Musical Theater
I feel like this pops up often enough to merit its own thread.
Well, by "popping up often," I mean that I fawningly reference Sondheim for some reason or another and Borba agrees.
Confession: I'm only actually very familiar with Sweeney Todd, Assassins, and Company, and Into the Woods a little bit, and I've never actually *seen* any of them performed, only listened (repeatedly, obsessively) to the soundtracks. However, IU's doing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum next month, and I've heard it rumored that Sweeney Todd's coming to the auditorium in the fall ... which would be, um, amazing.
But yeah, Sondheim's great. I only discovered that I liked musical theater last spring, so I haven't really been exposed to that much of it yet - I like to become really familiar with a soundtrack before I buy another one, and I haven't had the motivation to do that with Into the Woods yet. Any suggestions on what the next one should be, though?
I also really like Avenue Q (once again, haven't seen it though), but I hate admitting that because it's so mainstream. Does that make me a terrible person?
I've seen performed, in order of decreasing-quality-of-performance, Mary Poppins, RENT, Evita, and Joseph and [...] Dreamcoat, all of which I could take or leave, really. This is unfortunate. I've never really seen a musical I particularly liked performed.
Although last year I played flute/sax in the pit for our high school's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, which was incredibly fun.
If movie-musicals count, I've seen the new Phantom of the Opera and The Producers movies, and I recall liking both well enough, but didn't really think that much of them.
One of my favoritest movies in the world, though, is the musical Reefer Madness, which is absolutely wonderful. It's just so ... I don't know. Clever and hilarious and tragic and amazing. I'm always thrilled by how it manages to switch so deftly back and forth between flippant and dark. And, I mean, the lyrics are brilliant.
Edit: Oh, I also have the soundtracks to Spamalot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, both of which failed to meet my expectations, sadly.
Anyway, discuss.
Well, by "popping up often," I mean that I fawningly reference Sondheim for some reason or another and Borba agrees.
Confession: I'm only actually very familiar with Sweeney Todd, Assassins, and Company, and Into the Woods a little bit, and I've never actually *seen* any of them performed, only listened (repeatedly, obsessively) to the soundtracks. However, IU's doing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum next month, and I've heard it rumored that Sweeney Todd's coming to the auditorium in the fall ... which would be, um, amazing.
But yeah, Sondheim's great. I only discovered that I liked musical theater last spring, so I haven't really been exposed to that much of it yet - I like to become really familiar with a soundtrack before I buy another one, and I haven't had the motivation to do that with Into the Woods yet. Any suggestions on what the next one should be, though?
I also really like Avenue Q (once again, haven't seen it though), but I hate admitting that because it's so mainstream. Does that make me a terrible person?
I've seen performed, in order of decreasing-quality-of-performance, Mary Poppins, RENT, Evita, and Joseph and [...] Dreamcoat, all of which I could take or leave, really. This is unfortunate. I've never really seen a musical I particularly liked performed.
Although last year I played flute/sax in the pit for our high school's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, which was incredibly fun.
If movie-musicals count, I've seen the new Phantom of the Opera and The Producers movies, and I recall liking both well enough, but didn't really think that much of them.
One of my favoritest movies in the world, though, is the musical Reefer Madness, which is absolutely wonderful. It's just so ... I don't know. Clever and hilarious and tragic and amazing. I'm always thrilled by how it manages to switch so deftly back and forth between flippant and dark. And, I mean, the lyrics are brilliant.
Edit: Oh, I also have the soundtracks to Spamalot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, both of which failed to meet my expectations, sadly.
Anyway, discuss.
Comments
I don't see anything wrong with admitting you like Avenue Q -- it's really very well done. I wouldn't even say it's all that mainstream, although I suppose among fans of musicals it's more popular than many.
I can't stand "Rent." Or I can't stand the bits of "Rent" to which I have been subjected. Perhaps there are other bits that are decent, but they aren't the ones to which people tend to subject me. Of course, in recent years I've also tried to steer clear of the kind of person who would subject me to any bits of "Rent." So I guess what I should say is that several years ago I heard parts of "Rent" that I didn't like. (Not quite as punchy as what I started out with.)
You'd probably laugh at them, Shruti, and not in the intended way, but I'm a fan of the earlier musicals as well, more Lerner and Loewe than Rodgers and Hammerstein or Hart, and going farther back, lots and lots of Cole Porter.
