I mean, who couldn’t love the duo that is Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk? After loving The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown for so long, I recently went into a Kerrigan-Lowdermilk obsession. While it’s nearly impossible to list, here are some of my personal favorite Kerrigan-Lowdermilk songs. Anyway – Emma Hunton Emma Hunton’s belt is amazing. […]
The post PLAYLIST: Kerrigan-Lowdermilk appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
As the end of the semester approaches, plenty of college students find themselves buried under a seemingly never-ending to-do list of projects and finals. It’s tiring enough, but add in the extra stresses that come with being a student in the performing arts (a term I’m using generically to include students studying theatre, music, musical […]
The post A Performer’s Guide to the End of the Semester appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Comedy is all about misdirection, and that’s why musical theatre is such a great medium for telling funny stories. Music can prepare an audience to hear one story, and then be completely surprised at the outcome. Having a melody or a well-placed rhyme deliver the punchline makes a joke land that much harder than it […]
The post 10 NMT Songs to Make You Laugh appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
So far in this series exploring solo albums, I’ve looked almost entirely at how the composers and lyricists who write the songs included in solo albums enrich the word of contemporary musical theatre. The albums’ performers, as magnificent as they are, have been secondary. However, another wonderful aspect of solo albums is that they allow […]
The post Savoring the Solo Album: Those Pesky Little Job Titles appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
There are milestone shows in musical theater that we all mark as definitive. Give or take a show or two, most will tell you that certain shows land on that list. Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Fiddler On The Roof, Gypsy, West Side Story, A Chorus Line, Company, Rent and In The Heights are pretty safe bets. […]
The post Quiet Revolution: 5 Reflections on the Impact of ONCE appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
For the past couple of months, I have been completely obsessed with “I’ve Decided to Marry You” from A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. The entire cast recording is fabulous, but that song is such a stand-out. (Thank you, Steven Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman for this brilliantly well-crafted trio!) Each character feels completely essential […]
The post PLAYLIST: The Trio appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Since the news broke last week that Cafe Edison will close this year, I’ve seen my social media streams flood with posts in protest. I’m guilty of it too. Cafe Edison was (she writes, as if for an obituary) the place where my best friend and I went before every single pre-show dinner in high school. […]
The post “Maybe This Neighborhood’s Changing Forever”: Thoughts on Cafe Edison appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
“I’ve averaged about one show per year that I’ve written and produced. Plus one or two, here and there.” Let’s go ahead and stop there a moment. We all know that New York is the capital of American theater, and that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But of all […]
The post Beyond Broadway: Life and Death appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so the saying goes. In this blog series, I have been examining the ways in which musical theatre composers and lyricists use the freedom of the solo album to write original, engaging, and distinctive songs for the album’s star to sing. But what happens when the goal […]
The post Savoring the Solo Album: Great Pretenders appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
This is blog post #6 from me so by now I’d like to think we’re all good friends and we’re at that point in our relationship where we have a sleepover and tell each other secrets all night. So I’m going to level with you guys. I have had a rough couple of days. Nothing […]
The post Die, Vampire, Die! appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Picture this scenario: You discover a new musical theater piece that you’re obsessed with and decide to start working on it for an upcoming audition/performance. The song is absolutely perfect for your voice and completely applicable to your life. Basically, you feel like you were made to sing this piece and you can’t wait to […]
The post MT in the City: Performance Panic and Paranoia appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I remember the first time I heard Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner rip through “Who Will Love Me As I Am.” When I finally took a breath, I wanted to find out all I could. At the time, I didn’t know a thing about Side Show, the 1997 musical from which the song originated, but […]
The post Step Right Up: 5 Reasons It’s The Right Time For The Return Of SIDE SHOW appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In a recent interview with The Ensemblist podcast, songwriters Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lynn Ahrens, and Stephen Flaherty talked about why they like writing for ensembles and described the dramatic benefits that a solid ensemble can bring to a show. After listening to what these amazing composers had to say on the subject, I was inspired to […]
The post My Favorite Things: The Ensemble appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Do you have a lot of feelings about contemporary musical theater? Do you like to share those feelings with other people, maybe in writing? That’s great to hear, because the NMT Green Room is looking for new bloggers! We want to give you a platform to share your ideas and your writing. If you have something […]
The post Join NMT’s Blogging Team This Winter appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Joe Mantello began his career as an actor in Angels in America but soon moved on to direct major musicals on and off-Broadway including 9 to 5, Assassins (Tony Award), Wicked, Dogfight, and most recently The Last Ship. “As director, I’ve got to put aside any particular biases or prejudices that, as a moral human […]
The post Curtain Speech: Joe Mantello appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I teach children’s theatre. At least, that’s what I tell people. I’ll also toss choreographer, conductor, artistic director, prompter, stage manager, director, coach, psychic, eternal optimist, and president and founder of the “I’m Sorry Guys, but We’re Not Performing Frozen Today” Club. Teachers, I tip all my hats to you fellow masters of multi-tasking! When […]
The post The Newest Audience appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
