S04.E14: I'm Finding My Bliss

[ElectricBoogaloo]

In high school, I was in show choir (like Glee but with a much smaller costume budget), drama (musicals), and dance and in all three, we always had to recruit guys for stuff. Some of them were adequate and some of them ended up being ridiculously talented.

We often recruited athletes (football, water polo, etc) and that's how I first learned the painful lesson that Dancing with the Stars has taught us - just because you're coordinated at one thing (sports) does not mean you're coordinated at other things (dance). There were definitely some surprisingly good singers and dancers too though.

Of all the guys I personally knew that got roped into doing the musicals, dance, or choir, only one of them ended up sticking with it (he's still in a successful band to this day). The rest of them just did it for fun (or more likely because there were a lot of girls to flirt with during rehearsals) and didn't think of it as watershed moments in their lives.

Edited March 23, 2019 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Shanna Marie]

13 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Also, it's a very over the top joke about Nathaniel being perfect. I don't know Godspell, but anyone who can sing a passable Gethsemane isn't just a jock who is a weird acting savant. It's not an easy sing.

Is the joke that he's so perfect, or is the joke that he's so ridiculously privileged that he keeps just being given stuff, whether or not he merits it, and he's totally unaware of his level of privilege? He's not quite to the level of the mediocre white guy who gets handed everything, as I'd guess he's better than average, but he is in the demographic that doesn't have to actually be great at anything to be treated like he's the second coming, and he's so used to just being given stuff that he has no clue how important or difficult it's supposed to be. Here, he just walked in the room and got cast over people who'd apparently been working with this theater group all along. We didn't see his number, so we don't know how well he actually performs. I think the joke is that it doesn't matter how good he is, he just gets the opportunity handed to him.

[aradia22]

Quote

Is the joke that he's so perfect, or is the joke that he's so ridiculously privileged that he keeps just being given stuff, whether or not he merits it, and he's totally unaware of his level of privilege? 

To me, the joke is that he's so perfect. If it was just privilege, he'd get something like Roger or Mark in RENT. It would hurt the show but you could sleepwalk your way through something like the prince in R&H's Cinderella (not that I think that would have been licensed when Nathaniel was in high school). It would be like the part Cheri Oteri threw at him because he's handsome and can kind of sing. But casting a mediocre singer as Jesus in JCS (and maybe Godspell... again, I don't know that score) is like casting Gwen Verdon as Evita. Also, what insane high school were they in that they not only had Nathaniel but someone who could sing Judas???

Yeah... officially overthinking this now.

[Shanna Marie]

12 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

In high school, I was in show choir (like Glee but with a much smaller costume budget), drama (musicals), and dance and in all three, we always had to recruit guys for stuff.

You know, that might have been a more interesting way for Rebecca to realize that theater wasn't going to be her ticket to happiness, if there had been the common audition situation of about 30 women showing up to audition for three main female roles and maybe five more in the chorus, and almost all of them are ridiculously qualified. That close to LA, they'd probably get a bunch of people with drama degrees desperately trying to get roles in anything to beef up their resumes and maybe make contacts, hoping to possibly even be discovered. Meanwhile, just about every guy who shows up gets cast. Rebecca might have found herself hopelessly outclassed and realizing that this wasn't going to happen for her, with possibly her darker side contemplating sabotaging the competition but able to stop herself before she does anything and showing how far she's come when she handles the rejection well. To complicate things further, Josh and Nathaniel might have found themselves cast in the show, since they needed men and they were there, only to find out it wasn't going to get them closer to Rebecca since she didn't get cast.

[femmefan1946]

On 3/16/2019 at 12:07 PM, BonnieD said:

Honestly, I think Ado Annie's song "Cain't Say No" shows a sexually healthy young woman who enjoys fooling around. Taken verse by verse, she doesn't seem to want to put the brakes on. The dated part is that she won't be respected if she follows her natural inclinations and does what she wants. 

I just reviewed the lyrics and I agree.
Watch Gloria Grahame's version. She definitely is enjoying being that girl.

[femmefan1946]

6 hours ago, aradia22 said:

To me, the joke is that he's so perfect.... but you could sleepwalk your way through something like the prince in R&H's Cinderella (not that I think that would have been licensed when Nathaniel was in high school).

If Nathaniel is 35 he was born in 1984, nearly 30 years after Cinderella was first performed (1957).

And if he was 16ish, you're looking at a musical that was over 40 years old. Still in copyright I think but probably available.

My high school did Meet Captain Kidd around 1962- only ten years after the Abbott and Costello movie was released.

[aradia22]

Quote

If Nathaniel is 35 he was born in 1984, nearly 30 years after Cinderella was first performed (1957).

And if he was 16ish, you're looking at a musical that was over 40 years old. Still in copyright I think but probably available.

I was thinking more that there wasn't a licensed stage version until the Broadway production with Santino Fontana and Laura Osnes (Blech). I don't know about the rights for a made-for-TV musical. Of course, I think he would have been in high school around the time after the Whitney Houston/Brandy version and if the rights weren't officially out there, some unscrupulous schools might have put on amateur productions. It's hard to catch them unless they're dumb in this day and age like those schools that were doing Hamilton without the rights and put their videos up on youtube.

[Trini]

I don't have much comments for this one. Glad to see growth and movement for Paula.

I would have liked to have heard Rebecca's new lyrics for the problematic song.

I'm over this cycling through Rebecca's love interests; but I guess it's going to keep happening until the end.

[dubbel zout]

The joke with Nathaniel and Cinderella is that of course he'd play the prince.