Last week, there was an interesting discussion and debate on the Cast Recordings Facebook page over an article titled Twelve Cast Recordings That Will Change Your Life. There was a lot of back and forth over the piece since it mostly discussed newer musicals and one film soundtrack and seemed to dismiss almost everything in the pre-Rent era. There is nothing wrong in having your life changed by newer cast recordings. Indeed, musical theatre would be a very limited genre if we established some sort of cutoff point for musicals worthy of our attentions. The piece was obviously written by someone young and enthusiastic and it's easy to see how he'd be attracted to the contemporary pieces of his lifetime. That being said, the article was titled "Cast Recordings that will Change YOUR Life", so the author makes the egregious assumption that all of us will be taken with the titles he mentions. This proved not to be so when a variety of enthusiasts weighed in and admonished the absence of many classic titles on this list.
Bette Midler - Well, Hello, Dolly!
The announcement that Bette Midler will star in a Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! acts on me like a much-needed tonic where musical theatre is concerned. After a recent blog entry bemoaning the loss of honest to goodness old-fashioned musical comedy, what better way to usher back in the feel-good melody infused musical comedy than with a production of this Jerry Herman classic with the Divine Miss M's name over the title?
Hairspray, Huh? … Interesting Choice
The Wiz was an unqualified hit for NBC and what has become their annual holiday LIVE! musical. In fact, it was so much better than its predecessors The Sound of Music and Peter Pan that it has injected a little more life into this teetering series that is always on the brink of extinction, dependent on ratings and an assured audience made up of musical theatre enthusiasts (are we a dying breed?). Let’s face it: if they make a musical, we will come. Those of us who love musicals in any format will show up and give it a try, but live musical television counts on a much larger crowd getting on the bandwagon.
Broadway Musical Orgasms and Afterglow
A few weeks ago, some friends and I were chatting about songs from Broadway musicals that are sung in the throws of passion or in the glimmer of afterglow. Sex songs, so to speak. Sex is often a life-changing (or at least mood-changing) event in our lives and in musical theatre terms, such an experience deserves a song. Indeed, many of us would probably do a tap dance or fan kick it’s been so long, so we can understand the impetus for musicalization. If you look back over the history of musical theatre, the coital and post-coital song is there more often than you think. This blog entry in a celebration of the songs that came with heavy breathing or a concluded with a lit cigarette (so to speak).