Jeremy Sams may not be the first person you'd think of to direct Jason Robert Brown's new musical about and starring tweens, 13 (Todd Graff, of Camp semi-fame, directed the show in its L.A. bow a few years back). I know Sams' name primarily from Indiscretions, which he directed on Broadway way back in the '90s, and from his crackerjack English (very English) translation of Threepenny Opera (which I relished at the Open Fist Theatre in L.A. some years back, but which has yet to play in NY).
But Sams is a great interview, and after I was done chatting about 13-year-olds (Sams has one himself, in fact, with his wife Maria Friedman) for Time Out Kids, we nerded out on Sondheim, Weill, and the craft of musical theater. Incidentally, 13 happens to be competing for the teenage theater audience (such as it is) up against two big Brit imports, Billy Elliott and Equus (unlikely, I know, but trust me--the appearance of Harry Potter on Broadway is all that's on some teens' minds this fall).
Aug 31, 2008
Aug 28, 2008
Aug 27, 2008
The Costello Show
About the only useful information in the glossy Fashion supplement that came bundled with my New Yorker yesterday (not that I didn't look at it, of course): Elvis Costello will host his own talk show, called Spectacle, on the Sundance Channel, starting on Dec. 3. It's mostly going to feature musicians, though Bill Clinton has apparently taped an episode (in which, we can only hope, he will finally be held accountable for one of the great scandals of his public career--his reported love for Kenny G). A commenter on the Sundance site says the Smokey Robinson show is one to watch for. I'll be watching them all, natch.
The Fringe in Full
I have to confess I missed the Fringe entirely this year, but it's nice to know that Time Out didn't miss a single show.
Their top picks, fyi, are (the linkable ones are still running as part of the Fringe Encore series):
FIVE STARS
Be Brave, Anna!
Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire
The Permanent Night
There Will Come Soft Rains
waiting: a play in phases
FOUR STARS
52 Man Pickup
All Hail The Great Serpent!
The Amish Project
Ariel View
Ascension
Beast: A Parable
Behold, the Bowery!
Big Thick Rod
The Boy in the Basement
But for the Grace...
Bye Bye Bombay
Chandeleirva
China - The Whole Enchilada
Choke City
The Chronicles of Steve: The Bossy Bottom
The Death of the Bell Turret Gunner
A December Eve's Visit with Frederick Demuth
Dingbat
The Disappearance of Jonah
Down Around Brown Town
Extraordinary Rendition
For Reasons Unknown
Forteez Bluntz Chickenhedz 'N' Uva Necessateez
Gargoyle Garden
A Gathering of Eagles
GEM! A Truly Outrageous Parody
Good Pictures
Gratuitous Novelty: A locked away cabaret
The Grecian Formula
Heaven Forbid(s)!
Hidden Fees*
The Home for Wayward Girls and Fallen Women
Hot Cripple
How To Fold A Shirt
johnpaulgeorgeringo - an Intimate Experience with the Fab Four
Julius Caesar
Keep Your Eyes Open
Krapp, 39
Life...Death...and Entertainment
The Longest Running Joke of the Twentieth Century
Love is Dead: A NecRomantic Musical Comedy
A Man, a Magic, a Music
Mare Cognitum
Meanwhile, in Baghdad...
Missing Man
Monsters In the Wood
Mourn the Living Hector
My Salvation Has a First Name: A Wienermobile Journey
Nudists in Love : A New Musical
O! Balletto
Operation Adelmo
Perez Hilton Saves the Universe (or at least the greater Los Angeles area): The Musical
Piccola Cosi
Psalms Of A Questionable Nature
R U Prime?
Raised by Lesbians
The Refugee Girls Revue: A Musical Parody
Ripcords
Sailor Man
Sandy the Dandy and Charlie McGee: A Case Study in Harsh Realities
Schoenberg
Scratch
See How Beautiful I Am: The Return of Jackie Susann
The Sound of One Hanna Clapping
Stars In a Dark Sky
That Dorothy Parker
Thoroughly Stupid Things (or the Continuous Importance of Being Earnest)
Tim Gunn's Podcast (a reality chamber opera)
Tiny Feats of Cowardice
Too Much Memory
Tough Guys Don't Shoot Blanks
The Umbrella Plays
Underwear: A Space Musical
Uneka—Arnasa
Untitled Masterpiece
Velvet Scratch—Voyage of No Return
The Vajayjay Monologues
Wish We Were Here
Woodhull: A Play About the Woman Who Ran for President
The whole shebang here.
