Search And Destroy: Musicals

Generally I'm not into musicals but there are a couple that I love to death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmR6ozpksGY&feature=related

oh man I just teared watching this one - ilu Jerry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEW1F9kZ-UE&feature=related

saw Bernadette & Elaine in A Little Night Music tonight, worth at least $50 of the $70 I paid.

Search: Cabaret
Destroy: Any musicals involving children, especially orphans/urchins.

love this thread, as my daughter needs to watch a half-dozen musicals for forth-grade (dvd's count). she's devoured some children's fare, and now actually wants to watch les miserables (we'll see how that goes; it's a dark, intense work for a near 10-year old).

are there any "musicals" centered around really weird abstract non-anthemic non-singsong music?

The Off-Broadway stage production itself sounds horrible, but I'm really, really, really loving the soundtrack to "Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter." Straddles the line between indie-rock and musical very nicely, and a lot of the songs are very strong. Some power-pop, some glam-rock. Took me very much by surprise. Opening track (less rock than some)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy13Oj8rHRQ

It's on Spotify. Check "I'll Save The Day" for more perspective.

Adding one more, more along the lines of New Pornographers. The actual show has dire reviews, but kind of surprised the soundtrack hasn't made at least a teeny bit more noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsHYXK3btjw

seeing Chicago tomorrow as it happens

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/theater/review-in-hamilton-lin-manuel-miranda-forges-democracy-through-rap.html?hpw&rref=arts&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

I'd like to see this

excerpt:

During the first half of the 20th century, the American songbook was often dictated by Broadway tunesmiths. But by the late 1950s, songs from musicals had become a quaint breed apart from the songs that America danced to and sang in the shower. And though many major talents have tried to close that gap (including Mr. Miranda in his amiable but less thoroughly realized Broadway hit “In the Heights”), Spotify-friendly tunes have tended to show up only in those cumbersome recycling centers known as jukebox musicals.

But, lo and behold, there are songs throughout “Hamilton” that could be performed more or less as they are by Drake or Beyoncé or Kanye. And there’s none of the distancing archness found in those recent (and excellent) history musicals at the Public, “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” and “Here Lies Love.” “Hamilton” isn’t cool; it’s utterly sincere, but without being judgmental or pious. And its numbers come across as natural and inevitable expressions of people living in late-18th-century America.

Acknowledging no disconnect between its sound and its setting, “Hamilton” bypasses the self-consciousness of anachronism. What’s more, it convinces us that hip-hop and its generic cousins embody the cocky, restless spirit of self-determination that birthed the American independence movement. Like the early gangsta rap stars, the founding fathers forge rhyme, reason and a sovereign identity out of tumultuous lives.

It also feels appropriate that the ultimate dead white men of American history should be portrayed here by men who are not white. The United States was created, exclusively and of necessity, by people who came from other places or their immediate descendants.

Washington Post theatre reviewer goes to NY and loves it too. His contemporary musical reference: Tupac...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/history-as-youve-never-heard-it-before/2015/02/17/e803502e-b6e4-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html

The handiwork here is also proof positive of the reassuring resilience of the American musical and how marvelously adaptable, in capable hands, the form remains. Drawing on such varied influences as rap, pop, jazz and Broadway standards — and the vocabularies of ­Tupac Shakur, the Beatles and Gilbert and Sullivan — “Hamilton” is as smart about music as it is about the American Revolution. Along with “Wicked,” the all-time tweener sensation, and the perfectly irreverent “The Book of Mormon,” “Hamilton” will be talked about in years to come as a benchmark experience, one that opened the eyes of other theater-makers to new possibilities.

all tix been gone for current run for awhile, I assume it moving uptown is assured.

Its gotten so much acclaim. There was also a big profile of Miranda in the NY Times a little while back. I wonder if any music critics who are currently reviewing rap and r'n'b, have weighed in? Would like to see a non-theatre person appraisal.

interesting! btw i'd say that the marginalization of "show tunes" is part and parcel of the general marginalization of the live theater that begins as soon as the movies come in.

Not really getting that; the birth of song-driven musical plays in the way we think of them starts with either Show Boat in the late '20s or Oklahoma! in '43, so movies have already come in. Musical theatre can't be over before it gets started.

that's true. so maybe we'd have to date the marginalization of theater to a later date, but i definitely think the trend is broader than just a decline of show-tunes' ubiquity.

(though some have argued that the development of the modern "musical theater" is itself a kind of response to the rise of film; but that's a pretty oblique argument)

During the first half of the 20th century, the American songbook was often dictated by Broadway tunesmiths. But by the late 1950s, songs from musicals had become a quaint breed apart from the songs that America danced to and sang in the shower. And though many major talents have tried to close that gap (including Mr. Miranda in his amiable but less thoroughly realized Broadway hit “In the Heights”), Spotify-friendly tunes have tended to show up only in those cumbersome recycling centers known as jukebox musicals.

The Disney animation renaissance of the early 90s was built on animated musicals, which included the following songs that cracked the US top 10:

"Beauty and the Beast" - Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson
"A Whole New World" - Peabo Bryson & Regina Bell
"Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" - Elton John
"Colors of the Wind" - Vanessa Williams

In addition, "Circle of Life" (Lion King), "Someday" (Hunchback) and "You'll Be In My Heart" (Tarzan) all charted on the US top 40.

