I do this more often than I admit

I was relistening to the OCR of The Secret Garden, which is one of my favorite musicals, despite only ever having listened to it, and it should come as no surprise by now that some of the songs made me think of The Lorax movie.  What did surprise me was the sheer number.  Seriously, I did not think I was going to get so much out of it.  And true, very few whole songs worked, but here's what struck me the most, with the occasional tweaks to make it fit better.

The House Upon the Hill:

High on a hill sits a big old house lerkim

With something wrong inside it

Someone died was lifted and someone's left

Alone and can't abide it

There in the house lerkim is a lonely man

Still haunted by her it's beauty (the land, that is)

Asking what a life can be

Where naught remains but duty

Ted: Is it always so ugly here?

Grammy Norma: It's the moor.  Miles and miles of wild land where nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom grickle grass.

A Bit of Earth

A bit of earth

She wants a little bit of earth

She'll plant some seeds

The seeds will grow

The flowers bloom

But is their bounty

What she needs?

How can she chance

To love a little bit of earth

Does she not know

The earth is old

And doesn't care if

One small girl wants things to grow

There's a Man - Transition

There's a man whom no one sees

There's a man who lives alone

There's a heart that beats in silence for

The life he's never known.

Wick

The whole friggin' thing!  But here's a few lyrics to give you an idea:

When a thing is wick

And someone cares about it

And comes to work each day

Like you and me

Will it grow?

It will

Then have no doubt about it

We'll have the grandest garden truffula tree ever seen.

A Bit of Earth - Reprise

A bit of earth

A drop of dew, a single stem

Begins to rise

That bit of earth

Is pushed away, the flowers bloom

Before our eyes

Hold On

When you see a man who's ragin'

And he's jealous and he fears

That you've walked through walls

He's hid behind for years

As a side note, while this doesn't really work with the movie as is, but I envision Quartet being played out with Old!Once-ler as Archibald and Green-Suit!Once-ler, representing his greed, as his brother.  Not sure who the ladies would be, though. 

Repost: Sweeney Todd and...

I was recently listening to the OBC of Sweeney Todd, and it reminded me of something I put together a few years ago and posted on my livejournal.  I'm not really sure why I didn't post it here, but I probably had my reasons.  Anyway, it still amuses me, so I'm posting it here now:


Out of all the wrong things I have ever come up with, this is probably the most wrong: Sweeney Todd, played by the cast of The Mr. Men Show. I don't remember exactly how I came up with the concept, other than I was watching the movie with my sister the other day. But I was thinking about it today at work, and I couldn't let go of the idea. Here's what I came up with (mild Sweeney Todd spoilers):

Sweeney Todd - Mr. Persnickety
This is probably the least justified of any of my casting ideas. I just like the idea of Mr. Persnickety as Sweeney, although I can't exactly say why. It would certainly give new meaning to the lyric "For neatness he deserves a nod." Of course, after a while I justified it by the fact that he's had a pretty prominent name change, which works with the show. "So it is you, Mr. Fussy." "NO! Not Fussy! Persnickety. Mister Persnickety."

Mrs. Lovett - Miss Naughty
At first I thought of Miss Helpful in this role, because of all the stuff she does to help Sweeney, but I wasn't entirely satisfied. And I just couldn't picture her singing "A Little Priest," so I thought about who could, and the first Little Miss I thought of was Miss Naughty. And once I thought of that, it just clicked. After all, it's been established that she's a terrible cook (then again, Mrs. Lovett's problem was lack of good ingredients, but still), and her hair is kind of like HBC's Lovett. Besides, she and Mr. Persnickety definitely have chemistry ^_~

Johanna - Miss Chatterbox
I based my casting more on the actual musical than the movie, and Miss Chatterbox is definitely the most Johanna-like, since her songs with Anthony are basically her talking over him ("Was that a noise? I think I heard a noise, no, it couldn't be, he's in court. Still, I heard a noise, didn't you hear that?")

Anthony - Mr. Tickle
Basically because I wanted Mr. Tickle to be in there somewhere, plus, he's kind of Anthony-like. The most Anthony-like out of all the other Mr. Men, anyway.

Judge Turpin - Mr. Small
Beadle Bamford - Mr. Nosy
I went back and forth on who should be the Judge and the Beadle for a while. I was actually thinking that I hadn't cast Mr. Small and Mr. Nosy yet, and I wanted them to be included (since they're my favorites), and I suddenly thought of the Judge and Beadle, since they're usually together in the show. I didn't want Mr. Nosy and Mr. Small to be the villians, of course, but it just seemed so right once I thought of it. At first I wasn't sure which should be which, so I thought they could alternate (in general, any time Sweeney's in position to slit Turpin's throat, it would be Mr. Nosy, since, well...). But then I realized that with this course of action, Mr. Nosy would have to sing "Pretty Women," and I didn't want that. So I imagined Mr. Small singing it with Mr. Persnickety instead, and that solidified him as my choice for the Judge. I wish that I could somehow convince the voice actors to make an actual recording of that song. I'm also half-tempted to write a parody of it called "Little Misses."
But Mr. Nosy also makes a better Beadle because, as I recall from the show, there's a scene where he goes to inspect Mrs. Lovett's bakehouse, and finding her not in her shop, simply sits down at the piano in her parlor and starts playing it. Which is very much something Mr. Nosy would do.

