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.
A book is overrated in a musical… Now anyone who knows me (Nick Luckenbaugh, one of your new NMT bloggers) knows that I don’t think that’s true. In fact, I don’t think enough emphasis is put on a musical’s book these days. But… today I want to talk about something for which no book exists: […]
The post What Makes a Song Cycle Tick? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Artists are a community, an enormous community from infinitely different backgrounds and disciplines. It always makes me incredibly sad to see someone in this community question the legitimacy of an entire subdivision of artists. I recently read some writing by a former colleague of mine, a composer in academia, a doctoral candidate, essentially declaring that […]
The post Dr. Composer appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
As theatre people know far too well, all good things must come to an end. Today, I have to say goodbye to you, composers and screlters and writers and geeks of The Green Room. Thank you for being a part of my favorite art form, and thanks for listening to me talk about it so […]
The post The Girls on the Go: Everybody Tries appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Before I dive into the topic of “belting,” let me begin by saying that I (like many others) always appreciate the power of a singer or performer that can reach impossible pitches at impossible decibels. It can be a thrilling moment when an actor fires off all missiles into a single word or phrase. But […]
The post A Meditation on the Overworked Belter appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
What do Cabaret, Gypsy, Sweet Charity, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Jekyll and Hyde, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, The Life, RENT, Lippa’s The Wild Party, Avenue Q, and Lysistrata Jones all have in common? All of these musicals feature sex workers. Sex work includes prostitution, pornography, stripping, exotic dancing, and […]
The post The Girls on the Go: You Don’t Have to Get a Gimmick (And Other Thoughts on Sex-Worker Roles) appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I am a part of a large community of musical theatre writers who are avid fans of adapting real life events and people into music theatre pieces. When you find a non-fictional topic to dive into, you (usually) already begin with a whirlwind of perspectives, opinions, and questions about the people involved, the motivations behind […]
The post The Writer vs. Wikipedia appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
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.
I have a confession. Between my first application to the Dramatists Guild Fellowship and my last, the entire Bush presidency happened. To be more precise, a decade went by before I was invited to the table. That’s five generations of MFAs, two and a half Summer Olympics and every episode of LOST. Ten years ago […]
The post The Fellows, The Fund and the Future 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.
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.
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.
After hearing countless words of praise regarding Charlie Rosen and his Broadway Big Band, I got myself a ticket to see his latest concert at 54 Below. I can now include myself among the massive fan base that Mr. Rosen and his 17 piece orchestra have accumulated. Perhaps one of the most stunning features about […]
The post The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I recently had the opportunity to see the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Puccini’s Tosca, starring Elisabete Matos and Sondra Radvanovsky, who share the title role. I remember getting through the first act, when one of the group of people I saw it with turned to me and said “It’s funny. It’s so beautiful, but […]
The post That’s Why They Call It That appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
When I stepped onto the plane last week it was 70 degrees at LaGuardia. Granted, it is the global warming apocalypse, but the point is I was leaving a pretty beautiful day in New York City. When I stepped off it was in the 30s in Buffalo. The next day the high was 13. Thir. […]
The post My Secret Source of Ideas appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, but a little while ago, NBC did a live version of The Sound Of Music. As it aired (and after), there was much brouhaha about how people criticized the…well…everything about it. Apparently Carrie Underwood (who played Maria) responded by opining that “mean people need Jesus.” Now I […]
The post Haters Gonna Hate…Or Are They? appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