As for Sondheim, you ought to see about attaining some familiarity with "West Side Story," lyr. Sondheim, mus. Leonard Bernstein. It's some of the best work that composer and lyricist ever did, though both of them are great in their own right. I have mixed feelings about the Natalie Wood movie version, but I like the movie's ordering of "Gee, Officer Krupke" pre-rumble and "Cool" post-rumble more than the stage version -- just feels more right somehow. Highly recommend "A Funny Thing Happened...," although don't start with the movie -- the movie version doubles the slapstick and halves the songs (seriously, a lot of songs got cut from the movie).
(Speaking of movies, mystery fans might also enjoy the movie Sondheim wrote with the guy who played Norman Bates in "Psycho.")
Non-Sondheim recs: I'm ashamed to say I've never tried "Les Mis," but I've heard good things; I enjoyed the heck out of "1776" and I hope others will too.
Also, I can't stand kids singing with false vibratto. The sun will never come out till you stop singing!
All that being said, Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story are great.
I've wanted to write a musical in the past ... but I just lack creativity in general, I find. I'm very, very taken by the idea of there existing either a musical or an opera about Tartaglia, but I haven't the faintest idea of how I would go about creating it ... particularly since the setting would be 16th century Italy, and I'm not at all familiar with Italian, and I feel like it would be cheapened by being written in English.
I grew up with the original studio recording of Joseph as the record I obsessively listened to the most (age 6+). By 12 I could play/sing through most of the score from memory. Strangely, I've only seen the show once, and it's the studio album that I really like. I ended up exposing myself to a lot of Andrew Lloyd-Webber in album form, until I kinda outgrew it, or possibly succumbed to the popular notion that his work is crap/unoriginal. Whatever. There is still stuff I like there, although I shudder at the number of people who consider him some kind of pinnacle of "classical" music. And embarrassingly, I play really good solo piano versions of some of his songs, even though I laugh at myself for doing it, because it's a "last resort" option to get the wrong kind of audience on one's side.
Snap on Lerner and Loewe, Bry. Alan Jay Lerner's autobiography did its fair share towards making me starry-eyed about musical theatre in my early teens, and I really love their work. I'm ashamed to say I only know Cole Porter's work outside of the theatrical context, but damn it, he wrote some good standards. And strangely, I got newfound respect for Hammerstein through reading Sondheim biographies and seeing the man in the light of somebody who REALLY believed what he wrote.
"Rent" also failed to excite me, but I told myself I'm probably just being shallow and growing old - i.e. unwilling to get into newer stuff. Well, I am really shallow, and I don't have a great record for exposing myself to new music, but I just don't have the time to listen to many things in the depth I like.
I LOVE WEST SIDE STORY! It's one of those scores that I'd love to be able to play end to end on the piano, but it's pretty complex. My favorite WST-related work at the moment is the Dave Grusin album done in the early 90s, featuring some incredible musicians and arrangements.
One version of my life would have involved me getting involved in music theatre full time, but I think the cruise ship job put paid to that. As a student, I fell into the wonderful position of being the only music student interested in the drama department, and by default I became accompanist/MD/composer for lots and lots of student theatre. I have since more or less given up on ever completing any original work, although I have a good record for collaboration (nudge, nudge, Bry). And I have had an interesting record for getting involved with people who have Done It - it's pretty frustrating to be permanently on the periphery. For two years, the bassist in our ship trio (and my cabinmate in a 7'x10' living space!) was a guy more than twice my age who was a stalwart in South African pit orchestras, and did West End in the 50s, where he ended up playing in the original London production of West Side Story. And then, the only time I have been involved in something musical in England, a Christmas 2005 pantomime, the bassist was another West End veteran who played Cats for E!IG!H!T!E!E!N years. He was remarkably sane, but he admitted he never wants to see anything by Andrew Lloyd-Webber in his life again. (Tangent: getting that MD gig was a classic. A complete stranger posted on a music-related mailing list that he's looking for a music director for a show in England, I emailed him and took the train to meet him for an interview. That was it.)
All in all, I love theatre people, whether or not they can sing. My favorite regular gig ever was as musical accompanist for a company doing a weekly Theatresports (think "Whose line is it anyway?") show in Cape Town. I had great fun improvising with the actors, but they absolutely astounded me with their uncanny (I nearly said psychic) ensemble skills. I swear, there were whole shows where I was watching as I was playing, and thinking to myself "this must be rehearsed," knowing it not to be the case.
Rant froth starry-eyed long post. I shall stop for now.