Their top picks, fyi, are (the linkable ones are still running as part of the Fringe Encore series):
FIVE STARS
Be Brave, Anna!
Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire
The Permanent Night
There Will Come Soft Rains
waiting: a play in phases
FOUR STARS
52 Man Pickup
All Hail The Great Serpent!
The Amish Project
Ariel View
Ascension
Beast: A Parable
Behold, the Bowery!
Big Thick Rod
The Boy in the Basement
But for the Grace...
Bye Bye Bombay
Chandeleirva
China - The Whole Enchilada
Choke City
The Chronicles of Steve: The Bossy Bottom
The Death of the Bell Turret Gunner
A December Eve's Visit with Frederick Demuth
Dingbat
The Disappearance of Jonah
Down Around Brown Town
Extraordinary Rendition
For Reasons Unknown
Forteez Bluntz Chickenhedz 'N' Uva Necessateez
Gargoyle Garden
A Gathering of Eagles
GEM! A Truly Outrageous Parody
Good Pictures
Gratuitous Novelty: A locked away cabaret
The Grecian Formula
Heaven Forbid(s)!
Hidden Fees*
The Home for Wayward Girls and Fallen Women
Hot Cripple
How To Fold A Shirt
johnpaulgeorgeringo - an Intimate Experience with the Fab Four
Julius Caesar
Keep Your Eyes Open
Krapp, 39
Life...Death...and Entertainment
The Longest Running Joke of the Twentieth Century
Love is Dead: A NecRomantic Musical Comedy
A Man, a Magic, a Music
Mare Cognitum
Meanwhile, in Baghdad...
Missing Man
Monsters In the Wood
Mourn the Living Hector
My Salvation Has a First Name: A Wienermobile Journey
Nudists in Love : A New Musical
O! Balletto
Operation Adelmo
Perez Hilton Saves the Universe (or at least the greater Los Angeles area): The Musical
Piccola Cosi
Psalms Of A Questionable Nature
R U Prime?
Raised by Lesbians
The Refugee Girls Revue: A Musical Parody
Ripcords
Sailor Man
Sandy the Dandy and Charlie McGee: A Case Study in Harsh Realities
Schoenberg
Scratch
See How Beautiful I Am: The Return of Jackie Susann
The Sound of One Hanna Clapping
Stars In a Dark Sky
That Dorothy Parker
Thoroughly Stupid Things (or the Continuous Importance of Being Earnest)
Tim Gunn's Podcast (a reality chamber opera)
Tiny Feats of Cowardice
Too Much Memory
Tough Guys Don't Shoot Blanks
The Umbrella Plays
Underwear: A Space Musical
Uneka—Arnasa
Untitled Masterpiece
Velvet Scratch—Voyage of No Return
The Vajayjay Monologues
Wish We Were Here
Woodhull: A Play About the Woman Who Ran for President
The whole shebang here.
Fela
My preview piece on Bill T. Jones' new bio-musical Fela! is interesting for several reasons, but on a personal note as the public debut of my new byline.
Aug 26, 2008
My Story, By Me, Starring Me
Has anyone else noticed this mini-trendlet among newish Broadway musicals, in which the author or authors star in a version of their own story? I'm talking about Passing Strange, In the Heights, and now [title of show], all of them hailed as form-breaking musicals in one sense of another (ITH the least so), and all starring their author in a role that's close to autobiographical, or at the very least spun from their own experience.
