Musical Theatre Mondays

Since the rights for non-professional theaters were released this spring, have you noticed that just about every local theatre is planning to do  Mamma Mia  during the 2019 season? I thought these theaters were trying to capitalize on current events with the new movie that just came out, but the facts below prove that movie or no movie - theatre goers around the world cannot get enough of this show! Mamma Mia! is the longest running jukebox musical in Broadway history and the 9th longest running Broadway show. It opened on Broadway in 2001 and closed in 2015. Whoa!  Unlike other jukebox musicals where the story follows the life of the musician ( Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and The Jersey Boys ), Mamma Mia! has its own story with ABBA songs woven in. The story is adapted from a 1968 film  Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell. Mamma Mia!  has played in over 50 countries (honestly - look at the Wikipedia list here ) and on  6 continents. In fact, Russia can't get enough of it

Last week's post got me thinking about the wealth of source material that Shakespeare has provided for musicals. West Side Story, All Shook Up, The Lion King, and Kiss Me, Kate all owe their storyline to the Bard. I'm not going to talk about any of those shows just yet, but wanted to focus on one of my favorites that never played on the Great White Way. Love's Labour's Lost was adapted by Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers (of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson fame) in 2013 for The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park and I cannot rave enough about it. It utilizes the existing Shakespearean text while adding new songs that are funny and beautiful. I am definitely of the belief that more community theaters should be doing Shakespeare on the regular because it's great stuff, but I understand that it's not going to bring in the buckaroos like a musical can. So this seems like a pretty good compromise. Also, I think the songs in this show can help add some

A wise director once told me that musical theatre is a "manufactured" art. You take different types of art - music, dance, and acting - and combine it into a whole new form. So it seems to make perfect sense that in order to manufacture a musical, you need to add something else to the combination: A really great piece of source material to drive the story. Some of the most important pieces of musical theatre are inspired by other pieces of art and if this year's Tony Awards were any indication - that number will only continue to grow. I think it's fun to look at how the musical theatre interpretations of these works has added to the fullness of the original piece. Below are three examples of pieces of art that will be forever changed for me because of their musical counterpart. Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (or A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte ) was the painting that inspired Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park