Pirelli - Mr. Stubborn
The thought of Mr. Stubborn as Pirelli is what made me seriously think out the rest of the cast. It's hard to describe, but there's just something so perfect about Mr. Stubborn playing Pirelli ("Who has the nerve to say my elixer is piss? Who says this?").

Toby - Mr. Scatterbrain
I'm not really satisfied with this casting, but I can't seem to drop the idea of it. But, being Mr. Scatterbrain, he wouldn't play Toby half the time (if any), and would sing a song from another musical (e.g. "Bushel and a Peck" from Guys and Dolls) instead of "Not While I'm Around." And he'd pull out some other prop instead of a razor at the end.

The Beggar Woman/Lucy - Miss Sunshine
"There was a barber and his wife, and she was beautiful." For some reason, that line speaks Little Miss Sunshine to me. Of course, then you have to imagine her as a half-crazed beggar woman (and another thing which is better left unimagined, so I won't inflict it upon you). But the real reason I thought of Miss Sunshine for this role is the lyric "They figured she had to be daft, y'see."

And everyone else can be the chorus. "And what happened next, well that's the play, and he wouldn't want us to give it away."

At the time, I thought about writing up a fanfic of the Dillydale Players rehearsing for this production, with Mr. Happy as the director (who of course didn't get that it was supposed to be all dark), but really the only scene I came up with was Mr. Tickle using his extendable arms to make the line "Until then I'm with you there" from "Johanna" literal.

Ponies and Les Mis

Okay, this officially wins Best PMV Ever from me.

Tony Awards 2011

If you've been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I usually watch the Tony Awards and blog as I watch.  And you may have noticed that it's exactly two weeks past when the Tonys originally aired and I haven't blogged about the show at all.  It's not that I didn't intend to, and it's certainly not that I didn't watch.  But as with the Oscars earlier this year, I didn't really feel like doing the entire show the way I have in the past.  I did, however, take notes on what I wanted to comment on, with every intention of sitting down sometime the next day and writing out a proper post.  And then I promptly lost the paper I wrote my notes on.
By the time I found it again, I was way too busy to try and make a post, as this year's VBS skit (which I'll post the tropes for once it's all over) has proven to be much more involved than last year's (and we thought last year was crazy!), and basically ate up all my free time (not that I have that much to begin with these days).  But now, the worst part is over (or rather, I've acquiesced to my limitations), and I finally have a little time to post.
First off, I wasn't too surprised by any of the awards, especially not The Book of Mormon taking as many as it did.  Now, for the actual show itself:

• When the opening song began, I was like "Really?" but by the end of it I was won over.  
• My husband, who had been snoozing on the couch, instantly woke up when Stephen Colbert got involved.
• Yay, Robert Morse!
• Upon hearing that two stars of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying would be presenting, my husband thought Steve Martin would be one of them.  It turns out he was really thinking of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
• Was it just me, or was the camerawork during How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying's number really weird?  Or was it just because I don't have HD?
• I liked all of the parts of the Hugh Jackman/Neil Patrick Harris number except the "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" bits.  I hate that song so much...
• The Spiderman song was so boring, but apparently that's one of the better ones.
• The Sister Act number actually made me choke up at the end.

I Don't Get It - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

When the OCR for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels came out, it made some waves for including a track that warned listeners not to listen to the rest of the album if they hadn't seen the show, since the following tracks gave away the show's twist ending.  Furthermore, the CD's booklet put in a dummy paragraph in the synopsis (which included a number of shout outs to other musicals) to similarly keep people from being spoiled.  To this day, I really don't understand why they went to the trouble.  You see, the twist they were protecting is exactly the same as the one in the movie it was based on, which came out some twenty years before the musical.  You'd think that most of the people interested in the musical would be familiar with the movie?  Or would have checked out the movie when they heard about the musical coming out (as I did), at least.

Last Year's Holiday Story

I consider myself a casual South Park fan, mostly because I didn't actually get into the show (besides catching episodes here and there) until last year, mostly due to my husband randomly watching the reruns (which is how he watches most shows).  So it was about this time last year when he had on the episode "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics."  I was doing something else, not really paying attention, until this segment started:

Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

I was shocked, shocked I say, for despite having never seen this episode before in my life, I knew the sequence by heart, though not exactly as it appeared on the show.  You see, a few years ago, I discovered the Carols For a Cure CD series, a charity offering where every year the current casts of various Broadway shows (and the occasional Off-Broadway show and special guests) record a track, and the profits go to help fight aids.  And in 2003, guess what the cast of Hairspray did:

The joke here being that Marc Shaiman, who wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics for Hairspray, worked with Trey Parker and Matt Stone on the songs for that episode, which originally aired in 1999.

