I’d like to step sideways from my last post to talk about something close to my mind and near to my heart at the moment, as The Chicago Musical Theatre Festival is midway through its performances. Festivals are a great place to try out producing your work. That’s a big part of why they exist. My […]
The post So You Think You Can Produce: Festival Edition appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
The desire to feel progressive and productive is a natural one that most writers feel. We want to know that our work is moving towards a satisfying goal. And sometimes that journey can seem a little bit hazy in regards to whether or not a project is going anywhere. But do not worry, I promise […]
The post Caught Up in the Labeling appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In this series of posts, I’m taking a look at musical theater BFA programs: having conversations not only with faculty, but also with graduates of a wide range of schools. I wanted to talk to actors who have stood out to me when we’ve worked together, and find out their thoughts on training for the […]
The post “Looking For What’s Unique”: Victoria Huston-Elem, graduate of Syracuse University appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Since my last NMT post about the ins and outs of a good musical book, I’ve been thinking… where are the articles about dream pairings of composers/lyricists and amazing playwrights/book writers? After all, music and lyrics are only two-thirds of the puzzle. Can’t think of any? Neither can I… So let’s remedy that. Below, you’ll […]
The post Let’s Get Together… Yeah Yeah Yeah appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Here at NewMusicalTheatre.com, we’re all brimming with excitement over the Tony Awards this Sunday evening. We’ll be live-tweeting with the hashtag #NMTonys (join us!). To tide you over for the next few days, we put together this video playlist of songs by #NMTWriters performed by 2014 Tony Nominees. Whether you need background music while you […]
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In my last post I talked about how theatre is produced in Germany for the most part, how our government and the states and cities fund what artists to in theatres. I also mentioned that this could – in a way – be influenced by how proud we (sometimes) still are to be the country of Goethe […]
The post How we do it in Germany: Society and how it affects Theatre appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
The act of musical composition involves one basic activity: choosing good notes. The choice is critical. The first notes heard by the listener set the tone for the entire song or symphony. Good notes are the well-spring for a wonderful composition. Bad notes signal bad music. A composer can’t make good music out of bad […]
The post You Want To Compose? This Is How It’s Done. appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Last week I was lucky enough to spend time with composer Andrew Lippa ahead of his new show The Life of the Party at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. The production, he describes, is much more theatrical than a concert and more along the lines of a revue. Whilst Sondheim has Marry Me a […]
The post A Composer’s Take on Award Success – In Conversation with Andrew Lippa appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
We all love a sadistic villain. We can’t get enough of those delicious creatures of the night, giving so many stories a shadow to cast over our heroes as they trek through hell and high water to claim their holy grail. Audiences eat it up. The smarter, the sicker, the more manipulative, the better. The […]
The post “Who’s That Woman?”: Ambiguous Villainy in Sondheim 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.
A month in the rehearsal studio goes by in a flash and, at the same time, it feels like there was never a time that we weren’t rehearsing! But one day, you come up for air and discover the whole process has expanded and moved into the theatre – we’ve added lights, costumes, props, sound, […]
The post Tech – Dog and Pony: Part 4 appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
As I mentioned in my first post, one of the greatest things about being a theatre professional in Chicago is that you can actually produce new work. There are enough reasonably-priced venues for even a small company (or group of individuals) to rent a space and put on a fully-realized production. “That’s great!” I hear […]
The post So You Think You Can Produce, Part 1 appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Truth be told, the presence of new American writing on the UK musical theatre scene is a fairly scarce one. Although the West End is currently loaded to capacity with American imports, the grassroots material, or at least small-scale and less commercial, seems to hardly get a look in. Although I’m sure there are exceptions […]
The post Across the Pond: American Writers in the UK appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In this series of conversations, I’m investigating the musical theatre BFA: talking to people involved in programs at a variety of schools. This week, I talked to an old friend, Eve Himmelheber, who is the coordinator of the musical theatre BFA program at California State University, Fullerton; their musical theatre program is competitive with the […]
The post “Think Fast!”: Eve Himmelheber of Cal State Fullerton appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In my last (and first) post here I gave a short introduction on what the situation of contemporary musical theatre in Germany is like. I mostly focused on these bigger productions with lots of money and institutional power in the background – in Germany most of the ‘regional’ theatres are state supported. We kind of […]
The post How we do it in Germany: On Money and the History of Production Conditions appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
