Village whose twitter proudly proclaims it as “WHERE HOUSE MUSIC LIVES!!” But it’s midday. The sun shines in through an open door. And there’s definitely no house music. Instead, there are five dancers rehearsing a narrative dance piece based on the […]

The post BC Beat: Where The Community Lives appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.