2010 Tony Awards

• Gotta admit, I'm not really looking forward to the Tonys this year.
• Who's the other guy?
• Who are all these guys? And who is Sean Hayes, anyway?
• I'm so clueless about this season ('cause it's not that interesting). Ah, they were from Memphis (the musical)
• Oh, he was on Will and Grace. Sadly the only thing I know him from is Igor (he was Brain) 
• Awesome as Kristin Chenoweth is, I'm still annoyed with adding "Say a Little Prayer" (among other songs) to Promises, Promises
•  What's with the dresses those girls flanking Sherie Renee Scott are wearing?
• (Cool song, though)
• I mean, seriously, I have no interest in most of what I've seen in this overview of the season 
• Why, hi there, Green Day. Whatcha gonna play?
•  Kinda sorry I'm not watching this with my mom. I wonder what she would think of this? 
• Not really a Green Day fan. Wasn't one song enough? Must be in their contract, or the Tonys are hurting for stuff this year. 
• Matthew Morrison's headshot is terrible. He looks hungover. 
• Man, now I really wish Mom were here. Was that kiss really necessary? 
• World Cup of Showtunes, huh? 
• Hey, Christopher Walken! 
• I don't really care about the plays. Just saying. 
• Never even heard of this Million Dollar Quartet show 
• Not really my thing, I guess. Not that crazy about jukebox musicals in general. 
• As far as I can tell, Ricky Martin was in Les Mis around 1996 
• My husband is a bit distressed by what he considers non-Broadway actors showing up as presenters. 
• But he is not really a Broadwayphile, so I don't put too much stock in his distress. 
• Had to explain what La Cage Au Folles was to my husband, who didn't realize it involved crossdressing. 
• I have heard that this revival of La Cage Aux Folles is better than the last one, so Best Director makes sense. 
• My husband has taken to shouting out the names of the people that he actually knows, for some reason. 
•  "...the younger, hotter, one..." XD (from Next Fall's description) 
• Is Eddy Redmain supposed to look hat blank? Is that his character? 
• What is with that beard, David Hyde Pierce? 
• A blog I read said Katie Finneran was the only good thing in Promises, Promises, so there you go then 
• Her chin is super-shiny, though. 
• Well, the Memphis number looks fun, but it doesn't really make me want to go see the show. 
• Man, Kristin's legs are so skinny.... they look terrible. 
• Man that guy (Levi Kreis)'s hair is so weird. (One quick trip to IBDB), ah, he plays Jerry Lee Lewis, that explains it. 
• What is up with your inflections, Catherine Zeta Jones? Why couldn't they have done an ensemble piece? Now/Soon/Later would have been cool 
• But then again, it has not CZJ, so that puts it out, I guess. Why not The Glamorous Life? That would be way more awesome 
• Is it because the shows are already closed, is that why only one person comes and sings? That must be it. 
• Not that Christine Noll isn't cool, but I remember when Ragtime was on Broadway the first time.... 
• A Stupid Statment Dance Mix of the plays? I'm not sure if that's weird or really cool. 
• I'll link to it when someone uploads it on youtube 
• I just don't like Sean Hayes as host. He isn't very funny. But yay, Bernadette Peters shoutout. 
• Fela's number, while active to be sure, just isn't doing it for me. 
• My sister would probably like Come Fly Away. She's a fan of Sinatra. 
• Yay, Promises, Promises time 
• Be a montage of songs, please 
• Does this happen in the actual show? All this chair circling over instrumentals? 
• Ah, no wonder the Fela part was so energetic, if that guy (Bill T. Jones?) also did the Spring Awakening choreography. 
• Is Kate Blanchett wearing a plastic suit? Whatever it is, it's weird. 
• Yay, the Glee part! 
• Hey, Lea Michelle already sang this on Glee. I want to hear something new! Matthew Morrison didn't rehash, so what's up with this? 
• Maybe it was a Jule Styne tribute? 
• Okay, the Spiderman-singing-Don't-Rain-On-My-Parade thing was kind of funny 
• I would have liked to see a performance from Finian's Rainbow, since it was nominated and all. Not surprised that La Cage Aux Folles won. 
• So...much...strobelight.... Oh, American Idiot. 
• (And I just keep hearing Weird Al's parody of it, Canadian Idiot) 
• I hate to admit it, but this does look kind of fun. 
• Yay, Bernadette Peters presents. 
• Huh, didn't see Memphis winning. 'Course, I didn't particularly care about any of the shows nominated, so there you go.

