DAMT Set #3
Aladdin (2014)
(das all, same crew)
Annie (1977)
- A FAMILY SHOW in 1977 on Broadway - "It's a Hard Knock Life" - "Hard Knock Life" by Jay-Z
Lea Salonga
- A Filipina actress - The original Kim in Miss Saigon - Voiced Mulan and Princess Jasmine for Disney films
Key RENT term: stigma
- A mark or feeling of shame associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person
Reflexive Musical
- A musical that makes fun of itself and the genre overall as it lampoons the conventions or very idea of musical theatre Urinetown - Themes: filled with musical parody and political satire - "Urinetown/Run, Freedom, Run"
Spectacle
- A visually overwhelming, flashy, or striking performance or display
Themes from Rent
- Artistic integrity: Mark/Rodger/Benny - do you have to be a starving artist to have integrity? - What makes a relationship work? - Musical about loss: lesson of how to move forward when dealing with loss
Who's Tommy
- Based on The Who's concept album/rock opera "Tommy" - Music and lyrics: Pete Townsend - Book: Townsend - "Pinball Wizard" - Connection to the 80s = spectacle
Newsies (2012)
- Based on the 1992 cult film Newsies - Music: Alan Menken
Kander and Ebb's Chicago (1975)
- Book: Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb - Director/choreographer: Bob Fosse - Source: play by Maurine Dallas Watkins - Concept musical: portrays public thirst for celebrity and entertainment without thinking about ethics - "We Both Reached For the Gun" = song - Film version: directed by Rob Marshall - Won Oscar for Best Film! - 1996 revival: genius of Barry and Fran Weissler
Disney on Broadway
- Broadway's influence on Disney - Found success with musical theatre conventions in the 90s - Disney's influence on Broadway completely revamped the Theatre District
Color-blind casting
- Casting a role without considering the actor's race or ethnicity - Potential benefits: more talented performer may get the opportunity to play a wider variety of roles - Potential probs: may cause difficulties for an audience
A Chorus Line (1975)
- Choreographer = Michael Bennett - Originally called "The Dancer's Project" - A reality-based musical: a show about auditioning for a show! - "I Hope I Get It" - Key idea: the line (still eligible for role if you're standing on the line), a (mostly) universal theme - Finale: "One" and the mirror behind them - Paul's monologue (drag show dancer) - The character Paul: one of the first sympathetic and realistic gay characters in a Broadway musical - Longest running Broadway musical at that time: 6,137 performances (closed in 1990) - WON A PULITZER PRIZE (previous: Of Thee I Sing, South Pacific, Fiorello, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)
Michael Bennett
- Choreographer/director - Dropped out of high school - Went on tour of West Side Story - Major works: Company, A Chorus Line, Dreamgirls - 1974: late night sessions with a group of dancers to get ideas for "A Chorus Line"
Kander and Ebb: John Kander
- Composer - Quiet, midwesterner
Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Composer of Phantom! - Arguably the most important composer of the 20th century - Super wealthy guy - Pioneered television casting for a musical - Loved AND hated - Has two of the top five longest running Broadway musicals...yet he is often panned by critics - Why is he hated: overuse of leitmotifs and reprises, lack of content in his musicals, no character development, accusations of plagiarism
Stephen Sondheim
- Composer/lyricist - Surrogate father: Oscar Hammerstein - By George = first musical project as a teenager - Not into happy endings - Sometimes called the anti-Webber - Wants his audience to work hard
Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk
- Conceived and directed by George C. Wolfe - Starring key person: Saivon Glover -> American tap dancer and choreographer - Musical revue - Dansical - History of the African American experience from arriving on slave ships to modern day - "Bring in Da Noise" at the 1996 Tony Awards
The Wiz (1975)
- Contemporary re-telling of The Wizard of Oz - A BIG DEAL for Broadway: a large-scale, big-budget musical featuring an all-black cast - Stressed black culture, black history, black heritage (especially musical heritage) - Tony Award for Best Musical - "Ease on Down the Road"
Sweet Charity
