#EncoreOwnsMe

It has been almost a month since my last post. Life got crazy, and honestly I wasn’t feeling super inspired. I was listening to Hamilton A LOT, and a lot of other shows that I like to listen to kind of fell by the wayside, which is bound to happen from time to time, I suppose

Luckily, I haven't been hard up for listening delights due to my vocal ensemble hitting rehearsals really hard in preparation for our next main stage show, Encore Vocal Ensemble of San Diego brings you The Murder, Mystery, Music Show!. We are really digging into some stuff that I already love: Sweeney Todd, Jekyll & Hyde, Young Frankenstein, and The Full Monty.

Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, the maker of meat pies, in Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."

Really trying to bring some light hearted fun to some dark subjects, like murder and fear. Also some stuff that we knew would make the fans say “I love that show!”: The Pajama Game, The Wiz, and of course including the six merry Murderesses of the Cook County Jail from Chicago

 I have found an unexpected treasure in a piece that wasn't written for a musical, and also has an interesting history. The Sound of Silence had a lot of crazy ups and downs, and has really settled into the pop culture mindset with its inclusion in the 1967 film the Graduate. I had only been aware of this song in my life. I don't think I had ever intentionally listened to this song until we had picked it for our fall show. It is so beautiful, and it has such poetry to it. I just love it. I’m so glad to be exposed to this piece of music.

 from the 2004 production of “Assassins” 

In the planning process for this show we were looking into a lot of music that didn't quite make it into the show, but it was fun to think about shows that deal with dark ideas like crime, panic, and distress. From the true life storylines that run through Assassin’s (I was hoping for Everybody’s Got the Right) and the animated cloud of pollution singing “Toxic Love” from Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, because who doesn't like to think about the rainforest being destroyed? thank you 90’s children’s movies!

I really enjoyed thinking about these songs again. It was so much fun! One of the things that’s so great about musical theatre, and theatre in general in the idea of talking about (or better yet, singing about) topics that might not be appropriate in an everyday conversation. I would love to engage an entire courtroom in the matter of whether or not someone is Gay or European, and i think the world would be a much better place if we could all sing about how we are “Steppin to the Bad Side” and have every join us in a dance!

For goodness sake, here’s a TL;DR for all my super busy friends, heading into the holiday season. Encore’s Show is on November 21 & 22 and you should come see it

Theme Parties? NO! Theme Choral Performances

One thing that I find so immensely satisfying about the group that I sing with is the “research of themes” element. Most of our shows, and even our smaller cabaret shows have an overall through line to them.

When I joined the ensemble we did “showtoons” which played on animation and toons that were on stage. So we explored music from The Lion King, Pete’s Dragon, Ave Q, and huge swaths of Disney Musicals. Princes and Princesses got their own medleys as well as a medley of TV show theme songs. It was SO. MUCH. FUN. To think about these songs, and be reminded of some great things in my past.

We also rummaged through some darker music with a Halloween show. Songs from Wicked, and the Secret Garden, and as mentioned before Batboy. It was such a great way to celebrate the holiday in such a unique way. Looking through scores, and accessing our knowledge of music and theatre to come up with a full show was really fun, and it was one of the first times I was involved in helping with the production. 

Honestly though, the best thing we did wasn’t even from a musical. A haunting contemporary choral piece that Eric Whitacre wrote and had performed by A VIRTUAL CHOIR takes the cake for the most satisfying choral experiences ever.

But I digress, this blog is about Musicals!! One of the most challenging shows that we did was a time travel show. It was literally  musicals from all over periods of time. Researching that show was so hard. There is SO MUCH MUSIC. We limited ourselves by looking for music that had some sort of anthem-like quality. ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” and “Til We Reach That Day” came to mind, quickly followed by songs that spoke to a period in time “All That Jazz”, “Here Alone”, and “You Can’t Stop The Beat” all were really fun additions to the piece. We really felt it rounded itself out.

Going forward in our future we constantly look at themes and question whether of not that it would work for us. Do those themes have a wide array of music? If you want to theme a show with ‘Sports’ you have very small amounts of things to choose from. There’s a number in 'You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown' about baseball, a number in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas about Football (sort of… its more about football players having sex… but that’s a sport too) and then there is a show like Damn Yankees, which surprisingly only has a few numbers about actual baseball.

