40 posts tagged with Broadway by hippybear.
Displaying 1 through 40 of 40.
O K L A H O M A
Here's the 1999 Broadway production of Oklahoma [3h], directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Hugh Jackman, Maureen Lipman, and Josefine Gabrille. It's a great production of the classic version of the story. More modern productions have been more subversive, but this is a more traditional presentation of this quite old musical.
Stereophonic on Broadway, it's an interesting story
Making Real Music for a Fake Band [43m] is from Slate's Decoder Ring podcast that digs pretty deep into a particular Broadway play that is the current Hot Ticket In Town [Playbill, Stereophonic]. It also digs into making real things for fake things. The episode looks at a multitude of excellent fake things you already know, and then the playwright David Adjmi and Will Butler formerly of Arcade Fire get into the show itself... A fictional Fleetwood Mac-esque band in the studio struggling to record an album of songs like this [1m45s] in the mid-Seventies. Here's a "retrospective trailer" looking back at its developmental run at Playwrights Horizons. [43s] [more inside]
The Cast Rolls Merrily Along Discussing Their Cast Album
So this is unexpectedly delightful! Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, Lindsey Mendez, Katie Rose Clark, Krystal Joy Brown, and Reg Rogers sit down with Seth Rudetsky to discuss the release of the Broadway Cast Album for Merrily We Roll Along [YT Playlist] in SiriusXM Cast Album Town Hall | Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway [52m]. Campy, joyous and full of laughter and some delightful theater stories! Merrily We Roll Along previously.
Bebe Neuwirth [and Chip Zien] Walks Down Memory Lane
Playbill gets Bebe Neuwirth to sit down and talk about her history in theater. Two-time Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth discusses Chicago, A Chorus Line, and her Broadway return in Cabaret. [... and so much more, 40m] She is so full of joy and thrill about her career, it exudes through the screen and runs all over the place. Watch with care. [more inside]
2024 Spring Preview Of Broadway Shows
Wondering what upcoming Broadway shows to see? Up next, our panel of opinionated theater experts tell us THEIR must-sees. CUNY TV THEATER: All the Moving Parts 2024 Spring Preview of Broadway Shows [~1h]
Saturday Night Musical: Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
This is maybe the worst possible filmings of one of the best musicals of the past decade. Here is Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (Original Broadway Cast), a YouTube playlist of each song in this sung-through musical assembled from various audience cameras from across its run. Here's also the entire musical assembled out of these individual clips [2h14m], with slight tweaks to improve the flow. Bonus: Original Cast Album [YT Playlist] [more inside]
Saturday Night Musical: Victor/Victoria
Here's a pro-filming of Julie Andrews in the Blake Edwards-directed Broadway production of Victor/Victoria. [2h25m] I've only ever seen Andrews in films so seeing her filmed on a stage felt a bit jarring. A clever musical farce adaptation with brilliant staging.
White, a blank page or canvas, his favorite, so many possibilities
CUNY TV brings us Stephen Sondheim's Legacy, part of their Theater: All the Moving Parts series. It's an hour looking back at Sondheim, with the first half-hour in conversation with three Stephenstans [Sondheimistas?], and the second part with his official biographer and a CUNY music scholar.
Shampoo For Real Friends, Real Poo For Sham Friends
A Jew walks into a bar White Nationalist meeting. He emerges with a Broadway hit. Alex Edelman's [Wikipedia] one man show Just For Us [show website] has opened [NYT review, archive] and he's been doing press. Alex in conversation with Josh Grobin at 92Y from late last month [1h14] for a surprisingly vulnerable exchange. He also talked to Tim Miller for The Next Level [56m] in a conversation wide-ranging and insightful. Finally, he appeared on Late Night With Stephen Colbert in 2022 when Just For Us was off-Broadway. [7m31s]
Nathan Lane Breaks Down His Broadway Career
In the inaugural entry to Playbill's new video series, "My Life in the Theatre," Lane sits down with a Playbill binder containing every Playbill from every show he's ever done on Broadway. [26m30s] Lane walks us through his career, including the time he asked Sondheim to write new songs for "The Frogs," how he almost changed his name to Norman Lane, and the production where he played a "thug version of Donald Trump."
carol gave me this copy ok?
