aradia22

Theatre News roundup http://www.broadway.com/buzz/179023/watch-first-trailer-of-wolf-hall-starring-mark-rylance-damian-lewis-jonathan-pryce/ http://www.broadway.com/buzz/179021/tony-winner-nikki-m-james-sets-departure-date-from-broadways-les-miserables/ http://www.broadway.com/buzz/179010/the-39-steps-will-return-off-broadway-in-the-spring/ http://www.broadway.com/buzz/179020/the-elephant-man-starring-bradley-cooper-recoups-on-broadway/ http://www.broadway.com/buzz/178983/off-broadways-jasper-in-deadland-replaces-broadway-bound-something-rotten-at-seattles-5th-avenue-theatre/ http://www.broadway.com/buzz/178981/cest-magnifique-tickets-now-on-sale-for-broadways-an-american-in-paris/

A win for Into the Woods. http://www.broadway.com/buzz/179018/hollywood-will-listen-into-the-woods-celebrates-biggest-movie-musical-opening-ever/

Oh, that makes me want to see it. ;) Seriously though, I love Evita and Phantom has it's moments but everything else ALW just kind of sounds the same to me.

Ah. I'll see it eventually no matter what. Well, I shouldn't say that. I still haven't seen Les Mis. But is it something that really needs to be seen in a movie theater? Because I feel like I have bad luck with musicals that aren't animated at the movies. The last musicals I remember going to see are Phantom, The Producers, and Nine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEPvSK5RcL8 Stumbled upon this on youtube. It took about a minute for it to click. Did Rock Hudson do a lot of musical things or was this an aberration?

Hello, new friend! I'm a bit worried about it too but then I'm not familiar with the musical so I'm not attached to any version of it.

It's been a while since I was auditioning and even then I feel like I was putting way more thought into it than most of the people I was competing against. And I still only ever got one line but that's a conversation for another day. I have no concept of what's still popular beyond compilations from voice teachers and pianists who play auditions. I think the best audition song is the one that shows off your strengths and the kind of character you want to play/the persona you want to convey. I've always been a ballad girl because I don't have a lot of breath control, I like romantic ingenue roles, and I have a mezzo-ish range without the belt. You Must Love Me, What I Did For Love, I Got Lost in His Arms, and my personal favorite audition song... Love Look Away from Flower Drum Song is my sweet spot. Even when I had those higher notes I was never a legit soprano. I wish I had been. I would have liked to sing things like I'll Know. New favorites that I mentioned to briochetwist are Someone Woke Up, Screw Loose, and Don't Laugh. Of course, you can always take the Glee route and just sing a standard (or really any pop song with all the damn jukebox musicals) as though it's a from a musical. In that case, going more for the 50's/60's crooner/ballad stuff can be a way of sidestepping all the Cole Porter and Gershwin that everyone else heads for.

Thanks for making my point more eloquently than I did. ;) Just going off of his SNL performance of Make Em Laugh I wouldn't pick JGL. I don't think he has that sweet, warm tenor... and there are plenty of guys who do. I do not see Anna Kendrick or Zooey Deschanel in that part at all. Even if they wouldn't be doing an Ellen Greene impression nothing about their appearances says Audrey to me. I am confused about where you're drawing the line between Mushnik and Orin but I agree that James Marsden could be surprisingly great as Orin. I don't expect you to. i don't even have a great grasp of my own taste. Maybe it'll happen in the next 10 or 20 years. I just wanted to qualify the point because the quote made me think you were addressing me. :) Yeah, I think we're probably not far away from a filmed stage production/concert version but I doubt they'd go with a movie. It's not even just the subject matter. It's one of those musicals that doesn't seem like it'd make a clean jump to film. I think the structure and story might throw off a lot of those "I hate musicals" people. You've got a lot of characters who aren't super developed held together by a theme and a narrator. Which yeah, is kind of Into the Woods but it's still much more conventional in Into the Woods, especially with the Baker and his wife anchoring things. I don't think John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald are as successful at grounding the story in Assassins.

