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.
As promised in my previous NMT belting post, there’s a lot more to belting than can be said in one post. In that previous post, we discussed that belting has to come at the appropriate time in a song. To become #NMTfamous, though, belting cannot be thought of separately from mixing. You probably already know […]
The post #NMTVotW: Belting, part 2 appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In this series of posts, I’m talking with people who are involved in the development of new musicals in various ways. One crucial element in the writing process is finding uninterrupted time to work, especially if you’re working as part of a collaborative team. There are a few artists retreats specifically created for musical theater […]
The post Complete Freedom: The Writers Retreat 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.
Gather around everyone, it’s story time! Well, story song time. A little while back, my good friend Hannah Ehrenberg wrote a fabulous post on story songs, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. One of my favorites is a song by Jeff Blumenkrantz called “My Heart Was Set on You.” Sutton Foster sings this […]
The post Lyric Lens: “My Heart Was Set on You” by Jeff Blumenkrantz appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
Romantic duets are fun. So are comic duets. What could be better, then, than a comedic romantic duet? From “All Or Nuthin’” to “Take Me Or Leave Me,” musical theatre has thrived on this type of song. Adam Gwon’s duet “Fine” from Ordinary Days is a welcome addition to the canon. Ordinary Days focuses on […]
The post SONG SPOTLIGHT: Fine appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
I’m not a dancer. I move kind of like Elaine Benes, thumbs and all. And for readers too young to get that reference, I hate you. But my mom is a choreographer and teacher upstate, and I spent my childhood with probably an unusual attention (for a musician) to the movement and dance component of […]
The post Music to Punctuate Movement appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
For the next couple of installments of Versions, I’m hitting you guys with a Kerrigan-Lowdermilk two-fer! First up is a song that I (gasp!) didn’t actually like until much later. In the early developmental stages of The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown, the show in which the song is featured, “Freedom” had already seen many […]
The post Versions, Vol. 4: “Freedom” by Kerrigan-Lowdermilk 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.
As a Director one of the hardest things to ever know is how an audience is going to react. Locked up in a rehearsal room, you get to know the text better than anybody else, often to a point where you are totally unsure if anything is engaging, funny or even makes sense. You have […]
The post To Stand Or Not To Stand? 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.
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.
I say Part 1 because belting is something that is so integral to new musical theatre and won’t be fully explained in just one post. In this week’s belting lesson, I’m going to start with the assumption that you have been properly trained on how to belt healthfully and know how to belt. This post […]
The post #NMTVotW: Belting, part 1 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.
When you’re expecting a baby, you go through a range of emotions. Excitement, anticipation, abject terror and, about five or six months into the pregnancy, utter boredom. But, by and large, babies take as long as they’re going to take to “cook.” No matter how much you want the little nipper to show up, opening […]
The post Anticipation – Dog and Pony: Part 1 appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
In this series of blog entries, I’m having conversations with people who are part of the creation of original musicals. This week I caught up with Alison Fraser, who has created iconic roles in musicals such as March of the Falsettos and The Secret Garden, which brought her a Tony nomination. I have had the pleasure […]
The post Speaking up for the character: The Actor appeared first on The NewMusicalTheatre.com Green Room.
