Musicals (renamed)

[ett]

Julia Roberts said something or other. That's pretty much all I saw.

[Chelpo]

Doesn't sound like I missed too much, then. My sister's MSN name this morning was "Jersey Boys won Best Musical!!!" So I can only deduce that Jersey Boys did, in fact, win Best Musical. And I caught a clip on CBC of something I didn't recognize that they were making a big deal about because it started in Toronto and won a bunch of awards. But I don't know what that was.

[CokaCokaCoh1]

I came in an hour late, so I missed the performances from The Jersey Boys, The Drowsy Chaperone and Sweeney Todd, but I saw the rest of them. I have to say, what the hell did they do to The Wedding Singer? The song from that was a stereotypical cheesy musical-type song.

[Chelpo]

The question is why did they think The Wedding Singer should be made into a musical in the first place? The whole concept bothers me. I'm very against this making movies into musicals thing they seem to like doing. We already have the movies, why not write something original for the theatre that is meant for theatre?

Well, The Producers is an exception because it probably should have been a musical in the first place. But there was no need to then turn it back into another movie.

And Lord of the Rings? And Tarzan? What the
[spoiler]bleep[/spoiler] are they thinking?!?

Sorry for the rant. This just really bothers me. Musical theatre has so much potential, and there are some really good musicals, but they get burried by the $27 million pieces of crap.

[ett]

Okay, they're apparently looking to take Legally Blonde to Broadway. I think that trumps all.

[Chelpo]

Now more's gonna come up than go down.

[Chelpo]

Dragging this thread out after a year to ask if anyone knows Spring Awakening. I just d[spoiler]bleep[/spoiler]nloaded it and have had the first 3 songs on repeat for the last hour. Not sure how I feel about the rest of it yet and I had to go to wikipedia for a plot summary because damned if you can figure out what it's about from the lyrics, but so far I'm thinking it's good. They really got the mood right with the music -- sort of sad and frustrated and angry.

[I ate all your bees]

I haven't heard of Spring Awakening... But I have now! *wikipedia*

I didn't know this thread existed, otherwise I'd be keeping it alive.

I went to see The Drowsy Chaperone on monday. I can see how the music wouldn't work so well without the visual, but I nearly wet myself at least twice, and giggled a lot inbetween. Funny, funny, funny. It's one of those things that are really hard not to like. Oh ship!

[Frightened Inmate #2]

I haven't heard of Spring Awakening... But I have now! *wikipedia*

Like most Broadway musicals of the past 15 years, I haven't seen it, but it stars Tony Award-nominated Jonathan Groff, who hails from my home county. Good on you, boy!

[Chelpo]

Well Mr. Groff has a very pretty singing voice.

[each]

Spring Awakening did not live up to the ridiculous amount of hype surrounding it. Having said that "Left Behind" makes me want to cry and "The Guilty Ones" is quite a nice "pretty voices singing" kind of song.

I'm hanging out for Bad Girls:The Musical! to come to Australia...which it never will. But man that would be awesome.

[Chelpo]

Have you seen it, or just heard it? Having (somehow) missed most of the hype, my biggest problem with the soundtrack is that some of the lyrics sound forced, like they're trying too hard to sound like modern 14-year-olds.

Which I don't understand in the first place -- maybe you can help me with this, each? I think I'm missing the basic concept of the musical. It takes place in the late 1800's does it not? So why is all the music so contemporary to the point where it feels forced? And they also talk about things (like a stereo, at one point) that didn't exist in the 1800s. Not that this hasn't been done before, but the others (Jesus Christ Superstar is the main one that comes to mind) are retellings or reinterpretations of stories and characters we already know. I had never heard of the original Spring Awakening, and I'm one semester away from a Theatre History degree.

Not that I don't think this can work, I just don't want to pass judgement on the whole show when I can't figure out the basic concept behind it (have they updated all the spoken dialogue too? Is it just the teenagers who talk like this?) As it stands, I still think the goodness of the good songs (the ones that pull off that mournful, frustrated feeling -- the first 3 songs are still my favorite) outweights the cheesiness of the rest (Totally F*cked and My Junk really just don't work for me).

Plus I'm impressed that they managed to update this play more or less sucessfully. I've read enough 19th Century plays to know from the Wikipedia plot outline just how boring the original must be.


Bad Girls:The Musical! I've never even heard of. I think I need to catch up a bit if I'm going to call myself a good theatre student. Personally, I'm waiting for a cast recording (or even better, a tour) of Jason Robert Brown's "13".

[Cherith_Cutestory]

Wow, I almost forgot about this thread. Well as you could see from my icon, I LOVE Spring Awakening! I havent seen it, but I've downloaded the entire soundtrack [spoiler]and found a recording of the original off-Broadway performance[/spoiler] At times the modern music does seem a bit forced, but it somehow fits with the 1800's dialogue. I'm really glad Jon Gallager Jr won the Tony for his performance as Moritz, its pretty great!

Also, who else is PSYCHED about The Little Mermaid hitting Broadway in Dec???

[Chelpo]

I didn't even KNOW about The Little Mermaid. Is it the Disney version? I'm generally against making movies into plays (I think I've mentioned this before) but The Lion King turned out pretty cool, so I'll try not to judge it before it's out.

Who wrote it?
Who's directing?
Why am I not just looking this up myself?

[waytoplant]

I didn't even KNOW about The Little Mermaid. Is it the Disney version? I'm generally against making movies into plays (I think I've mentioned this before) but The Lion King turned out pretty cool, so I'll try not to judge it before it's out.

You're going to love this one: The New York Times just reviewed Xanadu, a musical based on a horribly cheesy movie that I loved in junior high. Apparently it parodies the trend of making musicals from movies.

Hey, did anyone here ever see Urinetown? I thought that was quite original and clever, as was Avenue Q (which we finally got in San Diego).