Musical Theatre Mondays

I attended Little Shop of Horrors at my old high school (Go Warriors!) on Saturday and now I can't get "Suddenly Seymour" out of my head. I hadn't realized before the show on Saturday how great this song is! The lyrics are so sweet - both characters just want to be loved and treated well which everyone can relate to. "Suddenly Seymour" is a classic example of a character realizing they are in love while they are singing with/to the person of their affection. I love songs like that (see previous posts on that here and here ). But I think my favorite thing about this song is how much Audrey as a character develops within the song itself and the way the music builds to support that development. Audrey starts off very timid and apologetic both in lyrics and vocal strength, but by the end she is UN.A.FRAID. and I LIVE for the belt at the end of this song. (Click on the word "belt" in the previous sentence if you think I'm talking about a fashion...

Like I mentioned in the first post here on MTM, the first musicals I really remember being introduced to were Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera . This wasn’t necessarily a formal introduction – I grew up in a house with musical loving parents and was privy to their exploration of 80s musical theatre, but these shows opened a gateway into what is now a full blown obsession. However, the first song I remember someone deliberately sitting me down and making me listen to was “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls . Lately my immersion into musical theatre consists of songs that I could possibly use at auditions and since Adelaide’s Lament was on the “DO NOT PERFORM UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES” list for most of my formative years – I always overlooked it. But it’s an excellent song rich with comedy and a really great money note at the end. It might even be safe to do at auditions again! Fred Ebb, the lyricist behind Guys and Dolls had this to say about Adelaide: ...

I've been pretty lucky in my life to know people who love theatre as much as I do and who have pursued it as a career. One of those people is Spencer Potter. I've known Spencer since high school when he was busy acting in all of the shows, painting all of the sets and props and making amazing beards and now that we're grown up - he's had some of the coolest jobs all over the country. His MFA from Utah State University is in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in scenic and costume design means he can pretty much do it all, but his most recent gig is as an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Westminster College, a liberal arts college in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was kind enough to let me be his shadow for a couple of days to learn about the process of costuming a show. I was even more excited to learn that the show he was working on was Spring Awakening - one of my favorites. When I first came to Spencer with this idea, he mentioned that this would be a unique situation ...

Audra McDonald is so beautiful, so charming and witty and kind (from what I can tell via YouTube videos like this one and this one ), and I think one of the greatest actors to ever live. And I'm not even hyperbolizing - the awards speak for themselves. She has won SIX Tony Awards - that's more performance wins than any other actor AND the only person to have won an award for all four acting categories. If you ever want to see a lot of little green boxes, visit her Wikipedia page where it lists all of the awards she's won. I feel like nothing I can write would do justice to what your ears will tell you when you listen to her, so I posted a bunch of goodies for you below. Make sure to listen to "Your Daddy's Son" from Ragtime - it's the first time I ever heard her voice and I still love it as much today as I did then.

via Getty This week's post focuses on someone whose influence wasn't just in the theatre world, but has inspired those working in film and pop/jazz music as well. Lena Horne was an activist and an artist with a 70+ years long career. She was in movies. She was an activist. She was one of the first black performers in The Empire Room in the Waldorf-Astoria. She retired in 1980 and then went on to be in her own one-woman Broadway show that won her a Tony award - Live On Broadway Lena Horne: The Lady And Her Music . After reading story upon story of this fierce, 5'5" lady, it seems to me that she was unstoppable, but she had to be because of the world around her. She had to fight harder than those half as talented just to be seen and cast. Lena's career started in the chorus at The Cotton Club - a Harlem nightclub popular with celebrities during prohibition. After she had gained notoriety in the chorus, she participated in shows at Cafe Society in New York ...

Bert Williams It's Black History Month, and I don't know much, but I want to learn more about how The Civil Rights Movement not only helped shape our nation culturally and politically, but especially how it shaped the arts. I thought it would be best to start at the "beginning" of modern musical theatre with someone who I've found really interesting through my research. Egbert Austin Williams was born in 1874 in The Bahamas and came to be one of the most influential black American entertainers of all time. As you look at the timeline of musical theatre's evolution, you come upon minstrel shows which grew in popularity in the 1800s. Minstrel shows, in short and shameful summary, were white entertainers in blackface caricaturing black people in song, dance and skits. But by the later half of the century, black entertainers were starting their own minstrel troupes and performing for white audiences. In 1893, Bert joined Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minst...

I've been in callback land this week which means I usually obsess and listen to the same show over and over again. So I thought it was high time to write about one of the funnest Golden Age musicals - The Music Man . If you are just coming out of a 60 years long coma - here's a quick synopsis. Harold Hill is a con man who convinces a bunch of naive Iowans that he will save their young folk from the sin of pool by putting together a marching band. Conveniently he sells instruments and preaches the effectiveness of "The Think System" where you don't have to play the notes, but simply think of them. Of course he plans to leave town with the money from the instruments before the band can really take shape, but instead he falls for Marian Paroo, the town's librarian. He gets caught in his huge lie, but it all works out in the end - as most musicals of this time period are wont to do. It's just fun and has some of the best characters:  A fast talking con man...