The opening 10 minutes of that show has got to be the most amazingly compact exposition of a complex story out there. True, it does so by referencing well-known other stories, but nothing exists in a vacuum, whether it's a reference to Little Red Riding Hood or the lines of the token gay character in a tired sitcom. When you get to "No more", see if you can spot the parallel between its ending and the chorus of Mandelbrot Set ;-)
One observation: After devouring the original Broadway cast recording, I bought the London cast recording and listened to it maybe twice. Somehow the princes fall flat when English-flavoured, and there is no witch for me after Bernadette Peters. Yes, I'm getting old.
ETA: Oh, I forgot "Kiss Me, Kate"
Also, I feel like my life would have had the potential to be drastically different if I had discovered musical theater before I was seventeen; I think I randomly, stupidly harbored a lot of resentment towards musicals as a kid because the only experience I had with anything of the sort was the Sound of Music movie, which I didn't like at all, and awful song-and-dance numbers in Indian movies that I didn't watch, but my parents on occasion did.
[Distant future thread suggestion: Geekness is a label that many of us wear to set us apart from a perceived majority, and sometimes one we want to discard. What does that have in common with minority group status, i.e. other subcultures, the "immigrant" tag, the perception that our parents wear said immigrant tag, etc...?]
ETA: Sorry, I can't keep away from Sondheim for very long. Jinx, have you heard "The Miller's Son" from "A little night music"? The permutations on rhythmic groupings of three are utterly incredible, and I think the feel should appeal to you in a similar way that "Show me" does.
Shoggoth on the Roof is hilarious if you're familiar with Lovecraft. It's not easy to find a live performance though, I think due to legal complications. (They use exactly the music from Fiddler on the Roof but changed the words).
Oh, and I was the wolf in Into the Woods in a little coffee-house production in high school
"Shoggoth on the Roof" sounds hilarious!
@Sporksmith: Wow, you're the second person I've met online who has played the wolf - other one was a guy in Second Life. And on a complete tangent, in a certain circle of musician friends I used to carry the nickname Spurk. Bry will spot the origin, and the answer is simply that it was a kitchen appliance that caught somebody's eye.
That is my only contribution to this thread at the moment, as I'm in full packing mode.
The point is... I love musical theater and I love that this thread was created. I will definitely be back.
Musical theater memory dump:
My intro to musical theater came via my barbershopping parents. When I was a tiny child, they sang in a barbershop octet consisting of four married couples called, wait for it, the Marriage-Go-Round. :-D One of their set pieces was a medley from Oklahoma, and I have fond memories of my daddy, the bass, singing "Poor Jud Is Dead."
@Borba: Yes, yes, yes to much of what you said (uh, first post). I was obsessed with Webber's Phantom of the Opera. Memorized the London cast recording, saw it the first week it was in LA with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman. I have also lost interest in all things Webber since then. Funny aside, though. In order to get good tickets for Phantom, we bought season tickets and ended up seeing Charlotte Rae in Into the Woods and Lynn Redgrave in Dangerous Liaisons. I didn't appreciate either at the time. Must go back and revisit them.
West Side Story = awesome. Wonderful, wonderful music. I must say that I prefer Bernstein's score to Sondheim's lyrics, but still a fantastic show.
I fell in love with Camelot when I was given "Follow Me" as a solo in junior high (fit in nicely with the whole music geek/fantasy geek thing). My favorite tunes from that are "The Simple Joys of Maidenhood" and "C'est Moi" for their tongue-in-cheek-iness, and "If Ever I Would Leave You" is on my list of the most romantic songs ever.
@shruti: There's no shame in enjoying Avenue Q. It's damned entertaining. If the show ever comes to your area, you must see it live. The soundtrack doesn't do it justice. The Bad Idea Bears alone are worth the price of admission. "Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!"
@sporksmith: Small world! I know Andrew Leman and Sean Branney (friends of a friend). I'm on this album. :-)
Mucks, if that line is stuck in your head, it's a good one ;-)
And to everybody: You're reminding me of how little I've been exposed to. Must. Open. Head.
@colleenky - Hey neat. I haven't heard the 'solstice' stuff; I'll have to check it out. I found shoggoth on the roof after viewing this comic: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07132007.shtml . I thought, you know, I bet someone has actually done this. And after a bit of googling, sure enough there it was
Apart from that, and a few other school productions, I don't know if I've seen any others live. I discovered Avenue Q thanks to lastfm a while ago, and have been listening to the soundtrack for several months. I never really thought of it as an actual show though, I just collect funny songs so I listen to them as songs and occasionally wonder what the story is behind them. I read the wikipedia article the other day which enlightened me somewhat.