Something that is broad and specific at the same time, and something I would love to explore is going around the world with music. There is so much stuff set around the world: Argentina and Evita, India and Bombay Dreams. The Book of Mormon and Uganda/Africa is a bit of a stretch, but some GREAT music or maybe Tarzan. There are a ton of things set in Asia. Unfortunately, large swaths of theatre dealing with Asian culture are pretty offensive (cough, cough The King and I cough). Miss Saigon, and Pacific Overtures (SONDHEIM!) are great source material.

Not to mention huge expanses of Europe, Brigadoon, Mamma Mia (I mean, not really… but GREECE), Light In The Piazza, Fiddler On The Roof, Chess, Mary Poppins, Camelot

I also think that religious shows could go in here too, and explore Judaism with Yentl, and Puritanical Christianity in Spring Awakening, at the risk of sounding redundant Mormonism with Book of Mormon

I like that there is a lot to choose from, but can be confined. It can also be taken apart if you have too much music. Like, for example, it’s easy to actually omit Tarzan and Mamma Mia because the music in those shows don’t really reflect the culture of the place its set (the jungles of Africa, or Greece, respectively). The best part of this entire ordeal is the discussion. The people that I can sit at a table with, and over a bottle of wine hash out what would be a good show, with good music, that is entertaining. It’s so thrilling.

Love Being in Good Company

The vocal ensemble that I sing with is gonna be performing a choral arrangement of 'Transylvania Mania' from Young Frankenstein: The Musical.

I'm personally really excited to sing this song. its going to be really fun!

One of my favorite people posted this screen shot from Parks & Rec on a page that members from our group have access to...

Which, is A) Hilarious writing to begin with, and B) an explanation of a lyric that is mentioned in the actual song.

"Everybody's out there doing it, millionaire and schlemiel"

After the original post of the screen shot, a friend, and fellow member posted this comment:

"I love that you used a quote from Nick Offerman, who is married to Megan Mullaly, who was in the original Broadway cast of Young Frankenstein which features... Wait for it... TRANSYLVANIA MANIA."

YES! I wanted to post that EXACT information! I love that I surround myself with people who are obsessive about the Musical Theatre trivia as I am! I just wanted to share how wonderful my friends are!

On a more more bragg-y note.. I saw Young Frankenstein the Musical in its pre-broadway run in Seattle. It was an awfully long trip for a very high gloss production. It wasn't the best ever, however, there was some fun music (Transylvania Mania being the highlight) and also to see such wonderful talents. Sutton Foster, was the absolute highlight.

Do you like to surround yourself with like minded people? what shows did you get to see before a "hit" or a "flop" made it to the great white way?

Successful Shows

It’s weird to think about what actually makes a show successful.

Is it the awards that it wins? There are shows that won the Tony Award for Best Musical and are still fairly unknown by the public like Contact, or Passion, and Raisin are probably some of the best examples.

If those shows make money, or at the very least recoups on Broadway is it deemed a success?

Is it the fact that it makes it to Broadway at all, which is the dream, right?

These questions have been asked time and time again, and answered in all forms. When it comes to a producer, I think the bottom line is if it makes its investment back, those are cold numbers. For a creative team, a Director, or a Composer, I feel that opening on Broadway is the ultimate goal. It goes down in the books. Regardless of how it performs, the reviews it receives, you were at one time, at least, a Broadway show.

In my opinion, being a theatre lover outside of the New York bubble, the life after Broadway is what i feel makes a show a success. That it what the general public consumes. Does it get more than one national tour, does it get produced by high schools, colleges, churches, and community theatres, how popular is the cast album, is there accessible merchandise? I think about Spring Awakening, and Seussical the Musical, and of course Les Miz. These shows have had smashing success outside of Broadway.

My years in high school, the musicals were The Pajama Game, The Music Man, Once Upon A Mattress, and Anything Goes. All 4 of those shows have extremely easy visibility, and almost any Joe Schmoe you stop on the street will have heard of those shows. I have already talk extensively about Mattress, and Anything Goes, but I also wanted to point out that Pajama Game, and The Music Man both won the Tony the year they were nominated (1955 & 1958 respectively)

Recently my vocal ensemble put on a losers show. We highlighted a lot of shows that are popular but may have lost some major awards. Once on This Island (lost to the Will Roger’s Follies in ‘91), Mamma Mia (lost to Thoroughly Modern Millie in ‘02)

and Barnum (lost to Evita in ‘80) were some of the bigger highlights of the show. It was a fun show to research on a production level. To see these great shows that held such admiration and memories but may not have gotten the time and accolades they deserved. It was nice to give these shows a little bit of love on stage, in as grand of a way as we could.

