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Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

aradia22

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aradia22
aradia22

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-final-interview.html I am glad he got to see the opening of this revival of Company and seemed to be living his best life 'the the end,

aradia22
aradia22
Bethany
Bethany

Just read an article about how this has "sparked a debate about theatre going etiquette".  My mind is boggling that there even needs to be a debate about this.

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Silver Raven

Silver Raven

13 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Found/Tonight by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Ben Platt aka "what would happen if we put together two of the awesomest Broadway guys from two of the awesomest Broadway shows?"

 

It got me right in the feels.  Part of the proceeds go the March for Our Lives.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Cast for Alanis Morissette musical Jagged Little Pill

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Casting is complete for Jagged Little Pill, the world premiere musical based on the hit Alanis Morissette album, set to make its world premiere with American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Anastasia leading man Derek Klena is among the newly announced stars of the production, set to bow on May 5 at A.R.T.'s Loeb Drama Center for a run through June 30.

Jagged Little Pill tells an original story about a family grappling with uncomfortable truths about many of the urgent issues deeply affecting our communities and our world today. It is inspired by the themes and emotions laid bare in Morissette's Grammy Award-winning album that introduced beloved anthems including "Ironic," "You Oughta Know" and "Hand in My Pocket."

Klena will take on the role of Nick, alongside fellow newly announced stars Lauren Patton (Fun Home) as Jo, Sean Allan Krill (Honeymoon in Vegas) as Steve and newcomer Celia Gooding as Frankie. The show's ensemble will include Jane Bruce, John Cardoza, Antonio Cipriano, Kathryn Gallagher, Max Kumangai, Sean Montgomery, Whitney Sprayberry, Kei Tsuruharatani and Ebony Williams. Yeman Josiah Brown and Kelsey Orem are the production's swings.

They join the previously announced Elizabeth Stanley, who will star as Mary Jane, with ensemble members Laurel Harris, Logan Hart, Soph Menas and Nora Schell. Jagged Little Pill features a book by Oscar winner Diablo Cody, music by Morissette and Glen Ballard, lyrics by Morissette and orchestrations by Tony winner Tom Kitt. Tony winner and A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus directs.

Jagged Little Pill will feature scenic design by Tony nominee Riccardo Hernandez, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Tony nominee Justin Townsend, sound design by Tony nominee Jonathan Deans, video/projection design by Tony winner Finn Ross and music direction by Bryan Perri.

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aradia22

aradia22

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Anastasia leading man Derek Klena is among the newly announced stars of the production, set to bow on May 5 at A.R.T.'s Loeb Drama Center for a run through June 30.

I finally saw Anastasia last night. I had a really good time. It's not a great show. The strongest parts are the songs from the movie and they've been awkwardly rearranged to fit into the new plot. Also, while there are similar scenes, the book has mostly been changed to the detriment of the plot and characterization. It's very muddled and uneven. But as a fan of the movie, there are a lot of bright spots as well. I 100% understand why Christy Altomare was cast now. She does an uncanny mimicry of Liz Callaway at times while also sounding like herself. It's like Wicked where Elphabas will borrow each others' riffs. Except she borrows things like Liz's clarity and placement and sometimes her pronunciation. Once Upon a December and Journey to the Past were stunning. I didn't hate the new songs but they weren't memorable and unlike the old songs they felt very "contemporary musical theater" in the way they had places for belting, etc. It felt like they were creating emotionally empty moments instead of letting the song tell a story. Overall, the story is very muddled and uneven. There are some new things that are good or that seemed interesting but nothing was fully unpacked the way I would expect from a Broadway musical or from Ahrens and Flaherty. It felt like a show that needed more time in development and more sophistication. It wasn't digging deep enough and then a lot of the time it would go fully cartoon-y in a weird tonal shift from all the emotional ballads/belting. They're all very capable actors and they get moments of emotional honesty but they've also clearly been directed to spend a lot of time mugging. Speaking of direction, it was not good. The staging was also terrible and reminded me of what we did in high school. It felt amateurish. I hated all the screens and projections. The best thing about them was you could mostly ignore them. They looked so cheap. 

Still, I enjoyed the movie songs (the same way I loved hearing the score of Once on This Island... I couldn't help but smile), the performers were all game, and the costumes were generally gorgeous (though I didn't like a few of them... the red dress was a bit much). I can't recommend this for the average theater fan. I think you really have to love the movie to get something out of this but if you do love the movie, there's enough there that works, even if the whole package is a bit muddled and messy. It desperately needed a stronger book and a stronger directorial hand. I have more pros and cons but I'll leave it there for now.

