At a completely fundamental level, there are two kinds of participants in art: there are the artists, and there are the observers. Artists have the gift of intention, the ability to say what they want in the way that they want, for reasons clear to them. The observers also have a gift, and that is the […]
The post Open-Intention/Open-Perception appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
With musicals, there’s an old (and false) belief that they are impossibly cheerful, unrealistic, and frivolous. We all love a screwball comedy meant purely for entertainment, but it takes a specific and deliberate choice to write a show that fits perfectly into a certain genre, and most shows do not. What do I mean by […]
The post Genre and Musical Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
One week ago today, the cast of the recent Pulitzer Prize finalist Fun Home, along with its writers, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, and Alison Bechdel, author of the musical’s graphic novel source material, traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to present a concert version of the show. Recently, the College of Charleston lost a significant portion […]
The post “I Know You”: Fun Home in Charleston and Theater as Activism appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Last week marked the re-opening of The Apollo Theatre in the West End, nearly four months after it closed, following the roof collapse mid-show on December 19, 2013. The event shocked London, and also the rest of the country, calling into question not only the capital’s many Victorian buildings, but public buildings as a whole. […]
The post Up in the Gods appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I had the privilege, recently, of seeing Ryan Scott Oliver and Hunter Foster’s Jasper in Deadland. It was a great piece of writing, in words and music. Clever and funny. And it was performed in a great little venue uptown, the West End Theatre, housed in a part of the La Gree Baptist Church. It […]
The post When Theatre Gets Real — small appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
On Saturday afternoon, Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk hosted their first-ever twitter chat to talk about this month’s edition of their ongoing contest, #New2YouTube, and “Anyway,” one of their newest songs from Tales From The Bad Years. At the twitter chat, they asked questions, they answered questions, and they even got a twitter lesson from […]
The post A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The #Forum appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Whenever we discuss investments in musical theatre, our brains are usually drawn to one of two options: the investment of time from all the artists involved or the investment of funds in order to make a potential production/workshop/living room reading/etc… possible. But lately my mind has been drawn to the investment that an audience makes […]
The post An Investment Worth Notating appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Star ratings attached to reviews have long been a heavily debated issue. Most reviews in British national papers, which are still held in highest regard, never used to add star ratings, relying instead on the text to give the reader a full picture of a show’s merits and limitations. We are constantly being told that […]
The post Three Stars Good – Two Stars Bad appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In “normal” musical theatre there is a leading man and woman who eventually find love with one another. It’s not surprising, or even profound. It’s just how it’s been, forever. Straight characters are main characters. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of other pieces that feature queer relationships (anything non-heterosexual) for lead characters, but […]
The post Being Aware Part II appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
The internet and social media has taken over so many aspects of everyday life in ways that the current ‘Generation Z’ will never quite be able to understand. Breaking news stories from around the world are now updated live and often as they are happening, defying the traditional methods and means of news communication. It’s […]
The post Gossip’s Worth Its Weight in Gold… appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
As a Director one of the hardest things to ever know is how an audience is going to react. Locked up in a rehearsal room, you get to know the text better than anybody else, often to a point where you are totally unsure if anything is engaging, funny or even makes sense. You have […]
The post To Stand Or Not To Stand? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I’ve heard it more times than one would expect. Someone asks an actor, or producer, or director, or especially a writer of musical theater what their favorite musicals are, or what they recommend on Broadway, and the theater professional says something to the effect of “it’s funny, I do musical theater, but I don’t really […]
The post Musical Theater Professionals Who “Don’t Really Like Musicals” appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I have spent a few months working for a licensed ticketing agency located in Midtown Manhattan. Over the course of those three months I spoke to hundreds of tourists on the streets of New York who were looking to purchase tickets for Broadway shows, Off-Broadway shows, cabarets, concerts, etc… And I learned something very important […]
The post Welcome to Ticketland appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In March 2010, the New York Philharmonic joined a plethora of Broadway stars to celebrate the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim. A memorable highlight from the event featured Michael Cerveris, Patti LuPone, and George Hearn performing “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd. Those familiar with the acclaimed musical thriller is well aware of the context for “A […]
The post A World Outside of its Libretto appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Like probably most of you reading this post, I watched The Sound Of Music Live a week ago today. Since then, I feel like I’ve read more articles responding to the audience’s response – via social media, of course, with even DiGiorno Pizza playing along – than responding to the performance itself. It’s that meta-commentary that […]
The post How We All Watched The Sound Of Music #Together appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Recently there was an article in the New Yorker about Google’s quest to build a self-driving car. In it, Charles Smart, an M.I.T. professor, describes the process of figuring out how to get a dirt bike to drive itself, which involved more than six hundred failed test runs. He recalls a colleague of his telling […]
The post This Is Robotics appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