I already replied to briochetwist but in case I haven't shared this with you yet, Happy Tuesday.

Are you saying... go see Into the Woods because it's a good movie or are you saying go see Into the Woods because I would enjoy it knowing my weird and particular taste? We've already reviewed that I hold the unpopular opinion of kind of being over Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman doing theatre. Not that I was ever really into him doing theatre.

Are you saying that for the movie or are you saying it for me?

DollEyes: I understand why they're up for everything from a business perspective but I don't see why other names can't be thrown into the mix that would fit the parts better. If they refuse to hire pure theatre talent, there are still other actors with some singing ability who could be up for the roles. And sometimes the novelty of a big name trying a musical for the first time can get people into the theatre.

Agreed. A good musical definitely needs a strong story. You can definitely separate the two and feel when a weak screenplay is pulling down a movie with fine musical numbers. I'm generally not that big of a fan of revues that are masquerading as actual movies with plots. Yay! Did you enjoy the movie, cpcathy? I would say that I'm a musical theatre fan and I don't enjoy every musical. Because I'm a human being with critical faculties. It's just so irritating for me when someone wants to write off an entire genre. Because you don't like singing? But you like music, right? One of the most annoying arguments is when you point out something really popular that most people like... for instance an animated Disney movie or The Wizard of Oz or something and someone says "Oh, but that's not really a musical." Shut up.

Aw, I'm sorry you weren't feeling well. Hopefully you'll be back on your feet soon. Sorry, I find myself only able to speak in platitudes when it's something real. I think that's one of the bright spots in that movie.

I think if you really imagine it as a woman who is so driven by vanity that she kidnaps a child and raises it as her own and then proceeds to screw that up royally, yes, it is darker. But at the surface level of watching the film as a child I think she'd come across as just another "bad," "not real" mom with all the other evil stepmothers... Evil Queen, Lady Tremaine, etc. While the moral implications are more complex, the plot itself is easier to follow.

I'm in a youtube argument with people who hate musicals about how Into the Woods is not something that "only true musical theatre fans would be familiar with." How do these things happen to me?

I'm kind of not that excited for where this show is going. So Michael's pretty much out of the picture. I don't really care about what's going on in anyone else's life. There's no urgency. Jane dropped her case against Luisa. I don't care about Rafael and Jane. Nothing's really going on with Xiomara. Nothing that exciting is happening with the nuns or the school. I don't care about Petra, her mom, Lachlan or anything going on in that storyline. I don't necessarily need to like the characters or even be rooting for them (though it's always nice) but I need to care about what happens to them. It's not even like Ugly Betty or Devious Maids. There was always something to hook you with those shows. They haven't made the Sin Rostro thing dangerous enough or important enough in the character's lives so really the only thing to get me back for the next episode is throwing Alba down the stairs. Agreed. That would go a long way towards making her more palatable. Agreed. It made sense when it was a little obvious (she was the most evil character we knew) but it doesn't seem very likely now. I'm fine with it being a character we haven't met yet as long as they don't rush the reveal/arrest when they do show the character. On the other hand, if it's someone we do know like Rogelio or Rafael's dad it better make some damn sense. I could see her working for Sin Rostro but not being Sin Rostro. At the most maybe there's a family connection. Good point. Was the room one of the plastic surgery recovery suites. To further tie everything together it could be interesting if Sin Rostro is a popular telenovela actor operating under everyone's noses. But not Rogelio.

OUAT almost got me to watch this season because of Frozen. Just like they almost got me to watch last season because yes, I had a Wicked phase. But I couldn't get through a whole episode either season. I just can't. It's so totally bad fanfiction and the acting is so subpar. Anyway, I don't feel like they need to put in adult plotlines to appease an older audience but I appreciate that they're willing to challenge their younger audiences to some extent. Now, I personally don't feel like any Disney movies, including Tangled which is one of my least favorites, condescends to its younger audience. I mean, maybe some of the straight to DVD ones do but I think on the whole the theatrically released films are more ambitious. I think that part of the issue might be the reliance on princesses. There's always a princess and there's always a romantic plot so the characters need to be a certain age (even if like with Tarzan or Frozen you see them when they're younger in the beginning). This makes it more awkward when the characters act very young. Take Wreck It Ralph. Vanellope is a child so I don't have a problem with her acting like one.