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aradia22

aradia22

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Encores! Artistic Director Jack Viertel today announced casting for Me and My Girl, the final production of the Encores! at 25 season at New York City Center. Me and My Girl, the first Encores! production originally written and produced in London's West End, will star Christian Borle, Suzzanne Douglas, Mark Evans, Harriet Harris, Edward Hibbert, John Horton, Simon Jones, Laura Michelle Kelly, Lisa O'Hare, Ken Page, and Don Stephenson.

The ensemble includes Alex Aquilino, Maddy Apple, Philip Attmore, Florrie Bagel, Sam Bolen, Abby Church, Jake Corcoran, Christine DiGiallonardo, Jordan Grubb, Brittany Rose Hammond, Jared Howelton, Lizzie Klemperer, Eloise Kropp, Cory Lingner, David Scott Purdy, Mariah Reshea Reives, Price Waldman, Jessica Wockenfuss, and Chaz Wolcott.

The toast of the 1937 London season, Me and My Girl is a delightfully old-fashioned musical about Cockney everyman Bill Snibson (Christian Borle) who, after being unexpectedly elevated to the lofty position of Earl of Hareford, wreaks havoc on high society and risks losing his girl, Sally Smith (Laura Michelle Kelly). 

Thoughts? I know nothing about this show. I like these actors but I don't know if this is good casting or if I should be excited about it. Right now it's feeling very skip-able. 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Christian-Borle-and-Laura-Michelle-Kelly-Will-Star-in-Encores-Production-of-ME-AND-MY-GIRL-20180320

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Charlie Baker

Charlie Baker

Me and My Girl is total fluff, but with this cast, it should be enjoyable. The casting looks very good.  Christian Borle is a fine choice for the lead, though he has  his work cut out for him--Robert Lindsay's was one of the best musical comedy performances one might hope to see. Ever.

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aradia22

aradia22

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Saw Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met on Thursday with Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti and Vittorio Grigolo. The less said the better. The most complimentary thing I can say is that the singing was mostly good, particularly in act 3 (when it counts). The acting was awful. Most of the actors were wooden and Vittorio was doing his normal shtick but without any real connection to genuine emotions so it came across as overacting. It must have been the direction because from the acting to the staging to the inexplicable choice to make them Victorians, I hated this production.

Saw Handel's Rinaldo at Carnegie Hall in concert today. There were some outside things interfering with my enjoyment that aren't worth getting into right now. But the concert itself was fantastic. I think it was a great introduction to the music if not the plot. But the orchestra sounded fantastic. I never thought I'd say this... but he slayed that harpsichord solo. I still don't know opera well enough but the program describes a lot of the arias as coloratura? I guess I prefer that to bel canto because this feels like all of the speed but at full voice so it feels like vocal fireworks. In some ways, I think it was good to try a concert version first because I'm not sure I would have bought a countertenor as a romantic hero/fierce soldier. I guess it's supposed to sound angelic? But aside from my cultural bias, it also made it very difficult to figure out what was going on with poor supertitles and a bad view when the female and male voices were in a similar range. I went for Luca Pisaroni and he did not disappoint as Argante. Finally, a decent part for a bass. 

@Rinaldo Is this opera the choice behind your screenname? If so, I certainly get it. It was just fantastic aria after fantastic aria. Can you recommend a recording? I'd like to revisit it without the distractions.

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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

1 hour ago, aradia22 said:

I think it was good to try a concert version first because I'm not sure I would have bought a countertenor as a romantic hero/fierce soldier. I guess it's supposed to sound angelic?

No, you were right the first time; it's supposed to sound fierce and romantic. It wasn't written for a countertenor, or for a female alto either, but we have no choice but to use one of those types of voices. (Go look it up, I don't have the heart to tell you what kind of voice this role -- like most of the hero roles in Baroque opera -- was written for.)

1 hour ago, aradia22 said:

@Rinaldo Is this opera the choice behind your screenname?

In a roundabout way. Not this opera specifically, which I know only slightly, but the character from the legends about the knights of Charlemagne, which always fascinated me and which were drawn on for many operas by Handel and others of his time. All my screen names over the decades have been taken from mythical medieval knights, from either the "matter of Britain" (King Arthur etc.) or the "matter of France" (Charlemagne etc.).

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aradia22

aradia22

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(Go look it up, I don't have the heart to tell you what kind of voice this role -- like most of the hero roles in Baroque opera -- was written for.)