- Director/choreographer: Bob Fosse - Song = "Big Spender"
Dreamgirls (1981)
- Director/choreographer: Michael Bennett - Celebrates Motown while depicting the negatives of Motown - KEY SONG: "And I Am Telling You"
Corporatization of Broadway
- Disney theatrical - Universal Studios: Wicked - DreamWorks: Shrek the Musical
Mary Poppins (2006)
- First Disney musical based on live action film - Co-produced: Cameron Mackintosh & Disney
Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) THEME
- Injustice and revenge - Sondheim thought that the audience would identify with Sweeney because we all want revenge for an injustice that has been done to us - 2005 John Doyle revival (Revisionist Revival)
Themes of Into the Woods
- Innocence vs. experience - Wanting vs. having - Is it clear when choices are good or evil? - How far will you go to get what you want? - Doing things alone vs. with someone - What is it like being a child vs. being a parent? - The pain of adult life: key song = "No More" - What are the final words of the this musical? I wish... - The power of words, wishing, and parental advice
Kander and Ebb
- John Kander = music - Fred Ebb = lyrcis - Cabaret + Chicago - CONCEPT MUSICALS
Kander and Ebb: Fred Ebb
- Lyricist - Typical brash New Yorker
Les Miserables (1987)
- Lyrics: Alain Boublil - Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg - Producer: Cameron Mackintosh - Based on the Victor Hugo novel - Originally released in French as a concept album - Sung-through - Portrait of "Cosette" becomes iconic image for the show - "One Day More" song
Miss Saigon (1991)
- Lyrics: Alain Boublil - Music: Claude-Michel Schonberg - Producer: Cameron Mackintosh - Source material: updated of Puccini's Opera Madame Butterfly now a US serviceman's affair and abandonment of a Vietnamese woman - Iconic spectacle: having a helicopter come out of the sky and hover on stage - "American Dream" song = saying that the American Dream can be flashy, materialistic, and nauseating - Casting controversy: Actor's Equity refused to allow Jonathan Pryce, the white British actor who had played the engineer in the UK, to recreate the role because it would be an affront to the Asian community - Actor's Equity was forced to reverse its decision
Memphis (2009)
- Lyrics: Joe DiPietro & David Bryan - Book: Joe DiPietro - Music: David Bryan - Dewey Philips: Daddy-O - Huey Calhoun: fictionalized version of "real-life, larger than life" radio disc jockey in the 50's in Memphis - Won Tony Award for Best Musical (2010) - Memphis in FOCO: Colorado Theatre Guild, Henry Awards
Andrew Lloyd Webber STYLE
- Memorable, catchy melodies - King of leitmotifs (lots of reprises) - Eclectic musical styles - A "borrower" of musical phrases - "Maximalist" = music should be loud & huge, bad for female voices - Sung-through musical = more sophisticated storytelling - Music is all-powerful
Memphis THEMES
- Music can overcome boundaries - Race in Memphis in 1950: depicting history
Rent (1996)
- Music, lyrics, book: Jonathan Larson - Not an overnight success - PULITZER PRIZE FOR DRAMA - Source material: modern re-telling of Puccini's "La Boheme" - Key song: "Should I Tell You" - Context: features multiple charters with HIV/AIDS - 1980s: homophobia connected with AIDS, culture of us vs. them - Theatre as response to AIDS: educate, fundraising - 1995: AIDS as leading cause of death among all Americans ages 25 - 44 (1996 - what?) - Larson died on the morning of the first preview - New kind of Broadway musical: marriage of rock and roll and contemporary Broadway, similar to Hair
Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962)
- Music/lyrics: Sondheim - Based on the plays of Ancient Roman playwright Plautus - Song: "Comedy Tonight"
Stephen Sondheim's Company (1970)
- Music/lyrics: Sondheim - Choreography: Michael Bennett - Theme: is life better alone or with someone? - Song: "I'm Not Getting Married Today"
Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979)
- Music/lyrics: Sondheim - Source: 1973 play, "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" by Christopher Bond - Question: can you scare people in a musical the way you can scare people in a film? - "Music as the creep factor" - Sondheim - Sweeney as anti-hero - "A Little Priest" song
Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods (1987)