What’s a favorite of yours that you feel was robbed? Do you think “lesser-known” shows should get a bigger life after Broadway?

Playing Favorites

The idea of playing favorites has always baffled me. When people find out that I really like show tunes, and Broadway, a lot of times they ask me what my all-time favorite show is. Which… how do you answer that? I can't even say which movie is my favorite… or which pair of shoes I love more than any other. I don’t play favorites well.

There are a lot of things that I could throw down as high on my list. One of my favorite songs from a musical I really like to listen to, and is timeless is Aquarius, from the American Tribal Love Rock Musical: Hair. To be clear, the 2009 Revival with Sasha Allen singing the opening solo is what makes me the happiest! I also really like to hear Heather Headley sing “Shadowlands” from the Lion King, and Sherie Renee Scott belt her face off in “Strongest Suit” if I feel like dancing around in my underwear.

There are several Broadway stars that I really like to listen to, and fawn over. I think Sutton Foster is pretty high up on the list. Her body of work is chock full of shows that hold a special place for me. I was in a production of thoroughly modern Millie, I am obsessed with the song “I Know it’s today” from Shrek:  the musical”, The Drowsy Chaperone was one of the first shows I saw on Broadway (with her still staring as Janet) and Little Women was a cast album that I was able to bond with some of my closest friends over.

Kerry Butler also falls in the same category with Sutton Foster for the body of work she has created is shows that I really enjoy. The original Broadway cast of Hairspray is one that I really enjoy, and her as Penny really makes me laugh, and I love her take on Kira in the cast album of Xanadu, and I have already mentioned how much I love Little Shop of Horrors, with her as Audrey. She recently did “Catch Me If You Can” which I recently discovered I really enjoy. She is a Broadway Treasure.

Sometimes I really just like to listen to a cast album from front to back, and those I guess go high up on my, for lack of a better term, favorites lists. Composer Frank Wildhorn wrote some truly stunning music for Bonnie & Clyde, starring Laura Osnes, and Jeremy Jordan. A go-to for me that I like to listen to if I am feeling melancholy, and don't want to be cheered up is ‘bare: a pop opera’ which is just so desperately sad, but I love so much of the music, and I love the performances by that studio cast. I have seen that show performed 3 times on stage, now… It makes me cry every single time. I also really like the structure and performances of Sherie Renee Scott and Norbert Leo Butz in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years. In the Heights was such a revelation of Hip-Hop and Latin infused music that I love to just put that cast album on and sing my heart out, and dance my face off, plus Lin-Manuel Miranda is notorious for being the nicest guy on Broadway, and I love that. I also really like listening to 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning drama Next to Normal. The heart-break and emotional maturity in that piece of musical theatre will always make me sit down and listen.

Composers will also get in my head and I will shuffle through some songs from Jeanine Tesori’s work with Fun Home, Shrek, Thoroughly Modern Millie, or Caroline or Change. Jason Robert Brown has some great shows with the previously mentioned The Last Five Years, Parade, Songs for a New World and also getting familiar with his new work on Bridges of Madison County, and Honeymoon in Vegas. I have largely stayed away from his musical 13. I don’t know why, but I just don’t like it.

Stephen Sondheim’s work is something I can always fall into. Company, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Assassins are probably the shows I am most familiar with, and always try to listen to some tracks every month. They make me think, especially with some of the odd musical passages, and intricate lyrics patterns. I have never gotten super into Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, Passions, Bounce, or Follies. I have seen and enjoy Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum but have found it's not easy to just dive into, personally.

I hate to say this but my vocal ensemble did a Sondheim show right before I joined the group, and I missed singing in it, and also in singing the material they covered and I will always lament that fact

I did, however, have the great joy of directing Into the Woods this past year, so I think that by default that show is really high on my list of shows I love, and maybe might qualify as an actual favorite just because of how intimately well I know it.

