Musical Theatre Mondays

When I think of Christmas musicals - I don't often think of musicals that actually happen during Christmas. What I do think of is  The Sound of Music.  I think that's because like most Americans, after Christmas presents have been opened and faces have been stuffed with food - I watch TV with my family and there is usually some station playing a 24 hour rotation of The Sound of Music . And because I love a soft focus and truly believe that Julie's voice is sent straight from heaven - I can't help but watch. It's one of the first musicals I can remember watching with both of my grandmothers - they both instilled a great love of Julie Andrews in me. I learned a lot of things in preparation for this week's post so let's listicle this a la Buzzfeed. 10 things that Natalie has learned about or finds really interesting about The Sound of Music: 1. It was the last of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musicals. (source: Mental Floss ) It opened on Broadway in 1

I'm lucky enough to have spent the last few months in rehearsal for a really special production of A Christmas Carol at Centerpoint Legacy Theatre (CPT). With music by Alan Menken (the man behind all your favorite Disney stuff) and lyrics by Lynn Aherns (the woman behind Ragtime and Anastasia ) it is so joyful and catchy. Now I'm always a little emotional when I'm watching something on stage. Sometimes it's from the music, sometimes it's purely just an outlet for how happy I am to be watching the show (or how happy I am for the people that get to be performing it it), but very rarely do I get emotional about shows that I perform in. I think you become sort of desensitized to the story and the touching moments because you've gone through the very rigorous process of rehearsing them over and over and over again. But as I sang the last few lines of our curtain call number during our final dress rehearsal on Saturday, I could barely hold back tears as I sa

Since we focused on one of the most influential choreographers last week - it's only appropriate that we talk about one my favorite and one of the most famous dance scenes from a movie musical:  the barn dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers! In my experience, this is something that just about everyone has seen and even if musicals "aren't their thing" can admit that it's pretty freaking cool. I'll get to a post about the show as a whole later as it is one of my favorite musicals and has some really fun songs, but where I think this show really shines is in the dancing. Four of the 6 brothers and all of the brides are professional dancers so unlike other movie musicals where a "dream version" of the lead characters is subbed in for big dance scenes - it's the same people! (Although most of their singing voices were dubbed in.) Here are my two favorite things about this dance: These dancers make the dancing look so easy! It appears e

On the set of West Side Story For a change of pace this Musical Theatre Monday, I wanted to focus on dancing. Dancing is not really my personal strong point, but it's usually one of the things I enjoy most about any show. I used to find the ballet dream sequence in Oklahoma and Singing in the Rain endlessly boring because I was an annoying teenager, but as I've gotten older and I become less flexible and capable by the second - I marvel at the talent of these people who made their careers off of their ability to dance. I feel like aside from a few notables of this day and age - being a famous dancer isn't really a thing anymore. It's usually that you're a singer who can dance or a dancer who can sing - who becomes famous from singing. But since we're still focusing on the Golden Age, I thought it would be fun to highlight a choreographer who really defined dancing in musicals as we know it today - Jerome Robbins. If you've ever seen a local product