Tidbits

Just a few little things that have been on my mind:

• One thing I don't really get in the Schoolhouse Rock! song, "Little Twelve Toes": part of the song purports that if man had six fingers, we'd be counting using a base-12 system, not base-10. However, what I don't get is that the song's narrator says that we'd end up with three new numbers, dec, el, and doe, with doe being the new ten. But why wouldn't ten stay ten? Even if it's really twelve (dec, el, ten)? I mean, why come up with new terms when you don't have to?
• Going back to the Strawberry Shortcake episode, "A Princess Called Rap," I find it interesting that Rap's song of existential quandary mostly lists her physical abilities as the unprincesslike behavior, but what convinced her professor to lighten up was Rap displaying the knowledge she possessed (although I guess the physical side enters, too, considering she had to steer the raft).
• Whenever I listen to "The Wizard and I" from Wicked, I always want the line "This weird quirk I've tried to suppress or hide" to end with "is a talent that could work..." instead of "is a talent that could help me meet the wizard." I think it's the emphasis that Idina puts on "quirk."

Cloudy With a Chance of Whistles?

I saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs a couple of weeks ago, and I enjoyed it, even if the whole fathers and sons thing was too heavyhanded IMO. And I've recently been relistening to the OCR of Anyone Can Whistle, which made me realize that there's a bit of similarity between the two. Not a lot, mind you, but some. For instance, both take place in a town that's fallen on hard times due to their main industry falling flat for a rather silly reason. In ACW, the town made a product that never wore out, thus, no one needs to buy anymore, and in CWaCoM, the town's sardine industry goes down the tubes when the world realizes that sardines are "super gross." And in both, the towns are revitalized by a "miracle" (water spurting from a rock and raining food, respectively) that is taken advantage of by the mayor. Of course, in CWaCoM, the food rain is actually created by a machine, but so is the water from a rock in ACW, although the mayoress and her cronies try to pass it off as a genuine miracle. And frankly, the mayor from CWaCoM could very easily sing the mayoress' opening song, "Me and My Town," with lyrics like:

Come on the train, come on the bus,
Somebody please buy a ticket to us.
Hurry on down-
We need a little renown.

Fitting, as the mayor's first scene is him announcing his intention to unveil something to put the town on the map. Over the course of the movie, the mayor's motivation is to build himself up using the town's fame, which is what ultimately leads to the third act, and meshes nicely with the mayoress' main motivation, which is, as her song states, "Me and my town, we just wanna be loved."

The second similarity is slightly spoilery, so if you're planning on seeing the movie, feel free to skip the rest of this post (although really, it's not a spoiler that will ruin your enjoyment of the movie).

Anyway, in both Anyone Can Whistle and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the female leads (Fay Apple and Sam Sparks) have a persona they put on to hide their true selves, which they only reveal (at first) to their respective male leads (J. Bowden Hapgood and Flint Lockwood). Sam hides her geeky self behind a perky, "dumb blonde" TV personality, while Fay uses a Wig Dress Accent to get around her rigid, by-the-book self. However, the male leads react differently to their ladies' secret identities. Flint encourages Sam to embrace her inner geek, including inverting the usual "Glasses Gotta Go" scene, but Hapgood encourages Fay to relax and be free on her own, basically to be who she is with the wig, but without it.

Other than that, though, the two stories have little to do with each other, which is to be expected, considering ACW is forty years older than CWaCoM.

My Top Three Favorite Musicals: Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors: This one goes way back. Again, I'm not entirely sure of the year (I'm reasonably sure it was 1995, but it might have been 1994), but I remember the month quite clearly. It was a Sunday night in January, and my mother pointed out that the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors was on TV. Why exactly she pointed this out, I now have no idea. I mean, you'd think the title would have warned her off, but I guess the fact that it was a musical made her feel it was okay. The movie was almost halfway over by the time we tuned in, being just as the part where "Feed Me" starts up. Despite this, my sisters and I were hooked. I felt compelled to write up a synopsis of what I had seen in a letter to a friend the next day, although I left out the part about how I didn't sleep at all the night before (I was very impressionable when it came to horror stuff as a kid). Even though it scared me, I still loved it.

Either later that year, or the next year, in April, my younger sister and I came in from playing outside to find my older sister watching Little Shop of Horrors on TV again. It was already at the part where Seymour gets interviewed on the radio, but my sister had come in almost at the beginning, and told us what we had missed. After that day, I was obsessed with seeing the whole thing, and scoured the Movie Guide in TV Listings that came with the newspaper faithfully, week after week. It wasn't until October that my persistance was rewarded and I got to tape the Modified for TV version. (I'm not entirely sure why it never occurred to me to rent the move from the video store, but it didn't.) After that, things jumble together a little, but I recall that at some point we all went to see a high school production of the show, and were quite surprised to find the theatrical version has a very different ending (and I later learned that the movie originally had a similar ending, but focus groups reacted badly toward it, so a new ending was shot). Toward the end of the year, I acquired the film's soundtrack on cassette (which I still have) and the sheet music, which strangely enough had the musical's version of "The Meek Shall Inherit." Somewhere along the way I learned that the songs were done by the same guys (Alan Menken and Howard Ashman) who did The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, although I don't remember exactly when I figured this out.

