Remember how crazy Amanda Bynes was on Twitter? We had a good laugh, right? …And then she went to treatment for mental illness. From the Salem Witch Trials to Twitter, our society has a difficult time remembering that mentally ill women are still human beings. This unfortunate fact of life makes me feel so thankful […]
The post The Girls On The Go: Who’s Crazy?: Female Characters and Mental Illness in Musicals appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Roughly once per week I call home and complain to my mom about my life. And then she complains back about hers. It’s so much cheaper than therapy or yoga or binge drinking or any of the other ways of dealing with stress. But that’s not the kind of calling I want to address in […]
The post Is It Rude to Call? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
As I write this we are six weeks – almost to the day – before the first day of rehearsals for Dog and Pony at The Old Globe Theatre. When we finally reach that milestone day and all assemble in the studio, the next phase of the show’s development really begins. Excited doesn’t begin to […]
The post Casting – Dog and Pony: Part 2 appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
It seems like the rivalry between the jocks and the theater kids goes back to the beginning of time, or at least to the day when some famous Greek wrestler gave Euripides a swirly in the Athenian communal baths, but fundamentally, although practiced by seemingly different types of people, sports and drama tap into the […]
The post Sports Lessons appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Go to your local music store (or to Amazon.com and light a mournful candle for Colony Records as a silent tear rolls down your cheek) and check out the sheet music section. Overwhelming, right? So many options, and no idea where to begin! Lucky for you, you can find there the musical theatre anthology books, […]
The post 10 Songs for Altos Who Don’t Belt appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I can’t tell you definitively if life imitates art or vice versa, but I can tell you this: In life and art, the LGBT+ community has seen unprecedented progress in the United States. This means gay people like me are closer to equality and gay characters are more likely to be seen onstage. Is everything […]
The post The Girls on the Go: Glitter and Be Gay (and other thoughts on LGBT+ characters) appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Here is a fact about me: back when I was making my first forays into pop music, I would not download a song on iTunes unless I googled its lyrics first. (Yeah, my music library was cast-albums-only for a looooong time.) Although now many aspects of a song contribute to whether or not I want […]
The post Top 10 NMT Songs for Storytellers appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
“You like musicals? Have you ever heard of Hairspray? You’d be a great Tracy Turnblad!” I have consistently heard variations of this for about ten years now. And I have the feeling it’s not just because I’m a belter and a brunette. SPOILER ALERT: I am not a skinny person! That doesn’t automatically make me […]
The post The Girls on the Go: Big, Fat, and Beautiful Women in Musical Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
We asked #NMTWriters for audition song recommendations – specifically, one song that they wrote and one song that they didn’t write. Read on to find out their top picks! KAIT KERRIGAN When She Smiles. I heard a girl sing this song of Lewis Flinn’s in a master class and it felt fresh and young and […]
The post NMT on NMT: #NMTWriters Pick Audition Songs appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Let me start off by saying I am white. If you think you’re “Colorblind,” that’s a story for another day, but I promise that my whiteness is relevant to this discussion. When I set out to write The Girls on the Go, I knew I wanted to tackle the ways in which musical theatre needs […]
The post The Girls on the Go: You’re Not “White Audra” (and Other Thoughts on Race) appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
There are so many different types of female character roles. As I’ve said before, “Character Role” is pretty much an umbrella term for any role who is less understood or accepted by society compared to the ingenue. Naturally, character actresses are drawn to “Quirky” pieces to set them apart. What’s quirkier than wearing pigtails (even […]
The post The Girls on the Go: Ditch the Baby Voice (And Other Ideas for Younger Roles) appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Hello <*name*>. Please come in and sit down. I know you weren’t expecting to see us all here together, but this is a safe place. We’ve all here today for you – Me, Ryan, Drew, Brian and Kait, Joe, John, Bobby, other Drew and all the rest. We’re here because we love you very much […]
The post This Is An Intervention appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
We’re all inundated by email. It’s a veritable avalanche that never lets up from the moment we get up until we go back to sleep. To stay on top of it completely would be a full time job. But I have noticed that one of the few commonalities among the most successful theater professionals I’ve […]
The post The Importance of Answering Email appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I love Google Alerts! I can find out who has been singing my songs online or what websites have published press releases. (I really need a “best friend” at one of them because then I might better press coverage, but that’s a blog for another time…) Anyhooters… I recently received an alert that someone had […]
The post Google Alerts appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Happy November and welcome to The Writers Block! This month, I am highlighting a song by the wonderful composer/lyricist, Michael Patrick Walker. Last summer, I had the pleasure of working with him when we performed together at a concert at the Hippodrome in London, along with Georgia Stitt. Born and raised in the small town of New Freedom, […]
The post THE WRITER’S BLOCK: The Wall appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
We’ve all dreamed about that one moment that changes everything. Audra McDonald hears you sing karaoke at your mutual friend’s birthday party and asks if you’d be interested in singing a duet with her on her next album. Or you send a draft of your latest show to one of your former professors, who thinks […]
The post Be Prepared appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