As Carol Burnett is being celebrated for being quite aged, still alive, still working, and still hilarious, let's look back at this 1964 television adaptation of Once Upon A Mattress [1h11m], the 1959 Broadway musical that made Burnett famous. Also in the cast are Joseph Bova, Jack Gilford, Jane White, and Elliot Gould in his first appearance on any screen. This video was posted April 9 by Sam Gilford (Jack's son) with the description "carol gave me this copy ok? for Erenia" [more inside]
There's something exciting about trying to stage impossible things
So, I loved the book very deeply, and the movie was thrilling, but now... Life Of Pi is going to Broadway. (NBCNews, 6m, Al Roker, puppetry) I could see this being a thrilling theater experience. [more inside]
Not Your Normal Jukebox Musical
The best place to start, perhaps is with the Grammy Award-winning Original Cast Album [Grammy.com] for Tony-winning musical Jagged Little Pill [Wikipedia], with music by Alanis Morissette and book by Diablo Cody. Two ways to listen: YouTube Playlist, or (much more fun) a Virtual Album Celebration with the cast [1h16m] as they listen to the album together for the first time ever and record their reactions. Now, let's dig in. [more inside]
A Strange Loop
A gay black man working as an usher on Broadway is writing a musical about a gay black man working as an usher on Broadway who is writing a musical about a gay black man working a an usher on Broadway writing a musical. This recursion forms the basis for A Strange Loop [Wikipedia, trailer, 2m30s], a musical that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama [Pulitzer.org] but only just NOW is headed to Broadway thanks to COVID [NPR, article with listen link]. Here is the Original Cast Album [YouTube playlist]. [more inside]
Fun Home
A lesbian coming-out story, a father's suicide, life in a funeral home... Perhaps not the most likely subjects for a Broadway musical, but in 2015, the truly transcendent play Fun Home opened, and broke all expectations. Written by Tony-winnters Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron, based on a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel [author reading and Q&A, 51m], the show is touching, hilarious, tragic, and ultimately very very human. Here is an edited audience bootleg (several sources, really good) of the original Broadway Cast [Vimeo link, 1h41m], including Michael Cerveris, Judy Kuhn, and Beth Malone. [more inside]
Bobby, or maybe Bobbie?
Company is finally back on Broadway this week after a 20-month hiatus. There were only nine preview performances before all the theaters in New York went dark during the pandemic. Now the cast celebrates its return with a Tiny Desk performance filmed a few blocks away from the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre at the CIVILIAN Hotel. It's the 35th birthday celebration for the lead character, Bobbie, but also a reunion for this ensemble. [more inside]
The Frogs
Stephen Sondheim was riding high on a wave of his own creation. After the artistic success of Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music, he chose as a follow-up to reunite with Burt Shevelove, with whom he had visited Ancient Rome, this time Ancient Greece. 1974's The Frogs was "freely adapted" from Aristophanes, ran for a week, and was staged in the Yale Swimming Pool [1h30m audio audience recording, acoustics what you'd expect], which is why you've probably never heard of it. Here's Nathan Lane and Brian Stokes Mitchell from 2001, recording the original score, with attaching dialogue and material to sketch out the plot. [Enjoy the bonus Evening Primrose songs (with NPH!)] [more inside]
Into The Woods
Stephen Sondheim wanted to something funny. After the intensity of Sunday In The Park With George, he decided to turn, again with James Lapine, to classic art. In this case, fairy tales. The resulting show, Into The Woods, is one of those truly magical creations, running for over 750 performances across nearly 2 full years on the boards. It lost the 1987 Best Musical Tony Award to Phantom, but won Best Score and Best Book and Best Actress, so. there. Here is the American Playhouse filming of the original Broadway production of Into The Woods [2h31m]. [more inside]
"The woman is absolutely riveting. I can't. She's so brilliant." -humbug