There are also several shows that I have been part of that I like to listen to, like All Shook Up. What a FUN score, I miss singing with that cast. Also Cabaret is another show that I love to listen to, and even though the memories of that show in particular were so bittersweet because of my personal life, that show was such a beacon of light for me. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was the last musical I did in Northern California before I left, so there are lots of great feelings tied to that show. Annie, which a lot of people don't like on principal, was a fantastic show to be in the chorus for. I played so many different characters!

So I don’t play favorites… I play everythings. I love the different emotions that story driven songs bring out in me, I love different interpretations of different casts for the same show, and I love how certain performers will bring you to a different place every time they sing. I love to find similarities in pieces when a composer writes a different show.

Do you have a favorite? Is it easier for you to throw down the gauntlet in what is the best, to you?

Dark Musicals and Kerry Butler

I sing in a vocal ensemble that deals in predominantly singing musical theatre. It’s one of the reasons i joined the group. I love choral singing and I love musical theatre.

Throughout the 2 and a half years that I have been involved with the group, we have hit a lot of music I love, and music that i like, and music I’m not so crazy about.

In the fall of 2013 we did a Halloween show, and all of our music focused on some creepy, dark, music. This was a really good learning show for me. There were some things that I knew really well, like Wicked, and some things I only had a vague grasp of, like Batboy: The Musical.

One of the catchiest songs that I had the pleasure of singing was “Cabin in the Woods” from the musical ‘Evil Dead: the Musical’. Evil Dead is based on the 1981 cult classic starring Bruce Campbell. I cant claim to be a connoisseur of cult films, unfortunately that will have to be another blog, but the musical, is super fun! That number will still get stuck in my head. Its that catchy! The show itself was actually never on Broadway, but has had a great life after its Off-Broadway run at New World Stages. There has been tons of semi-professional, and amateur performances all over North America, and even a tour.

I was actually surprised at how much Batboy: the Musical did not do anything for me. I know the local college in my hometown did it and other than that I had heard of this show a few times while being in and around community theatre and the insane premise of a Weekly World News article being turned into a stage musical just doesn't go unnoticed.

We sang “Hold Me, Batboy” which is a good opening for the show, there’s lots of exposition in it, lots of good belty one liners. The music and lyrics are even written by a favorite of mine, Laurence O’Keefe, who is also known for an ABSOLUTE favorite of mine: Legally Blonde: the Musical, as well as the brand new, not so well received off-Broadway show Heathers: The Musical (I have only heard a few numbers from this, and I liked them)

I should remain fully transparent in the fact that I have still yet to see full productions of Batboy: the Musical, and Evil Dead: the Musical. I'm sure my opinion may change if I see it as the producers intend.

One of the best things that came out of the Halloween show was we did two numbers from Little Shop of Horrors, "Suddenly Seymour" and "Don't Feed the Plants". 

What a fun musical. 

I had the pleasure of Assistant Directing that show, and learning how to run a sound board come show time for it as well. I almost had to go on for Seymour once when our actor got stuck in Missouri, but we had cancelled the show instead, so I am very intimately familiar with that show.

Most people are familiar with the 1986 B-Movie starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene, (and a then rising comedic superstar Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello) which, is in its own right, a fantastic musical film. It also stars Tisha Campbell (of Martin fame) as Chiffon, one of the Street Urchins, and probably my favorite part in the musical. 

I want to loop back to Batboy, in that Kerry Butler played Shelly in Batboy, and she played Audrey in the 2003 revival of Little Shop of Horrors (my personal favorite version), playing opposite Hunter Foster. 

I love Kerry Butler, she is one of my favorite performers, and she will come up a lot on this blog! Also, Hunter Foster is the brother to another Broadway powerhouse: Sutton Foster. #fangirling

I also CAN'T NOT (love me a double negative) mention the recent Encores! Revival of Little Shop of Horrors, which brought back the original (off-Broadway, and film) Audrey, Ellen Greene, as well as Jake frickin’ Gyllenhaal as Seymour and another rising comedic superstar, Taran Killam of SNL fame as Orin. I have read in many articles and fan postings that the show was superb.

What about you? Are you a fan of Little Shop of Horrors? Do you enjoy darker musical theatre? Let me know!