I had a boyfriend who expressed a desire to be followed by an orchestra so he could break into song occasionally and live like a musical.
I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole genre (of songs and acting together in an actual musical) until I saw the movie of Sweeney Todd recently. I listen to the soundtrack of it now, I couldn't resist getting it if only for 'A Little Priest'.
So, now I'm in London for JoCo/Easter/pies, and coincidentally, it turns out that one of the people I'm staying with worked on the graphics for Sweeney Todd. But that's not important right now. Last night he asked if I had any plans for the weekend (after I finish Portal), and I mentioned that I'd seen ads for a Monty Python show, and might consider going to it if possible while I was here. He said that we could see that, but he'd also recommend Avenue Q. I was stunned, always thinking I'd like to see it some time but not expecting the chance would come up so quickly. So we booked tickets and I'm going to see it at 17:00 today.
I can't wait.
On the subject of things I'd like to do just to say I did, I failed at getting to Mornington Crescent yesterday.
My sister and I were raised apart. It is a very long story, but basically, we share a birth mother. She was adopted and raised by our grandparents and I was raised by my father. And when she found out the truth about our mother as a teenager, she wrote me a letter. It kills me that I don't still have that letter, but what I do remember about it was the quote, "The difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure." It was written on the envelope, and what an adventure it has begun.
The letter came with a tape of the musical Into The Woods. I didn't know much from musicals, except for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is my favorite movie to this day. Into The Woods ended up being the first thing she and I could bond over. I absolutely loved it. I loved the idea of taking traditional fairytales and tweaking them a bit. And I was only 13 or so, but I got that there was something dark happening in that show.... This was not the humor I was used to.
Next, she sent Les Miserables. I was in love immediately. I wanted to be Eponine... Isn't that tragic? And then Phantom of The Opera. I would sit in my room for hours playing the entire show through, pretending to be Raoul. (Yes, Raoul. I'm a strange one.)
I discovered Rent on my own. The OBC recording had just come out and I was intrigued. It blew my mind. I had no idea that musicals could be like that. Gruff voices, electric guitar... and I identified with the starving artists in the show. Avenue Q was another show I found on my own. Bawdy puppets... what's not to love? My sister kept sending me musicals too: Sweeney Todd, Chess, City of Angels, The Secret Garden (my first exposure to John Cameron Mitchell, who I adore). She sent me Audra McDonald CDs, fantastic because Audra grew up in a neighboring town.
Later, we started to find non-musical things to bond over: The West Wing, The Daily Show. And on Monday, we'll be seeing each other in person for the first time in eight years. Eight years ago was the first time in my life that I could recall being in her presence. And we're going to be living together. *bites nails*
Anyway... I have a very personal connection to musicals.
The day I finished my last university exam, I moved in with an old school friend who had just graduated from drama school. His group of classmates had some great ideas for beach theatre (this was peak tourist season in Cape Town), and I duly was invited to join. So barely two days later I participated in an Event on Camps Bay main beach, involving me approaching a "random" group of people, donning a crash helmet and piano accordion, and playing them into action - specifically, they all got evening wear out, got dressed and made up elaborately, and walked into the sea. It was a lovely moment, and everybody applauded as we trooped off afterwards, me leading them Pied Piper-style.
That would have been a good enough start to post-student life. However, the next morning one of the group called us up in near hysterics, shouting that we HAVE to buy a copy of the Cape Times. Turns out that their regular back page columnist was on the beach at the time and devoted his whole column to "reviewing" the happening. I don't think any of us ever got that much newsprint dedicated to reviewing our antics for years after that.
I was listening to Into the Woods earlier today, but the line "into the woods to sell a friend" was so sad that I stopped listening and just thought about it.
And I haven't yet seen the Sweeney Todd movie - my friends saw it the day it came out, but I was in Chicago with family, and then I never got around to it even though I had been eagerly anticipating the movie for like, months. I'm sure I'll see it once it's on DVD though.
Edit: If I can find a couple of friends with the time/money to go to New York for a couple of days in May to catch a taping of The Colbert Report, maybe we could go see a Broadway show too...that'd be really exciting. Then again, maybe it'd be too much money.
Edit again: What are y'all's favorite songs?
From Assassins, I cannot get enough of How I Saved Roosevelt ... there are just so many rhymes and they're all so close together and internalized, and I love that it's so many people singing it...it's all just so well thought out and put together. The Ballad of Booth has that awesome, powerful section in it, and, I mean, who doesn't love a song that calls Lincoln a "righteous whore"? Gun Song's really powerful too, and Unworthy of your Love is sad and works so excellently in context.