Assassins
Stephen Sondheim was being stymied by historical events. After the truly massive success of Into The Woods, he delved into darker subjects for his next show, 1990's Assassins. An exploration of the American Dream and the broken people it fails, the show opened Off-Broadway just a month before the First Gulf War began. Public sentiment during wartime didn't favor criticism of US culture, and the show never transferred to Broadway. When it finally did land on The Great White Way in 2004, THAT production was delayed from its intended 2001 opening due to 9/11. Here is a "C-grade" VHS audience filming of the Broadway Production from 2004, with Neal Patrick Harris and Michael Cerveris. It's watchable, but it isn't great. [more inside]
A Little Night Music
Stephen Sondheim was riding pretty high in 1973. His previous two shows, Company and Follies, were both gigantic artistic successes, and everyone was waiting with baited breath for his new show, A Little Night Music. A period country house drama set mostly in waltz time, the show was Sondheim's third consecutive Best Musical Tony Award winner, and yielded (so far) the only radio hit from a Sondheim show. Here is an excellent filming of the New York City Opera production from 1990 [2h55m]. [more inside]
Passion
Stephen Sondheim had not been on Broadway for nearly five years. Assassins had been an off-Broadway production, and so when Passion opened in 1994, after a very labored preview process (and still not widely lauded in reviews), it received a lot of attention. Nominated for 10 Tony awards, one of the four trophies it won was Best Musical, which after only running for 280 performances makes it the shortest-running show to win the top award. Here is the Original Broadway Cast's remarkable performance [1h55m] of this one-act, melodically intertwined musical involving lessons about love. [more inside]
Follies
Stephen Sondheim was riding pretty high in 1971. His show Company was a year into its strong Broadway run when he opened a second show on Broadway, the ambitious Follies. Directed by Hal Prince and Michael Bennett, the show ran for over 500 performances, won 7 Tony awards, introduced several new standards to the American Songbook, and ultimately closed as a financial failure. Here is a good quality audience recording of the 2011 Kennedy Center revival [2h10m], starring Bernadette Peters, Elaine Page, and Linda Lavin. [more inside]
Merrily We Roll Along
Stephen Sondheim was a hot property in 1981. Riding the momentum of Sweeney Todd, his next musical would be Merrily We Roll Along [Wikipedia], and that would be a gigantic flop, closing after over 50 previews, dozens of rewrites, and only 16 performances. The show would be rewritten again a couple of times before this 2012 London production was filmed [2h15m]. [more inside]
A bit of Company for the weekend
Stephen Sondheim had been successful (and not) on Broadway for over a decade before Company [Wikipedia]. In a lot of ways, it redefined "musical", being less about a straightforward plot and more about emotional honesty and development. One major (and majorly entertaining) performance was a 2011 New York Philharmonic concert production [2h25m], with Neal Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Jon Cryer, and Patti LuPone (amongst others). But, if you like comparison/contrast studies, there are others! [more inside]
Pacific Overtures
Stephen Sondheim's least-performed (and perhaps most ambitious) musical Pacific Overtures [Wikipedia] premiered on Broadway in 1976 and ran for 109 performance and won two of the two Tony awards it was nominated for. The original production and cast was filmed and shown on Japanese television. It is also on YouTube [2h20m]
The Marx Brothers Live!
The Marx Brothers Early Career Explored in Fascinating New Book Robert S. Bader spoke to us about his book detailing the Marx Brothers' rise in vaudeville. In a 2016 article, Robert S. Bader talks to DenOfGeek about the Marx Brothers' early career on stage, even on Broadway, long before their movie career started. [more inside]
Stephen Sondheim Is Still Alive And Turns 90 Years Old Today
I hope the headline didn't stop anyone's heart. Here's a video from Playbill of Broadway stars wishing Stephen a happy birthday (~10m). It includes Mandy Patinkin bark-howling the song.
We Are Live!