- Music/lyrics: Stephen Sondheim - Book: James Lapine - Director: James Lapine - Chamber musical (?) - Lost Best Musical to Phantom of the Opera - Extensive use of active songs - Uses well-known children's fairy tales - Original tale: The Baker and his Wife - Act I: Disney-esque, Act II: everyone must pay for the actions - Theme: the "woods" represent the fears and challenges we all face, but our actions in the woods (in life) have consequences
Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George (1984)
- Music/lyrics: Stephen Sondheim - Book: James Lapine - Director: James Lapine - Original (no source) - Fictional musical based on the life of French pointillist painter Georges Seurat - Inspired by the painting "Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat - Key ideas: "Art Isn't Easy," "Every minor detail is a major decision" - Theme: an artist's devotion to his work and the isolation that causes - "Finishing the Hat" song - Most audiences didn't get it, had to work too hard - **1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama** (previous: Of Thee I Sing, South Pacific, Fiorello, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, A Chorus Line)
Stephen Sondheim's Assassins (1990/2004)
- Music/lyrics: Stephen Sondheim - Uses a musical revue structure to tell the stories of the men and women who assassinated (or attempted to assassinate) U.S. presidents - Non-linear storyline - Opened off-Broadway in 1990, taboo subject matter - Broadway premiere: 2004 - "Everybody's Got the Right" song
Beauty and the Beast (1994)
- Music: Alan Menken - Lyrics: Howard Ashman and Tim Rice - Based on the 1991 film
The Lion King (1997)
- Music: Elton John - Lyrics: Tim Rice - Choral music: Lebo M. - Director: Julie Taymor - Created a "don't hide the magic" aesthetic - Based in part on traditional Indonesian puppetry
ALW's Starlight Express (1987)
- Music: Webber - John Napier: sets & costumes set is a combo electric train and erector set - Each actor portrays a train engine, car, or caboose and is on roller skates!
ALW's Cats (1982)
- Music: Webber - Lyrics: T.S. Eliot - Lyrics taken from T.S. Eliot's poetry book: Old Possom's Book of Practical Cats - Producer: Cameron Mackintosh - Not a concept musical, more like a revue - Key idea: anthropomorphism: the attribution of human characteristics to animals - "Mr. Mistoffelees" - "Memory" = only song not written by T.S. Eliot - John Napier: different kind of environmental theatre - Ran for 18 years
ALW's Evita (1979)
- Music: Webber - Lyrics: Tim Rice - "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (performed by Madonna in the film version, who plays Evita) - Webber and Rice parted ways soon after Evita
ALW's Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)
- Music: Webber - Lyrics: Tim Rice - Sung-through rock opera - Jesus depicted as a man , rather than a deity, has weaknesses and fears - Sympathetic treatment of Judas, Judas conflicted, angry, frustrated - Leitmotif: "Jesus Christ Superstar" - CONTROVERSIAL
ALW's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- Music: Webber - Lyrics: Tim Rice - Sung-through, family friendly
ALW's Phantom of the Opera (1988)
- Music: Webber - Producer: Cameron Mackintosh - Based on novel by Gaston Leroux - Falling chandelier, boat travels in an underground river - "The ultimate escapist musical" - Hal Prince - Longest running musical in Broadway history - Phantom is about something very basic (ugly man in love with beautiful woman, unrequited love) - Marja Björnson fashioned the Phantom's mask after half-masks worn by disfigured soldiers in World War I - The chandelier and the boat scene = iconic spectacle at its finest
Cameron Mackintosh
- Producer - Most successful producer of the modern era - Invented the idea of the MEGAMUSICAL (musicals that rely on technical elements as much or more than the content of the show) - Globalization of the musical - Brilliance of his global marketing campaign: very carefully choses logos which can work in any market
Shrek the Musical (2008)
- Producer: DreamWorks Theatricals - Music: Janine Tesori - Reflective musical - "Welcome to Duloc/What's Up Duloc"
Stephen Sondheim's STYLE
- Self-expressive lyricist - Songs should be little plays (beg/mid/end) - Music: challenging, expressive, contrary - Lack of hummable pop hits - Some humor, but often dark and twisted - His lyrics: intelligent, ambiguous (multiple meanings), intricate, clever rhyme schemes