Oh, I know. But I don't think I've ever heard a recording of a genuine castrato (was there even recording equipment when that was still practiced?) so I just assumed they sounded about the same as countertenors. Iestyn Davies was very good. He just finished with Farinelli on Broadway, I think. But I had to think of it as a just pretty arias instead of really connecting it to the characterization being put forth. Which was actually easy because it would have been almost impossible to have a deep understanding of the plot without the program notes. I will never understand why no one (ok, very few companies) seems to care about the supertitles. Anyway, I thought Iestyn wasn't so much intimidating as... very sassy? There were a few moments that were a bit more camp like when he rejected Armida. 

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Rinaldo

Rinaldo

(edited)
16 hours ago, aradia22 said:

But I don't think I've ever heard a recording of a genuine castrato (was there even recording equipment when that was still practiced?) so I just assumed they sounded about the same as countertenors

As @ratgirlagogo said (and helpfully linked), exactly one castrato survived long enough to make recordings. And he wasn't a star (opera composers stopped writing for them by mid-19th century, partly because the supply was dwindling to nothing and partly because tastes in audiences and society in general had changed -- the two go together of course). This Mr. Moreschi was a semi-obscure choir member, his few recordings aren't impressive, and we can't tell if he's a fair representation of what the star operatic castratos sounded like (probably not, though).

From written accounts, as well as analysis of the music written for them, the evidence is that castratos preserved the high range of boy sopranos, but with the muscular support and projection of adulthood. They must have sounded something like operatic tenors, capable of loudness and brilliance, but an octave higher. We don't have any voices like that. Countertenors develop the male falsetto to cover the required range, and a handful of the most gifted, like David Daniels, manage to give the sound some color and variety. But it remains (probably) only a pale substitute.

There's no good solution -- female voices (besides the gender-identity mismatch, which is especially visible in a concert situation) don't respond quite the right way at the required pitches either. I actually sometimes think that some of the better popular-style singers, who mix belting with other effects and come close to being a "female tenor", might come closer than purely classical ones. It's a complicated and much-debated and -disagreed-upon subject.

Edited by Rinaldo
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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Cast for Chess in the West End
 

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Philip Browne (The Lion King) is newly announced in the role of Molokov. He joins previously announced stars Michael Ball as Anatoly, Alexandra Burke as Svetlana, Cassidy Janson as Florence, Tim Howar as Freddie and original London Chess star Murray Head as the Arbiter.

Chess will play the London Coliseum beginning on April 26 with an opening slated for May 1. Laurence Connor will direct and Stephen Mear will choreograph.

The West End production of Chess will play a limited engagement through June 2.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

NBC's Robert Greenblatt discusses Smash

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“‘Smash’ may have invented the concept of hate-watching,” Greenblatt jokes — but it’s still got a following. “Interestingly enough, I hear more about people loving ‘Smash’ now than I ever did when it was on the air.”

“We’ve been thinking about different ways to think about a stage musical based on ‘Bombshell’ or ‘Smash,'” Greenblatt reveals. “That’s all I’ll say. There’s an incarnation which could sort of combine both. … You may not have seen the last of ‘Smash’ yet. I think the next incarnation will be on stage.”

And in the latest "we're making this movie into a musical" news:

Waitress star Drew Gehling to star in musical version of Dave at Arena Stage in Washington DC (July 19-August 13)

National Lampoon's Vacation franchise will be a musical

The Flamingo Kid musical will open at Hartford Stage May 9-June 2 (2019)

List of Anastasia tour dates (not included on the list but confirmed is San Francisco at the Golden Gate Theatre September 3-29)

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ebk57

ebk57

I'm about to buy my tickets for Dave.

You didn't mention Beetlejuice, The Musical at the National next fall.  I'm thinking I will not be renewing my subscription unless there's something else in the series I must see. Because Beetlejuice isn't it.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

3 hours ago, aradia22 said:

My friend got cast as Eliza in the Chicago production of Hamilton! If any of you get a chance to see it, please report back. I'm so excited for her. :)

I was sad to see that Ari Asfar was leaving the Chicago production (she graduated from the high school that was built in my parents' neighborhood, which is also the same high school that Kelly Marie Tran attended!). When is your friend starting?

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Berkeley Rep announces their 2018-2019 season - this is the company's 50th anniversary and Tony Taccone's last season as artistic director.

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The season will kick off in September with A Doll’s House, Part 2 directed by Les Waters, followed by the new play Fairview in October. In Drury's work, a family meets to celebrate a birthday, but they are being watched, and these attitudes and assumptions force them to fight for their identities. Sarah Benson directs the production in association with New York City's Soho Rep.

In December, Berkeley Rep will present the world premiere of Paradise Square: A Musical for America. Drawing on popular music of the 19th century, the musical is inspired by the real-life Five Points community, a group of Black and Irish Americans who co-existed in a 20-block area of Manhattan in 1863, and whose existence was disrupted by the arrival of the Civil War.