Probably the biggest impact that my love for Little Shop of Horrors had on my life was that it got me into Jazz Band. When I was in elementary school, I played clarinet in the school band (5th and 6th grade), and every year, the music teacher would put together a medley of songs based on a theme for the final concert of the year. The sixth graders would play and the fifth graders would act it out. When I was in fifth grade, the theme was "Golden Oldies." I was a Village Person while the band played YMCA. And when I was in six grade, the theme was "Scales from the Crypt," a mix of horror movie themes, which included Little Shop of Horrors. I was thrilled, until I saw the clarinet part, which consisted of lots of resting with the occasional whole note. I couldn't stand for that, so after practice I went up to the teacher and asked why the clarinet part was so bad. She told me that the jazz band members had a bigger part, and wouldn't you know it, there was a jazz band opening. So I was able to squeak into the jazz band, which meant that I had to play at all three concerts (the music teacher taught at all three elementary schools in town), but I didn't mind because I got to play the part I wanted (although when we started rehearsing with the fifth graders on stage, I realized that I couldn't see what they were doing, which was a little disappointing, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too, as they say), plus my parents took me out for ice cream after each one. I continued to play clarinet in the band up through high school, and I continued to try out for (and get in to) Jazz Band through middle school, and I probably would have continued into high school if it was still offered.

I also remember one time when I was not yet in seventh grade and I was riding back home from a library with a friend and his mom. Her car ran out of gas, and while we waited for her husband to come pick us up, I pulled out my cassette of the soundtrack and we listened to it all the way through. Later, my mom's friend commended me to my own mom for being so nonchalant in that situation, but I didn't really see it that way. I had books and Little Shop of Horrors, what else did I need?

In the years in since, I've seen a couple of high school productions of the show and seen the movie that the musical was based on, but I didn't get to see the new Broadway production back in 2003. I did get the cast recording as soon as I could, though.

It was actually my older sister who got the movie on DVD, when she went through a phase of buying cheap DVDs at Walmart, whether she knew the movie or not (which is how we all got into A Mighty Wind, but that's a different, shorter story). I, frankly, had been holding out on the off-chance that I would either snag a copy of the quickly-recalled DVD that included the original filmed ending or that the copyright issues would be resolved and a new DVD would be released with the original ending. (As of yet, that has not happened, but if you're curious, you can see stills on this page a little ways down.) I had, however, rented the DVD, mostly for the commentary by the film's director, Frank Oz. I'm of the firm belief that every DVD should have some sort of commentary. But my sister did go ahead and buy it on DVD, and now that she has moved away, I'm starting to think that I really should get my own copy, original ending or no.

Bonus Section:

Do you remember the cartoon Little Shop that aired on Fox back in 1991? I only vaguely remember watching it, even though it also ran on the SciFi channel sometime in the late 90's. It was a mix of elements from the musical and original movie, but put the characters in junior high. You can read more about it here, if you so desire.

My Top Three Favorite Musicals: Starlight Express

Starlight Express: When describing this to people, I've often said that you have to be able to get over the fact that the characters on stage are trains. It's a strange concept, even for a musical: trains in love, racing for the big prize (actually, sounds kind of like a shounen anime), and on top of that, supposedly this whole thing is acted out by a little boy with his set of toy trains (which begs the question, why all the emphasis on who hooks up with who? He must have an older sister or something).

I don't remember exactly when I first borrowed the New Broadway Cast CD from the library, but it was probably when I was in seventh grade. I just remember that shortly after I did, I went on a field trip to visit a historical trainline, and had the songs playing in my head the whole time. This was another show that I shared, this time with both my sisters, and we all took to it like nothing else. We listened to it together, we exercised to it together, and we even acted it out together using my younger sister's Barbies and a handful of other toys (I specifically remember using a Woody, from Toy Story, puppet as Poppa/The Starlight Express). And years later, when a new tour was making the rounds, my sisters saw it together (as I was in college by then, although I saw it when it came to a theater near my campus).

Our love for Starlight Express was so great that my mother instinctively gave this as a gift suggestion to my uncle, and sure enough, I soon had my own copy. In fact, Starlight Express may very well have been my very first fandom, as I joined a Starlight Express e-newsletter soon after, and was exposed to fanfiction for the first time (not that there was a lot). I also learned about the upcoming On Ice and Mexican edition through that occasional mailing, and a good many other things as well.

Around 1998 or 1999, I got the original London Cast recording and was very surprised at how different it was from the new Broadway one. Between the shows, characters were cut, songs were cut and/or switched, and there were all kinds of different inflections, making comparing the two a case of apples and oranges. And when I saw the national tour in 2003, things had been changed around a little more, making this show a mix of the two others (plus the races were done as 3D videos, which was kind of cool, and a good way to get around having to rebuild each theater). Apparently the original Broadway production had an even more different plot, involving a giant silver dollar or some such, but there was never a recording made (or just released?) of that one, so all I know about that is from various websites here and there.