Kander & Ebb's Cabaret (1966)
- Setting: inside and outside a garish Berlin Cabaret (night club) in 1929 to 1930 Berlin - Inspiration for the show: Hal Prince inspired by a photo he saw in Time Magazine - "Willkommen" = song - Two worlds of the play: Limbo world led by the emcee - Kit Kat Klub: night club as metaphor, examines parallels between 1930s Berlin and 1960s USA - "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes" = song - Comedic, but the intent behind the comedy is deadly serious - Set design: titled mirrors
Kander and Ebb: STYLE
- Strongly associated with the CONCEPT MUSICAL - Employs unique elements/conventions to intrude on the action - Songs comment on the action rather than move the action forward - It is often disjointed and fragmented. Can be nonlinear and non-literal - Storyline is secondary to the theme (more about theme than solving conflict) - Songs that comment on a specific scene don't have to take place in the same location or the same "world" as the scene - Tends to be more presentational than representational
Julie Taymor
- Studied acting, mime, shadow puppetry in Asia and Europe as a teenager - Two Tony's for The Lion King (director, costumes)
Disney "Flops"
- Tarzan (2006) - music & lyrics: Phil Collins - The Little Mermaid (2008) - music: Alan Menken (song = Under the Sea, actors move as if underwater with the use of "Heelies")
Company (1970) (see other card below!)
- The archetype/blueprint of the concept musical - Music/lyrics: Stephen Sondheim - Structural device: Robert's 35th birthday party - Theme: is life better alone or with someone? - Each scene stands alone and could be done in any order - Key songs: Another Hundred People, Barcelona, I'm Not Getting Married Today, Sorry-Grateful, Being Alive - Not escapist - 2006 Revival: was a revisionist revival (performers also the musicians)
Gypsy
- The professional chorus dancers of Broadway musicals
A workshop
- Work created in a rehearsal room with a piano, creative staff, and performers - New way to develop a Broadway show
Characteristics of Modern Rock Musicals
- Youth culture (unknowns) - Counter culture - Rebellion - Sound (music aspect)
What was Larson's aim with Rent?
1. People with AIDS can live full lives 2. AIDS affects everyone 3. The ones grappling with life and death issues often live more fully
Concept musical
A musical built around an idea rather than a story
AZT
Drug used to delay development of AIDS
Integrated Book Musical
Hairspray (2002) - The musical is a social commentary on the injustices of parts of American society in the 1960s
Racial/ethnic diversity on Broadway
In The Heights (2008) - Music and lyrics: Lin-Manuel Miranda - Starring: Lin-Manuel Miranda as Usnavi - A "hip-hop" musical - Lin-Manuel Miranda references the Sondheim musical "Sunday in the Park with George," I made a hat where there wasn't a hat
Bob Fosse
STYLE: - Anti- de Mille and Robbins: anti-classical and "Making Strange" - Worked with his body because he felt like his body did weird things - Hats, props, body percussion, isolated body parts - Inverted feet, rounded shoulders - "Bump and Grind"/SEX, cynical sexuality - Depersonalized: "Amoeba," androgyny, dark sexuality Musicals: - Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Chicago
Musicals that take on serious, challenging subject matter
Spring Awakening (2006) - Music: Duncan Sheik - Source material: the 1890 play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind - Done by Deaf West Production: a production that features deaf actors Next to Normal (2009) - Rock musical - Plot: the story focuses on Diana, a woman struggling with bipolar disorder and the loss of her son, Gabe - PULITZER PRIZE - "You Don't Know/I am the One"
The Screen-to-Stage Musical
THE PRODUCERS (2001) - Music and lyrics: Mel Brooks - Won TWELVE Tony's, broke previous records - "Springtime for Hitler" - Worked well! Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark (2011) - Most expensive Broadway, $75 million - Comic-book-rock-opera-circus - What were the problems? Injuries & controversy - Director: Julie Taymor (left the production) Legally Blonde: The Musical (2007) - Danger with screen-to-stage musicals: some people dislike this musical because of their love of the original film