So, while it's fair to say that stage musicals didn't dominate the charts aside from some oddball one-offs for several decades (though I guess Chess is really a back-door effort because I think the album came first?), some of the biggest songs from the 90s have strong musical lineage to them; I don't think coming from movie musicals should count against them.

when is someone gonna stage Prince Among Thieves

btw there is a new book getting plenty of ink that posits that the USA was so traumatized by their experience of WW2 it facilitated the movement away from sophisticated prewar pop (Cole Porter, the Gershwins, H Arlen et al) to the brainlessness of '46-50s (novelties, Perry Como, easy listening Mitch Miller-disseminated pap).

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/01/the-great-american-songbook-isnt-dead/384764/

those kind of arguments are pretty much always wrong -- but they are also relatively impossible to prove wrong, which partly explains their continued appeal.

ah yes bebop, so brainless

I hate these kinds of arguments, they tend to be p ahistorical and more axe-grinding

46-50s pop is brainless? gtfo with that

the USA was so traumatized by their experience of WW2 it facilitated the movement away from sophisticated prewar pop

that Atlantic piece does not mention this theory/argument, which seems p ridiculous on its face

obviously not a UNIVERSAL theorem, of course there's always gold n' shit in every era.

(Many, if not most, of the Tin Pan Alley “cleffers” had been unabashed hacks, anyway. “I had to recognize for myself that I was not Irving Berlin,” recalled Sheldon Harnick, one theatrical songwriter who nevertheless balked at the pressure to conform to the “crap” that was topping the Hit Parade in the early 1950s.)

B-b-but some of my all-time favorite pop songs are "crap" pop from the pre-rock fifties.

all this stuff: some leading factors in the decline of the Great American Songbook could certainly be pinned on murky dealings behind the scenes, including the ongoing skirmish between the two leading music publishers (the old-guard American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and the upstart Broadcast Music, Inc.), the rising influence of radio disc jockeys (a show business phenomenon comparable to “an atomic bomb,” howled Variety), and the “payola” scandal that would eventually scandalize the industry. Dwindling sales of sheet music, once a staple of the industry, ended the careers of many composers, as did television’s displacement of the theater as the American family’s favorite pastime.

make sense. no half-assed theorizing about the American psyche required.

xp

really Shakey, there was a ton of bebop at the top of the charts?

DJP, I think Broadway people consider movie musicals, particularly the animated Disney ones, a breed apart not only bcz of the medium but there's so much more capital for them (and in Disney's case, millions of wee zombie disciples).

hey you just said 46-50s, you didn't say anything about chart-topping

"pop" as in popular

"race records", hillbilly music, jazz from that era is incredible and was popular albeit not chart-topping - and I don't think it's popularity reflected any shift in the American psyche akin to some kind of facile "omg I can't DEAL WITH FANCY LYRICS anymore! cuz WW2" reading, those forms represented an expansion of the industry beyond the rich white guys that were largely running shit prior.

I haven't read that book (I'm assuming you have?) but the author doesn't appear to make that argument you posted based on that Atlantic article.

geez i don't have time to read books about MUSIC

ok here is the specific piece on NPR i heard re that angle

Ben Yagoda: There was a change in popular taste. The soldiers who had come back from World War II didn't seem to be as interested in the more complex, challenging kind of popular song, the more jazz-based song. Sentimental ballads and, yes, novelty numbers, suddenly was much more appealing.

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/23/379086600/when-pop-broke-up-with-jazz

goodbye ILM

among other problems those arguments universalize (and also homogenize) the experience of WWII vets

i don't think sentiment has ever gone out of fashion

goodbye ILM

we should be so lucky :)

I don't know how you would even begin to quantify or back up that assertion

xp

Never saw Lin Manuel-Miranda "In the Heights" onstage, but just saw the movie and it was ok. The music and dancing was fun (although not amazing) but the plot story lines took so long to unfold and were kind of frustrating when you did figure them out. Why didn't the girl leaving Stanford just try to transfer to another school rather than letting her dad sell his business to pay for tuition? And yeah, I see Miranda has now apologized for having so many of the characters being light-skinned Latinx rather than Afro-Latinx.

Poor phrasing on that last item, but its referring to the choice of the actors and actresses.

"In the Heights" was never really renowned for its book, which doesn't have a huge amount of conflict or a big arc (the movie did actually change quite a lot from the stage version, though). it's more the characters, the music, and the choreography that really sold that one.

that said I really enjoyed the movie, but I ventured to NYC to see the original in 2008

the biggest change in the movie is that Nina's mother is alive in the stage version and butts heads with Nina's dad a lot and removing her took a lot of that dynamic away

Yeah, good songs, blah story, too long. Don't know how long the original show is but this felt like they didn't want to cut anything from it (though I see from Neanderthal's comment, they did)

there were two full-fledged songs cut from it, yet the length was still about the same, weirdly

I imagine cutting songs when adapting musicals to screen is done very carefully for fear of risking fan backlash

one of the songs cut was like a powerful second act song that many people used as like audition pieces/etc. was very surprised.

weirdly, no songs were added, either, which is usually a ploy to become Oscars-eligible for Best Original Song. almost all movie musicals have at least one song added (Hairspray had several)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/arts/dance/in-the-heights-dance.html

Scott, who comes from the street dance world of Los Angeles and is not Latino, worked with a team of associate choreographers who specialized in a range of styles, including Latin dance, hip-hop, ballet and contemporary dance
...
His team of associate choreographers is solid: Eddie Torres Jr. for Latin dance, with Princess Serrano as assistant Latin choreographer; Ebony Williams for ballet, contemporary dance, Afro and dancehall; Emilio Dosal, a popper who is versatile in many styles and brings the hip-hop element to the film; and Dana Wilson, who had a hand in everything — like all of the choreographers — but specifically worked with the actors to help them nail the physicality of their characters.

Above NY Times article is on the dance aspect and not the songs as referenced above