The new work is conceived by Kirwarn and features a book by Gardley, Lucas, and Kirwan, additional lyrics by Kirwan and Nathan Tysen, arrangements by Jason Howland and Kirwan, and musical supervision and orchestrations by Howland. Kaufman will direct and Jones will choreograph.

In January 2019, Berkeley will welcome the return of Zimmerman’s acclaimed production of Metamorphoses, which features a 24-foot wading pool, followed by Geoff Sobelle's Home, which arrives on the West Coast following runs at BAM and around the world. Lee Sunday Evans directs with performances set to begin in March.

Rounding out the season will be Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson's The Good Book, a new play which looks at the Bible through three interwoven stories. Peterson directs, with performances scheduled to begin in April.

An additional play will be announced at a later date.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

11 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Not sure. She hasn't mentioned it on social media yet so I'm not sure if she's allowed to say.

Keep us posted! Mr. EB and I have been saying that we’re going to plan a trip to Chicago for ages so we can visit some family and see the sites and I’d love to squeeze in a trip to see a different Hamilton cast!

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aradia22

aradia22

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Songs For A New World- Listened to the album on Spotify. It took a while. I like to do it in one sitting but this was a little exhausting. It was very... Jason Robert Brown. Not always in a good way. It felt indicative of his style but with none of the polish of The Last Five Years or Bridges or even Parade (which... controversial, is not my favorite). So it got to be a little... much. A couple songs stood out to me but a lot of it was kind of... annoying. It wasn't exactly the contemporary musical theater-ness of it but like... it was a lot of riffs and high notes and vocal jazz without any heart or substance. I doubt I'll see the Off-Center production unless the cast is AMAZING. My main takeaway was... where the heck did Jessica Molaskey go? 

Cosi Fan Tutte- Saw the new Met production Live in HD. I have many thoughts but in short... I'm glad I saw a more traditional production a few years ago with Susanna Phillips, Isabel Leonard, Matthew Polenzani, etc. That one was better acted with the exception of Despina (Kelli O'Hara) and Don Alfonso (Christopher Maltman). I loved them both. The male leads in this production had their moments and were generally quite good, really having fun with the tone of the comedy. The female leads sang beautifully (as did everyone) but the big screen made their acting weaknesses quite apparent and having Kelli there to show that yes, it is possible to sing in an opera and act at the same time did not help. I have mixed feelings on the Coney Island thing and the staging/direction/translation. In general I thought the set was pretty. There were some nice touches in the direction and staging that made things more explicit (I feel like I didn't register all the plot points and emotions as well the first time when it really about just focusing on the words). I did feel like they didn't totally trust the audience and would sometimes introduce some spectacle to keep people from being bored. Like, why put Fiordiligi in a hot air balloon (that basically functioned like Glinda's bubble) for that one aria and have her keep floating around? It would have been more powerful if the actress had given a fiercer performance but instead the song felt a little sleepy and the spectacle and movement helped keep me engaged though it wasn't really necessary. I also feel like the combination of some mildly suspicious (I'm always suspicious of anything that isn't a direct translation) translation, the staging, the direction, and the acting downplayed the misogyny quite a bit though it's still evident in the text. To put it simply... it felt less icky. I do recommend checking it out on TV in July. It was generally fun and beautifully sung and worth seeing. 

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aradia22

aradia22

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@Silver Raven I don't know how I feel about it. I love Moulin Rouge. That movie and Chicago were in heavy rotation for me around the early 2000's. (I only had a few VHS tapes/DVD's to cycle through.) But even though I appreciate the colorblind casting, I'm somewhat side-eyeing making Satine a WOC. And I'm not sure I see either of them as similar types to the original casting. Aaron is boyish but with this fierceness. I think Ewan was able to pull off some of Christian's shittier aspects because he was so damn charismatic and warm and likable. And Olivo is sassy and bold where Kidman was more elegant and coy. 

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Interview with Spencer Liff, choreographer for the Broadway bound Go-Go’s musical Head Over Heels

Humphry Slocombe has created We Got the Beet, a limited edition ice cream in honor of Head Over Heels

Short interview with Head Over Heels costume designer Arianne Phillips - she has been nominated for a Tony (Hedwig), two Oscars (Walk the Line and W.E.), and a BAFTA (A Single Man) for her costume design. She also worked as a stylist for Lenny Kravitz (Let Love Rule) and Madonna. The interview includes sketches of some of the Head Over Heels costumes. 