I am not a big memorabilia kind of person, but with the love I have for Starlight Express, I have come to own a few things, including a keychain (that broke ;_;) and a T-shirt with the original logo. I also own the German cast recording, but since I don't speak German or know anyone who does, I can't really comment on how it may have been different. Not to mention all those Andrew Lloyd Webber collection CDs that I got just because there was a song or two from Starlight Express on it.

My Top Three Favorite Musicals: Big The Musical

Big the Musical: As the title states, it's a musical version of the movie Big. It came out in 1996, but did not fare well, only running for 193 performances. I discovered in in 1998, when I was in Musicon Ministries, a group that gathered high schoolers from all over CT, taught them a show, and then performed it at various churches around the state four weekends during the year. In the summer, however, we would go on the road for two weeks, performing at various churches different states. Since we spent a lot of time traveling on a bus, I always made sure to have a book or two on hand. Now, this particular summer, I had taken the book "Making it Big: the Diary of a Broadway Musical," which was all about the process that the musical Big went through as it was adapted and eventually flopped (and reading about how they were sponsored by FAO Schwartz reminded of how I had seen the merchandise two years earlier in the one store that's in CT, although I don't think it's there any more, and having no idea what it was for). Anyway, at one point during the trip, we got to go to a mall, and I suddenly had the songs from Pippin stuck in my head, so I decided to see if I could get a copy of the CD. The rack at the Sam Goody was so disorganized that I just started looking through all the CDs, and lo and behold, there was Big! Naturally, I bought it (and I still don't actually own Pippin, although I do take it out from the library every now and then), and listened to it continuously for the rest of the trip.

When I got back, I shared it with my younger sister, who also fell in love with it (my sisters both like musicals, but not on the same level as I do. Then again, my older sister was the one who really got into Les Mis, not me). About a year later I found out a town theater was putting on a production of Big, and so I bought tickets to it for her birthday. It was fun to see it, even though that production reinstated songs that had been dropped from the original production. Sometime in between getting back home and seeing the show I learned that the songs were written by David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr., who had earlier written the songs for a musical called Baby, which didn't surprise me at all, since I had also loved that cast album (and was quite annoyed to find out that my local library weeded it from their collection, especially since I found this out when I was trying to get it to add songs to a CD exchange I was in). And then, while I was in college, I found a CD of Starting Here, Starting Now, a revue of songs by the same guys which did a lot better than the musicals they tried to put the songs into in the first place. I wish that they had done more together, as I inevitably like their songs, but sadly, their shows (barring revues) did not seem to fair well. So there you have it.

Thinking about Musicals - An Intro

I've been reading "What Would Barbra Do?: How Musicals Changed My Life," and while I'm enjoying it, I keep stopping to think about my own life and musicals.

I can't really pinpoint that exact time of my life when I became a fan of musicals. I guess it all came from as a natural extension of growing up during the Disney Renaissance, and probably has something to do that up until fairly recently, all the cassettes and CDs at my hometown library were kept in one area, so it was easy to go from the kids' music to the rest of the collection. However, it wasn't until I was twelve that I started to fall in love with specific musicals, mostly based entirely on the cast albums. And despite growing up in Connecticut, it wasn't until I was in high school that I got to see a musical on Broadway.

Over this week, I'm going to be posting about my overall top three favorite musicals, and the ones I choose may surprise you, but they are all shows that have stood the test of time (and as such, they are all shows I discovered in (mostly) my teens).

I Feel Like Bragging Now

Being as I am the kind of person I am, I derived more pleasure from learning a piece of info about an upcoming episode of a certain show than actually standing by the stage door and getting to see actual Broadway performers up close and personal. Of course, it stands to reason, as this combined my two greatest loves (musicals and voice acting), but I can't help but feel like my priorities were a little whacked.

And just in case you're wondering, I saw 9 to 5 yesterday, and noticed that Megan Hilty's bio mentioned doing a voice on Phineas and Ferb, so when she came out, I asked her who she was, since I couldn't think of it and I knew that I wouldn't have time to look it up by the time I got home. Turns out, the episode she's in hasn't aired yet, but she laid down the tracks back in February.

Blithe Spirit Twitter-style

Blithe Spirit is a play by Noel Coward, currently playing on Broadway until July 19th. And the guy from Broadway Abridged recently put up his version of it, only instead of his usual style, he put it up ala Twitter. I was very amused.

Tony Awards 2009

Overall, a fun show this year, although I think I had a better time watching it because my sister and her friend were there watching, too.