I love love love Schadenfreude from Avenue Q because it's hilarious. And I like Purpose and I Wish I Could Go Back to College because, I mean, that's what I spend virtually all my time agonizing about. There's a Fine, Fine Line is really pretty, too. And, I mean, I really like almost everything else too, but those stick out.
As for Sweeney Todd - well, the Ballad's great, of course, and so's the Johanna quartet. I don't know what'd I'd call my favorite outside of those; it's all great.
Don't get me started on favorite songs. Drat, you did. A few random favorites within my little Sondheim universe then:
- Assassins: "Gun Song/Ballad of Czolgosz". In the latter, the piling up of the "fountain of abundance...tower of light...court of lilies" etc is great, as is the notion of getting your fair chance to reach the head of the line and shoot the [mumble]
- Follies: Most of it is brilliant classic Broadway, but there is a beautiful innocent duet called "Little white house/Who could be blue?" that was cut out of the show and occasionally recorded.
- Company: "Getting Married Today". If a singer gets all those words right AND manages to get some characterization in, I'm in awe.
- Into the Woods: Damn it, everything! "Agony" cracks me up every time. "Moments in the Woods" is a delicious exploration of the suave prince ("Right and wrong don't matter in the woods, only feelings // Let us meet the moment unblushed // Life is often so unpleasant // You must know that as a peasant // Best to take the moment present // as a present for the moment") and the baker's wife ("Why not both instead? // There's the answer if you're clever. // Have a child for warmth and a baker for bread and a prince for whatever... Never!") And the breakneck pace of finger-pointing and twisted logic in "Your fault" hits pretty hard.
- Pacific Overtures: Got to be "Someone in a tree", possibly because of the snob value of liking something that takes a while for its impact to sink in.
- A Little Night Music: "A weekend in the country" (perfect end-of-act song) and "The miller's son"
- Sweeney Todd: I love every note, but the Johanna quartet does stand out
- Forum: "Impossible"
Umm, that seems to be a list.Speaking of selling a friend, I had an Into The Woods flashback today while reading a book to my 10mo son. It contained the line "See cow puff out his cheeks". ("But mother! He's the best cow...")
From Sweeney Todd I like A Little Priest.
It's probably not even in many people's top three songs from that musical. It's basically got no musical complexity whatsoever (although there is some nice three- or four-part harmonizing near the end). It's even mostly a "plot song" -- to show why, out of the five members of the committee appointed to prepare the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was chosen to write it. (If you stopped reading at "committee," I don't blame you.)
I will forgive it all those flaws because of this:
FRANKLIN: Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams, The things I write Are only light Extemporanea, I won't put politics on paper, it's a mania, So I refuse To use The pen In Pennsyl- Vania! [line breaks mine, for emphasis] .... SHERMAN: Mr. Adams, but, Mr. Adams, I cannot write with any style or proper etiquette, I don't know a participle (original stage version: "preposition") from a predicate, I am just a simple cobbler from Connecticut!By no means is "But Mr. Adams" my all-time favorite, it's just the only example that springs to mind. In addition to everyone else mentioned, I am a huge fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, but since no one else has brought them up, I won't express my enthusiasm further (because they're a little removed from "musical theater" -- I'll follow a digression, but I'm not big on starting one).
Edited: I transposed movie and stage lyrics -- fixed.
Re: "Getting Married Today," this video is very fun to watch - the girl playing Amy's really good, and it's great watching Sondheim watch her.
ETA: Ah, here's the Georgetown Palace Theater doing justice to the same song.
I do like that segment Franklin sings a lot - it seems so well characterized.
Thanks for those links - about to watch right now, and about to add 1776 to my wish list.
ETA: Now I've gone and found one of my other favorites on YouTube: "Now" from "A little night music". The neatly logical lawyer's mind analyzing options for seducing his own wife through literary means is an utter classic.
And I mean that in the nicest way (in costuming circles it is the highest form of compliment)
See, I have been working on an idea I had 2 weeks ago- JoCo, The Soft Rock Opera. I too, noticed the way so many of Jonathans songs seemed to fit into a complete storyline. But you- you did it already, and fantastically.
So, any idea of when I can get tickets to the show? I wouldn't mind being an office worker/zombie in it, or the stage manager, costumer, set painter, director even. This would make a great real life show- hey kids! Let's put on a play!
Carry on