When I'd Give Her The World, She Asks Instead For Some Earth
The Tony award-winning 1991 Broadway production of The Secret Garden (adapted from Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel) is not particularly well-known. Its house is haunted by the past and its young heroine struggling to grow into the future. The show's sophisticated examinations of love and loss and its depiction of youthful self-discovery was deeper than typical musical fare. The main record we have of this show is the Original Broadway Cast recording [discogs], which features Daisy Eagan, Mandy Patinkin, and John Cameron Mitchell (very much pre-Hedwig), amongst others, and contains between song scenes which flesh out the story even for those who have never seen the show. Here's a YouTube playlist (I apologize for the commercials). [more inside]
Hamstrumentals
Lin-Manuel Miranda gets together with ?uestlove and Black Thought to announce the release of The Hamilton Instrumentals, and to freestyle a bit. [more inside]
Tony Award Ceremony Musical Performance Roundup
Have a round-up of the thrilling musical performances (with some introductions) from the 2017 Tony Awards [in no particular order]: Bandstand -- "Nobody", Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet Of 1812 -- "Dust And Ashes" "The Abduction" (Medley), Dear Even Hansen -- "Waving Through A window", Come From Away -- "Welcome To The Rock", Miss Saigon -- Medley ("This Is The Hour", "I'd Give My Life For You"), Hello Dolly! -- "Penny In My Pocket", Groundhog Day -- "Seeing You", Falsettos -- "A Day In Falsettoland", Warpaint -- "Face To Face" [more inside]
Groundhog Day
NPR is hosting a First Listen of the Original Cast Recording of Groundhog Day: The Musical. Music and lyrics by Tim Minchin.
Come From Away
September 11, 2001: US airspace is closed to plane travel after the WTC attacks, and nearly 40 planes were diverted to the small Newfoundland town of Gander, stranding around 7000 people in a town of ~10,000 for several days. An unlikely subject for a Broadway musical, you might say. But NPR has a first listen of the Original Cast Album for the show Come From Away, and it's a fun, witty, soulful work that is worth a listen.
Well, there never was a hat!
As Jake Gyllenhaal begins his stint as the lead in Sondheim's Sunday In The Park With George, he's posted on Facebook a video of him singing Finishing The Hat, filmed by Cary Fukunaga. [Ed note: I think he does a pretty good job!]
Hurt Locker: The Musical
Neil Patrick Harris is getting glowing reviews for his turn in the title role in Hedwig And The Angry Inch, now playing on Broadway. But wait, why is "internationally ignored song stylist" Hedwig even playing Broadway in the first place? Because the Belasco Theater was suddenly available because Hurt Locker: The Musical opened and closed on the same night. In fact, the floor of the theater is found to be littered with discarded Playbill magazines for the failed production. [more inside]
Chess: A Musical
CHESS MOVES [27m14s] was a 1985 VHS release hosted by Sir Tim Rice comprising of the five music videos made to promote the 1984 album Chess. The individual videos are One Night In Bangkok (Murray Head), Nobody's Side (Elaine Paige), The Arbiter (Björn Skifs), I Know Him So Well (Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson), and Pity The Child (Murray Head). [more inside]
2012 Tony Awards Performances
The cast of The Book Of Mormon provide the opening number, "Hello", for the 66th Annual Tony Awards. This preceeded the celebrated opening number "What If Life Were More Like Theater?" (previously). But there were many other performances that night... [more inside]
The Sex Is In The Heel
What is Cyndi Lauper doing to follow up her brilliant, well-received (and award winning) 2010 album Memphis Blues? Why, she's writing a musical! A stage adaptation of the charming UK film Kinky Boots which will be opening in Chicago later this year, with an anticipated move to Broadway in 2013. Eager for a preview? EW is hosting a sneak peek of the track The Sex Is In The Heel (scroll down for player), and the track will be available for free download at the musical's website starting tomorrow. Lauper will also be performing the track live at the NYC Pride Parade this weekend, where she will be Grand Marshall.
The Angry, Outspoken, Activist Larry Kramer
It begins: “Thank you for coming to see our play. Please know that everything in ‘The Normal Heart’ happened. There were and are real people who lived and spoke and died, and are presented here as best I could.” The letter goes on to name some of the people on whom he based his characters (the central figure, Ned Weeks, is based on himself) and describe what became of them. [more inside]
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