• 20:00 2009 Tony Awards!
• 20:01 "Why must I be tortured by Elton John" asks my sister (she hates Elton John)
• 20:02 Answer: he wrote the songs for Billy Elliot, one of the nominated shows.
• 20:02 Why can I hear the people in the audience?
• 20:04 This opening is lots of fun, but kind of confusing
• 20:05 Is that Stockard Channing? (It was)
• 20:09 My sister's reactions are very amusing. "Liza? But she never does anything anymore!"
• 20:13 Wow, Neil Patrick Harris' suit is shiny
• 20:29 Best part of the Shrek performance: the Wicked spoof at the end or Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey watching in the audience?
• 20:30 That knee-dancing was kind of impressive, though.
• 20:30 Oh, Jeff Daniels looks old.
• 20:31 Yay for Angela Lansbury!
• 20:45 Ah, the [tos]ers are going to be mad that it didn't win best book.
• 20:46 I haven't heard too much from Next to Normal, so I don't know whether it deserves Best Score or not.
• 20:52 Is it just me, or is Maria (West Side Story) awfully white?
• 20:59 I was kind of hoping the "other" Matthew Warchus would win.
• 21:05 Heh @ everyone waving their cellphones during the Rock of Ages performance
• 21:13 I admit, I'd rather have Liza win than Will Ferrell.
• 21:14 (Special Theatrical Event, that is)
• 21:18 Oh, mike fail... (Guys and Dolls performance)
• 21:18 What's up with the projected background?
• 21:50 As usual, technical difficulties cropped up just when I wanted to say something most.
• 21:50 In short: Good for Karen Olivio, and what was up with Carrie Fisher?
• 21:51 Also, that Next to Normal performance looked like it would be hard to sing.
• 21:51 I'm just glad the memorial montage wasn't set to Memory.
• 22:02 Is there another Marcia Harden out there? If not, why is she parading her middle name like that?
• 22:06 Man, is he dancing, or constipated? (Billy Elliot performance)
• 22:07 Are there going to be lyrics sometime soon?
• 22:16 Legally Blonde is always fun ^_^
• 22:16 It's Harvery Fierstein!
• 22:29 Lovely, lovely Jerry Herman tribute
• 22:33 I thought that Wall-E was going to show up during the Jerry Herman tribute? That's what Jim Hill said, anyway.
• 22:38 Hair cast seem to be having fun. My mother doesn't think she'd pay money to see it
• 22:38 Hey, Kristin Chenoweth!
• 22:39 I was guessing West Side Story, but Hair won Best Revival of a Musical
• 22:46 Also David Hyde Pierce
• 22:46 Sutton Foster looks like Rachel Ray
• 22:47 And Alice Ripley takes Best Actress in a Musical, of course.
• 22:51 Aw, the three kids won for Billy Elliot
• 22:51 They're so cute in their awkwardness!
• 22:55 Pretty cool bringing in all the different Frankie Vallis from the different tours of Jersey Boys
• 22:59 Best Musical time
• 23:00 Billy Elliot takes it, which is no surprise given how many other awards its won overall.
• 23:01 As Mom puts it, "The kids are no longer bored, they are on stage."
• 23:03 And Neil closes out with a song.
• 23:03 (And Mom is amazed at how well he sings)

What I Watch - Once Upon a Mattress

I recently got around to watching the 2005 TV-movie version of Once Upon a Mattress (there were TV versions from the 60's and 70's, but I haven't seen those), and while I thought it was okay, a lot of the time it felt like "Mattress Lite" to me.  I mean, I love the Original Broadway Cast album to death (not literally.  My copy is still alive and kicking), so I knew that I wasn't going to be entirely satisfied with it, but so much has been cut out to make it fit into 90 minutes.  And while there are some awesome people in it--Tom Smothers, Edward Hibbert, Zooey Deschanel--they really have very little to do here, with the exceptions of Carol Burnett and Tracey Ullman.  And I don't know if I'll ever get over what they did to "Normandy."  I mean, it's hard to buy it as a song about a honeymoon destination when you know that it was originally a song about where Lady Larkin was planning to run away to avoid showing she was a "maternal bride-to-be."

Of course, there were a few things I liked.  The costumes are ah-mazing!  I have so much love for the costumes, I can't tell you.  The choreography is very good, too.  And I like the idea of casting Dauntless older (like in his forties), since it makes the entire kingdom's desperation so much more palpable.  Since part of the conceit of the show is that no one is allowed to get married until the prince does, you can bet that everyone in this version is pulling for Winifred to pass the test.  And while Tracey Ullman is great in the part of the titular princess, I'm still not sure how I feel about that British accent.  

...Is it truly terrible that the reason I finally got around to watching this is because Matthew Morrison is in it, and I wanted to see more of him after watching the Glee preview?

Jane Lynch is in it

Back before Camp Rock came out, I saw the soundtrack for Another Cinderella Story at Walmart and was intrigued by the logo.  Hoping for a musical with maybe some good songs, I put the movie in my Blockbuster queue and forgot about it until a week or so ago when it made it to the top (or rather, was the first 'available' movie near the top).  I mention Camp Rock because if I'd known who Selena Gomez was I probably wouldn't have bothered.  Despite that, the movie was not horrible, although it was not nearly as much of a musical as I thought it would be.  Le sigh...