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aradia22

aradia22

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I'm ready to be proven wrong but I can't see Head Over Heels being good. Aside from the issue of being able to afford that music catalog, it seems like a weird off-Broadway show. The costume sketches look cool but leave me even more confused about what this show is going to be like. 

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

12 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I'm ready to be proven wrong but I can't see Head Over Heels being good. Aside from the issue of being able to afford that music catalog, it seems like a weird off-Broadway show. The costume sketches look cool but leave me even more confused about what this show is going to be like. 

It got mixed reviews when it played at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015 so I'm hoping they have revamped it enough to deal with some of the issues it had then. It's obvious that they have completely redone the costumes and choreography (Sonya Tayeh did the original and Spencer Liff did this version - I wonder if that will make things awkward at SYTYCD!) so the show will look very different from its previous incarnation, but more importantly I hope they tightened up the story (which is based on Sir Philip Sidney's 16th century poem "The Arcadia"). I'm not sure how well a mashup of Elizabethan romance and 80s songs will coalesce but since I have season tickets at the Curran, I'm hoping that it will be entertaining.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Hamilton won seven Olivier Awards last night! It is now tied with Matilda (2012) for most Oliviers received by a musical. The show was nominated for  total of thirteen Oliviers (every category except Best Actress in a Musical and Set Design). They won in the following categories:

Best New Musical - Lin-Manuel Miranda
Outstanding Achievement in Music - Alex Lacamoire and Lin-Manuel Miranda
Best Actor in a Musical - Giles Terera (Aaron Burr)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical - Michael Jibson (King George III)
Best Lighting Design - Howell Binkley
Best Sound Design - Nevin Steinberg
Best Theatre Choreographer - Andy Blankenbuehler

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aradia22

aradia22

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I saw an excellent Luisa Miller tonight. (Side note: I keep getting Verdi confused with other composers. Mostly Bizet. For some reason I always think he wrote Carmen and then I correct myself. I think it's the gypsies.) The entire cast was loud and good. I know that's not the most nuanced take but this isn't a terribly nuanced opera or production. It bothered me at first. I know the original setting is German but this setting was English. And I kept thinking in act 1 that the music was some kind of extended joke about how repressed the English are. It's very stately... but also bouncy. They were also filming tonight and I'm pretty sure there were mic's being used because everyone was unusually loud. By the time the duchess and Rodolpho had their scene I was getting into it. But I was still having trouble taking it seriously... until I stopped trying and started having fun. At least for me, the best way to approach this show is to think of it as a gothic melodrama/Victorian morality tale. And then all the foreshadowing becomes dramatic irony and all the big feelings and angst and suicidal tendencies (Luisa is a dumbass) become hilarious. Act 2 was excellent, as was Act 3 though I was getting a little tired by that point. There was a LOT of pauses tonight, which I get because it was a nice set with a lot of location changes but still... so many pauses + 2 intermissions. The acting was not terrible but not great and the staging was very stiff. Neither the staging nor the acting really helps illuminate the text. They could have been singing about any number of things at times. But the singing was gorgeous. Yoncheva is a powerhouse. Piotr was on fire tonight. Placido was good as were the two basses. Though the bass playing the father was so obviously young that it was distracting. I think they just put white in his hair and he made some faces to try and look serious. Great voice though. The actor playing Wurm wasn't doing anything special but a combination of the translations and the way the other characters interacted with him made him very funny to me. 

I didn't love it as much as Il Trovatore but I did end up enjoying a lot of the singing (if not necessarily the music) and I would recommend checking it out on TV August 12. I will also be watching Yoncheva's Tosca when it airs. I'm looking forward to Traviata next season. I actually don't know a lot of Verdi though I've sung Verdi and I've heard some choral/orchestral stuff. I've never seen a Nabucco, Rigoletto, Aida, or Otello. I am seeing Aida next season so that'll be two down. 

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methodwriter85

methodwriter85

(edited)

Dirty Dancing The Musical...got to see the tour last week at the Wilmington Delaware Playhouse and I did have a lot of fun. My only criticism is that they basically had two singers sing all the songs while (one's a man, one's a woman, and they're two workers at Kellerman's who are basically in love with each other) Baby and Johnny dance and talk. I get why- they wanted to keep all the big lines between them and it would be hard for them to sing while dancing. But I still thought Johnny should have at least gotten to sing "She's Like the Wind", which got reduced to an instrumental.

Edited by methodwriter85
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bosawks

bosawks

(edited)

Two medical emergencies at today’s Carousel matinee.

If they come in 3’s I’m afraid for tonight’s performance of Dolly.....

 

ETA:  Everyone appears to be fine regarding the emergencies.

Edited by bosawks
Kinda left out an important part...
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