Two things strike me about this: the aesthetics and the economics. Obviously there's something bracing and authentic, even intimate, in the experience of sharing the story with its originators; one might uncharitably that something about our culture's current fetishization of the "real," from reality TV to the fury over unreliable memoirs, though I think it has just as much to do with the perennial difficulty of generating the otherworldliness of musical theater--the rationale for people breaking into song between stretches of dialogue is always and ever a theatrical challenge, even on Broadway, and I'd posit that the injection of the "real," the personal, is one solution to this problem (teens breaking into pop songs in the midst of a period play is another; setting a musical backstage at a theatre is another, and so on--though this is the subject for another post). People may be more likely to swallow a guy telling a story in song if it's his story, in much the same way we'll suspend disbelief and follow a solo performer as he or she recreates a world onstage.
When I spoke to Jeff Bowen recently for a TDF piece, he more or less agreed with the hunger-for-reality thesis. He also mentioned an economic angle I hadn't thought of: that it takes so long to get a musical off the ground, it's just easier (and cheaper) to get up and play the role yourself through the various workshops and readings and backers' auditions. The economic angle that had occurred to me, though, is how long can a show run when the authors are in it? Would these shows keep selling without the authors in the leads, given that their being in it seems to be a big part of the shows' hook, and presumably a draw? (This is moot with Passing Strange, of course, which never had the problem of selling too much--though Stew did have an understudy, I'm told, and was thoroughly tripped out by it.) Can these shows look forward to a rich life in the regions, or are they Broadway-boutique phenoms?
It's hard to say. A few decades ago, some wondered similarly about the future and durability of Sondheim's musicals, which seldom sold well and in many cases seemed very closely associated with their original productions and casts (including the flops). They still don't burn up the box office, exactly, but Sondheim's legacy is secure. We'll have to wait and see if the same can be said of the reps of newcomers like Stew, Miranda, and Bell/Bowen.
Two things strike me about this: the aesthetics and the economics. Obviously there's something bracing and authentic, even intimate, in the experience of sharing the story with its originators; one might uncharitably that something about our culture's current fetishization of the "real," from reality TV to the fury over unreliable memoirs, though I think it has just as much to do with the perennial difficulty of generating the otherworldliness of musical theater--the rationale for people breaking into song between stretches of dialogue is always and ever a theatrical challenge, even on Broadway, and I'd posit that the injection of the "real," the personal, is one solution to this problem (teens breaking into pop songs in the midst of a period play is another; setting a musical backstage at a theatre is another, and so on--though this is the subject for another post). People may be more likely to swallow a guy telling a story in song if it's his story, in much the same way we'll suspend disbelief and follow a solo performer as he or she recreates a world onstage.
When I spoke to Jeff Bowen recently for a TDF piece, he more or less agreed with the hunger-for-reality thesis. He also mentioned an economic angle I hadn't thought of: that it takes so long to get a musical off the ground, it's just easier (and cheaper) to get up and play the role yourself through the various workshops and readings and backers' auditions. The economic angle that had occurred to me, though, is how long can a show run when the authors are in it? Would these shows keep selling without the authors in the leads, given that their being in it seems to be a big part of the shows' hook, and presumably a draw? (This is moot with Passing Strange, of course, which never had the problem of selling too much--though Stew did have an understudy, I'm told, and was thoroughly tripped out by it.) Can these shows look forward to a rich life in the regions, or are they Broadway-boutique phenoms?
It's hard to say. A few decades ago, some wondered similarly about the future and durability of Sondheim's musicals, which seldom sold well and in many cases seemed very closely associated with their original productions and casts (including the flops). They still don't burn up the box office, exactly, but Sondheim's legacy is secure. We'll have to wait and see if the same can be said of the reps of newcomers like Stew, Miranda, and Bell/Bowen.
Aug 21, 2008
Too Much Bun
Just got a release from D.C.'s Arena Stage touting Carrie Fisher's purportedly Broadway-bound one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, which premiered to mostly nice-to-mixed reviews in L.A. a few years back. What even the Geffen Theatre didn't do (as far as I know) to promote the show, though, was to offer free tickets to the theatergoer who sends in the best Princess Leia lookalike photo. The Arena staff has already had some fun with the buns. Well, it beats forking over hard-earned scratch for the latest Lucas abomination.
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