Anyway, the real point of this post is about the stepmother character in the movie, Dominique.  About halfway through the movie, I had to run to the IMDB because I knew that I knew who she was, but I just couldn't place her.  Turns out that she's played by Jane Lynch.  At first glance, I didn't really recognize anything she had done (and she's done a ton of guest spots), but on the second time through, the sole thing I recognized her from suddenly leapt out at me: A Mighty Wind, where she played Laurie Bohner, the porn star turned folk singer. (Sidenote: I love A Mighty Wind.  If you haven't seen it, go watch it right now.)  I'm also partially amused to learn that she plays the mother in the new Holly Hobby DVDs.  So yeah, finding that out bumped my enjoyment of the movie up a level, and I even got the song that her character sang in her youth(?), Hold 4 U, off of iTunes.  'Cause Jane Lynch can definitely sing (another reason to go watch A Mighty Wind right now).

2008 Tony Awards Live!

I wasn't predicting anything this year, as I really didn't know very much about any of the shows nominated. But here are a few of the thoughts I had during the show.

Why are we starting with The Lion King? Is this not 2008? Ah, tenth anniversary. I can't wait to see what Peter Filichia will say tomorrow.

I don't know, I feel like Passing Strange and In the Heights came out too soon to be nominated. Like it isn't fair or something.

I spent the majority of the Crybaby number explaining the plot to my mom and sister, since I'm the only one who's seen the movie.

I mixed up Laura Linney and Dianne Wiest. I have no clue how I did that, but I was telling my sister, "Oh, that's the evil queen from The 10th Kingdom," when Laura Linney came out and she was all, "Nuh uh!" because she loves that miniseries. So I looked it up, and sure enough, I was wrong.

Passing Strange number = boring and blah. Until the old guy showed up. Then it go interesting, and then repetitive, so I now have negative desire to see the show.

John Lithgow's presentation speech was hysterical! I'll post it on youtube soon.
My sister is amazed at how young the directors (for musicals) are (excluding Arthur Laurents).

The guy who wrote the music and lyrics for In The Height's acceptance rap was cool, even though I missed the last part because I had to explain the "in the hat" joke to my sister and mom.

Did you know that the original Broadway production of South Pacific was nominated for 10 Tonys and won them all? Apparently it's the only musical to win all four actor and actress awards.

Ah, Kristin Chenoweth. So cute, but so short. Laura Benanti just towered over her, and it wasn't because of the heels.

My sister is bummed that they didn't do "She's in Love" for The Little Mermaid's snippet.
Oh, Faith Prince is old... and Megan Mulally isn't good. Or maybe that's just me.

I keep tuning out the PSA snippets. But I am digging most of the Whoopi spoofs.

Now I'm even more interested in In the Heights, but I think I'd want to see it before checking out the cast album. Some shows are like that for me. Like Ragtime. And Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Both of which I saw at the Bushnell. Hm...

My mother on the guy who talked for August: Osage County when it won Best Play: "This is a bitter man. He just won, why is complaining?"

YAAH! Mandy Patinkin's Beard!!! What's up with that? I'm glad that my sister went to bed, she wouldn't have wanted to see that.

Whoa, that digital background stuff in Sunday in the Park with George is pretty cool.

My mom kept cracking up during the Xanadu sequence, which was the point, of course. I already knew from listening to the cast album.

I can't hear any of the songs from Rent without thinking of the Forbidden Broadway version.
"How sadly ironic/that a story about friends/is never to be seen by the like/just the rich who like trends."

Is Liza Minelli drunk (my opinion) or are her dentures just loose (my mother's opinion)?

I feel bad for Tom Wopat, but the guy from South Pacific was very good (from what I saw, anyway), so I guess it's all right.

Even Patti LuPone is not immune to the cut-off music, it seems.

As predicted, In the Heights took Best Musical. I have to say, I'm glad my mother stopped asking "Are they gay?" (her usual Tony presenter query), even if she switched to asking, "Aren't they dead?" instead.

What I Read - Tales of the City

I just finished Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin today, after renewing it twice. It was originally a newspaper serial in the 70's, so all the chapters are pretty short, like two and a half pages each. I decided to read it when I heard the guys from Avenue Q are making it into a musical; I'd never even heard of it before then.
That said, this book is VERY Seventies. Which is maybe why I had a hard time slogging through it, despite the short chapters. Still, I may have only been able to read it in bits and spurts, but I'm sure others wouldn't have this problem. The story is written in an interesting way, with characters weaving in and out of the story and the other characters' lives on a whim. This makes for great interconnectivity revelations, but occasionally left me thinking, "Who's this character again? Do I know them?" I mean, it's a little meaningless to have a chapter end with one character accusing the other with "I know about you and Lexy!" if you can't recall who Lexy is. And I can't blame that one on my on-and-off reading of the book, since I read the chapter where that character was introduced just one day before I read the chapter with the accusation.
Mainly, though, I could see exactly why someone (multiple someones, even) would think that this could be a musical. The characters are both recognizable and yet slightly larger than life. And again, all the drama that goes with the interconnectivity makes for great theater, musical or otherwise. In fact, it's already been a miniseries.