Pasek and Paul have been well known names in American musical theatre for some time, thanks to the ongoing success of shows such as EDGES, along with their work on SMASH and even the recent OLD NAVY TV campaign. Their popularity in London continues to grow, with their 2012 musical DOGFIGHT receiving its European premiere […]
The post INTERVIEW: Pasek and Paul and Peter Duchan on Dogfight, Adaptations, and Contemporary Theater appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Every time you open a new play, or an old play in a new way, you run the risk of failure – and at the same time, the only chance of a creative success. A look back at the 2013-14 Broadway season might make you think that someone said that in response to the dearth […]
The post Hallie Decreed that Theater was Essential: 4 Lessons from the Federal Theatre Project appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Last week, Sara Bareilles did two sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden. I was in attendance, as were countless others from the NMT community (based on the precise accuracy of Twitter and Instagram posts). It was an incredible show, as it always is when Sara Bareilles is involved, and it made me about five million times more excited […]
The post Mainstream Musicians Are Theater People, Too appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I’ve seen Forbidden Broadway three times and I’ve always admired it. I may be a lyricist but I am not the gal you call if you want a punny, delightful, rhyme-bursting parody lyric. No, I am the Salieri to Gerard Alessandrini’s Amadeus. I love Forbidden Broadway as only one can who fully understands how it’s […]
The post Broadway Belongs to Me appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
A couple of weeks ago two show announcements came on the same day that would have had the writers of Forbidden Broadway rubbing their hands together with glee. In a West End market currently saturated with revivals, and original productions of 1980s ‘mega-musicals,’ it was revealed that Evita (1978) and Cats (1981), both hits by British […]
The post London 2014: Welcome to the ’80s appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
One of the greatest problems in constructing a musical is the structure. Despite having the topic, plot and characters all in place, the hardest decision seems to be in what order to let it unravel. Traditional musical theatre post-Oklahoma! developed a fairly rigid structure that few book writers strayed from – the reason mainly being, […]
The post Interval Issues: A show of two halves appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Last week, in an attempt to make small talk, a visiting friend of my parents’ announced to me that as of this week, there would be no straight plays running on Broadway. Sounds crazy, right? First of all, it’s not so crazy. It has happened before, at least once in my lifetime and more than […]
The post No Plays on Broadway?: Why The Lack of Plays is Bad News for Musicals appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
This past season, thirteen new musicals opened on Broadway. Six of them closed before the Tonys, and of those six, only two received any nominations: A Night with Janis Joplin and The Bridges of Madison County. There is a pattern present in the Tony nomination and voting process that routinely favors still-running shows over those […]
The post Can A Closed Show Still Win? A Look at Tony Voting appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
During my History of Musical Theatre class in college, I was surprised by how few key players there were in New York theatre in the earlier half of the 20th century. It struck me how different it seems to be now, with a website like this thriving, populated by so many awesome, diverse writers who […]
The post Endless Development, No Payoff appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
The last three shows that I saw on Broadway, Violet, The Bridges of Madison County, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, have some interesting things in common. All three were produced on Broadway this season for the first time. All three feature daring and beautiful scores, written for the musical stage by important musical theatre […]
The post We Were That Kid: Tony Eligibility Rulings and Why They Matter 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.
If you were a musical theatre writer or a songwriter in the 1910s, you would travel to 28th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway to sell your music at Tin Pan Alley. You would walk in with a finished song and hopefully walk out with some exposure (and maybe a profit). During the 1960s and 1970s, musical […]
The post Self-Promotion: An Artform and an Epidemic appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In many creative aspects we are taught from a young age that versatility is key to success. Actors and performers spend half of their life worrying about finding their niche, and later worry about being typecast and stuck in a particular casting bracket. There is great debate to be had in this topic – some […]
The post Versatility – the key to success for musical theatre composers? 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.
Broadway imports have often kept the West End alive, and in recent years have given London a refreshing wave of new musicals. Over the past year, celebrated hits such as Once and The Book of Mormon have made the transition, often within a year of opening on Broadway and winning handfuls of Tony Awards. It […]
The post Delaying a transfer – “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” 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.
