The Showtune Thread, or Can You Hear the People Sing?

Originally Posted by Conqueso

To get things started, I'll talk about one of my favorite composers writing for Broadway today, Adam Guettel. He's one of those "artsy-fartsy" new generation composers who tend to flop commercially, although his most recent show, The Light in the Piazza, has enjoyed some success, winning more Tony Awards than any other show that year and currently nearing the end of a 15-month run. Still he writes great music, really complicated stuff with bizarre (yet utterly logical) chord changes and murderous piano parts. Anybody else know him? Like him? Hate him and want to talk about Andrew Lloyd Webber instead?

Light in the Piazza *drool* srsly. It's some of the most gorgeous music that I've ever heard from broadway.

As for stuff I've been in, it hasn't been much, but it's been fucking great:

Sweeney Todd: I sang in the chorus, and it was utterly rewarding musically. I hadn't come as far along in my acting, so it wasn't as rewarding as far as that goes, but, hey, how can it NOT be fun when you're in a semi-straitjacket, you're on the procenium arch, and you're up a girl's skirt headfirst. Oh, and the whistle blows at the end of one of the segments of "City on Fire," and she pulls it. I had some friends in the audience who said "Oh my God, that was so wrong."

Parade: Again, chorus member, but this was just as rewarding musically and acting-wise. With occasional steps into that scary place I know as "method," and some of the most challenging music I've ever had to sing (and most earworm-ish, that stuff's STILL stuck in my head.) Anything that has me as a Southern preacher who gets to do horribly racist stuff like dance around a jewish couple and laugh at the top of my damn lungs? Sweet. Also, great way for me to practice telling horribly fucked-up jokes while keeping a straight face, so the audience wouldn't KNOW I was being fucked-up. Love it.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Conqueso

That's so cool, that you've gotten to do ambitious stuff like Sweeney and Parade. Were those amateur or professional productions? My community's amateur theatre favors "wholesome" entertainment like Grease.

Those were college productions, being cooperative projects between the Music and Theatre departments. The Theatre department has a lot more money to use for sets and costumes and stuff, and the Music department can bring in singers who can handle some of the more "legit" roles in those shows. Still, it has been great fun, and it's responsible for me turning into a Sondheim-head.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Touring Lion King is the total suck.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Meh, most Disney-on-Broadway sucks. You know what they NEED to do?





Bring over fucking Hunchback from Europe.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Falco meets Amadeus was interesting for a non-German speaker, to say the least. I recognized the music, and the fact that some characters spoke half in English and half in German made following it a little easier; also, I learned that if you take a hit of a ginormous crack rock and overdose, you get to go to heaven and see Jeannie again.

Oh, and repeating something I mentioned in the Mix Disc thread: We also need a stage version of Newsies. Either that or don't stop the people who really WANT to do it.

I was speaking idiomatically.