So Into the Woods came out. I probably won't see it in theaters unless the reviews are amazing. But now I get to wade through the opinions of all those people who "hate musicals." If you hate musicals we can never be friends. Why are you even commenting on this movie? Go away. #notsorry

I mean, I think they both skew younger than say... Tarzan or Pocahontas but I just feel like Tangled is meant for a younger audience. I think the fact that Frozen's score is contemporary musical theatre helps it skew older. The lyrics are smarter and more complex. They might be more challenging for a younger audience. The plot is also more difficult to sort through where Tangled is more straightforward. I mostly think it's the characters. I know some people have their complaints about Anna but I liked her. I thought she was quirky in the way you'd expect someone very sheltered would be while still managing to be competent. It reminds me a little of Fiona in the Shrek musical. On the other hand, Rapunzel felt very childlike to me. I think she was closer to Snow White than most of the other Disney princesses. Ariel is very clearly 16 but most of the others feel older. Cinderella, Aurora, Mulan, Meg, Tiana, etc. They don't act like children.

I'm not counting out Zoe reappearing just like Scarlett didn't actually leave after she swore she was getting out of Nashville. Let's see how obvious they are about it.

It might be if they hadn't effed things up in the first place. There wouldn't be so many fires to put out and messes to clean up if they hadn't written all these issues into the show for no reason. They gleefully tormented Juliette (though Hayden acted her way through it masterfully and gave us some great scenes). Rayna and Deacon has gone back and forth because they didn't realize they'd written Deacon as so charming and stable and Rayna as so self-righteous and irritating and then went overboard with him relapsing to compensate. I'm going to say that generously, 15% of Gunlett storylines since the first few episodes make sense. It all went downhill after the inexplicable jealousy. Emo Gunnar was just the tip of the iceberg. I will too but I guess she has to go be Jem. When we knew he hadn't relapsed and the doctor said blood test for some reason I thought Pam might have given him some kind of magical syphilis. You never know with soaps. I wish they'd let Laura Benanti (Sadie) cut loose. I know she's not a belter but she's holding back when she sings on the show. That shiner got pink crazy fast. It was almost as bad as Terry's instant relapse into alcoholism last episode. Way to show how little you care about the side characters, Nashville. At least it didn't start bruising. I feel like they could have sent the same message about him being abusive and Sadie still being scared of him by having him feint and either punch the wall or the air. And that way she couldn't level a charge of assault against him. What is his game plan??? Idiot. It's stuff like this that you bring up when people talk about the feminist intentions of the creators. Mmm, pretty sure she coerced him into sex with her either to get a story or because she was so desperate to be with him. Neither one is particularly flattering.

So we just went FULL soap opera this episode. But on the plus side, yay Juliette/Avery!

Good job, Fox News. After weeks of failing to do so, they found two black people (one man and one woman) to talk about race relations. All it took was O'Reilly going on vacation. Of course this replacement host then berated them for not having very specific solutions for how to "fix racism" and then made a baseball analogy because there's nothing that can't be compared to baseball or cowboys, etc. Well, baby steps.

Oh, God, show. The speedy exit of Zoe and the "magical Negro" all to push Scarlett back on stage? Layla and Jeff? Ugh. The age difference was creepy enough with Will especially with the character rewrite they did after her evil pageant girl/reality show wannabe introduction. I would buy devious Layla hooking up with Jeff but this is all kinds of wrong. Will chasing everything in pants? Not putting Avery and Juliette back together already!?! Go home, Nashville. You're drunk.