On Twitter yesterday, you'd think someone had died. Or lots of people. Or perhaps there had been a bloody massacre of unprecedented proportions. But what really happened was that nine shows …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM[SHARE]Certain musicals just keep coming back into my field of vision, offering me opportunities to consider the shows afresh. Most of the time, I see new things to appreciate, if not always enjoy.…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM[SHARE]Snow day here at the BoCo. Gives me a chance to catch up on some blogging. Here goes... Each semester, I begin my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory by asking students…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM[SHARE]Yeah, I know. I've been greatly remiss in my blogging duties. Mea culpa. I'm wearing a hair shirt even as I type. But the semester is in full swing here at The Boston Conservatory, and this …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM[SHARE]Papers, papers, papers. I recently sat down to calculate how many pages I would be reading and grading this semester. I have 79 students, who will engage in a total of 15 writing projects. T…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM[SHARE]Ah, spring break. Time for me to catch up on some long-overdue blogging. Towards the start of each semester, the students in my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory emba…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:58PM[SHARE]I don't know about you, but I'm definitely bored with the whole Spider-Man thing. Last week, the show finally opened after a record-breaking 183 previews, but I had long since given up payin…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:48PM[SHARE]This is not a review. I repeat: This is not a review. As you may know, the fine, talented, and delightful crew that gave us [title of show] are hard at work on a follow-up, previously titled…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:02PM[SHARE]I haven't watched the Tony Awards yet. I know that sounds strange, but I had a concert to attend last night, and earlier this year I disconnected my TiVo and got rid of cable, and I haven't …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:01PM[SHARE]It's funny how reasonable critics, and audience members, can disagree about the merits of a particular piece. After I sat through Lysistrata Jones last Friday night - "endured" would be a mo…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 10:29PM[SHARE]Thrilling musical theater can come from the most unlikely places. As I'm forever reminding my students, there's no such thing as a bad idea for a musical, only poor execution. If you amass t…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:16PM[SHARE]Before posting my recent review of A Minister's Wife, I thought long and hard about my reaction to the show. I went in genuinely wanting to like the show, but somehow it left me rather cold.…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:58PM[SHARE]On Wednesday, the producers of the new Off-Broadway musical Lucky Guy announced that the show would be closing this coming Sunday, May 29th, after only 14 regular performances and 23 preview…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:39AM[SHARE]When My One and Only had its out-of-town tryout in Boston back in 1983, word got around town rather quickly that the show wasn't working. Avant-garde opera director Peter Sellars was origina…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:47AM[SHARE]The Independent Theater Bloggers Association (ITBA) is proud to announce the 2011 recipients of the Third Annual Patrick Lee Theater Blogger Awards. Patrick Lee was one of the ITBA's foundin…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:29AM[SHARE]In a theater season replete with commercial-minded, but artistically spare, musicalizations of Hollywood properties (Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), it's rat…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:04PM[SHARE]You know what's really humbling? Being in a room with a bunch of people who know a lot more than you do, about a subject that you thought you knew a whole lot about. And you know what's even…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:07PM[SHARE]The movie "Born Yesterday" is easily one of my all-time favorites. I love to pop in the DVD on a rainy afternoon and luxuriate in the warm glow of Judy Holliday's star-making performance as …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:22PM[SHARE]Playwright Tony Kushner has been much in the news lately. A well-received revival of his award-winning Angels in America recently ended a much-extended run at the Signature Theatre Company i…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:14PM[SHARE]Hmm, maybe this year the Tony Awards won't be a complete and utter embarassment. It seems as though the Tony nominating committee really took to heart the rampant (and warranted) criticism t…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 04:14AM[SHARE]In all of the hubbub of the end of the Broadway season and the end of the Boston Conservatory semester, it totally slipped my mind that my blog turned five in April. Five years of blogging. …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:38AM[SHARE]As a member of the Independent Theater Bloggers Association, I am pleased to announce the nominations for the Third Annual Patrick Lee Theater Blogger Awards. Patrick Lee was one of the ITBA…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:09AM[SHARE]Phew. I'm finally caught up with my blogging on this season's musicals. (And it wasn't always pretty, m'kay?) Also, I've submitted all of my grades at the Boston Conservatory, so I have a ch…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:07PM[SHARE]Readers who only recently entered the EIKILFM fold could be forgiven for thinking that I hate everything. True, many of my recent reviews have been negative, to say the least: The People in …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:45AM[SHARE]After the final curtain for The People in the Picture, the couple seated next to me saw that I had been taking notes and asked if I was a critic. I said yes, but that they might not like hea…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:06PM[SHARE]I can't be bothered to write a lead for this review. Perhaps if the authors had bothered to write a show, I might be so inclined. Instead, Baby It's You, currently defiling the venerable Bro…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:15PM[SHARE]The essence of theater is artifice. As audience members, we know that we're being manipulated, and yet we're eager to submit, as long as the production in question exhibits craft and genuine…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 10:05PM[SHARE]We've come to expect the worst from Frank Wildhorn. The composer who gave us Jekyll & Hyde, The Civil War, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Dracula, the Musical has certainly made a name for himse…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:40PM[SHARE]At various points throughout the new musical Catch Me If You Can, leading man Aaron Tveit turns to the audience to flash a toothy grin amid the glow of a pin spot to indicate that his charac…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:07PM[SHARE]Things haven't been going all that well for the Roundabout Theatre Company over the past few seasons, particularly when it comes to musical theater. Two seasons back, Pal Joey was a thorough…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:03PM[SHARE]A few days ago, the good folks at the Public Theater announced that the national tour of Hair, currently wending its way across the country, would settle onto Broadway this summer for a ten-…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:08PM[SHARE]
