The fall semester at the Boston Conservatory is over. ("Big breath in. And release.") Now I get a chance to catch up on some much-delayed blogging. Among the numerous shows in my c…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:26PM[SHARE]I hated history in high school. At the time, I thought this was simply because the subject didn't interest me, but I eventually came to understand that it was because my history teachers wer…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:50PM[SHARE]Dear Reader: The following is a guest blog posting from one of my most loyal readers, and newest friends, Dr. Geoffrey Greene (@Elder_Greene) from Tampa. Enjoy. -- C.C. Just where has Tommy …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:30AM[SHARE]For most musical-theater performers, Godspell is a right of passage. Or at least it seems that way. I mean, is there any drama nerd out there who hasn't done Godspell? I suppose, perhaps, th…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:41PM[SHARE]I've always admired the work of Michael John LaChiusa. Let me rephrase that: I've always felt that I should admire his work. I appreciate the ambition of his material choices and his uncompr…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:03PM[SHARE]I've seen Candide more times than I can really count. The first time I saw the show, it was in a fourth-floor walk-up loft in the Back Bay of Boston. It was about 30 years ago, but I seem to…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:59PM[SHARE]I'm about to break one of the cardinal rules of my criticism course. I encourage my students to eschew "empty" adjectives ("amazing," "fabulous," "incredib…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:47PM[SHARE]Someone is always trying to bring Follies back to Broadway, or at least it seems. There was talk of moving the 1998 production at Papermill Playhouse to NYC, but apparently backstage politic…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:53PM[SHARE]So it's back to school for me and for my students. This semester promises to be even more zany-kooky-crazy than ever, and I couldn't be happier. Of course, one of the things I look forward t…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:11AM[SHARE]Well, apparently, my readers love a challenge. There was a huge response to the U.S. version of my Musicals Across the Map Quiz, in terms of blog traffic as well as Twitter chatter. So I fig…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:59PM[SHARE]Don't ask me how I got started on this. I can't really remember. I think I was looking at a map of Europe, and I suddenly started to think about various musicals that took place in each of t…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:29AM[SHARE]A confession: There are certain historic entries into the musical-theater canon that I've never really warmed up to, supposed masterpieces that I can appreciate for their innovations and cra…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:26PM[SHARE]A confession: There are certain historic entries into the musical-theater canon that I've never really warmed up to, supposed masterpieces that I can appreciate for their innovations and cra…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:26PM[SHARE]The songbook revue is both the easiest and the hardest type of theatrical show to pull off. "Easiest" because you seemingly just throw together a bunch of songs and let the audienc…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:20PM[SHARE]Well, Hurricane Irene seems to have officially landed ashore in the Boston area, so much of the city has rightly shut down to keep the populace safe. In particular, all events have been canc…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:00PM[SHARE]I was a bit delayed in seeing Death Takes a Holiday, the new musical with a score by Maury Yeston and book by the late Peter Stone and the not-late Thomas Meehan. The show is currently runni…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:56PM[SHARE]As I was in the process of writing this review, the producers of the new Off-Broadway production Traces announced that the show would be extending its run until January 2012. The show opened…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:34PM[SHARE]Lots of people seem to have their nose out of joint over the new Off-Broadway production of Rent, which opened last night at the New World Stages. (Well, those who aren't complaining about P…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 10:53PM[SHARE]Recently on Twitter, my friend Howard Sherman (@HESherman) started a hashtag topic on the best closing lines from the stage (#beststageclosinglines). Needless to say, I contributed a few of …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:01AM[SHARE]I'm not really a summer person. I never really have been. I've always looked forward to the fall, partly because my birthday is in September, but also because, when I was in school, I always…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 12:24PM[SHARE]How can a show be a masterpiece if it has no official version? That's the question I always pose to my students when we cover Show Boat. There's no question that the show is historically sig…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:58AM[SHARE]Yesterday on Twitter, there was a lot of talk about a recent list that EW.com posted of the 13 Funniest Broadway Musicals Ever. (Although upon closer inspection the list was actually publish…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:00AM[SHARE]Dear Reader: Here is the first in what I hope will be a series of Second Opinion reviews here on EIKILFM. The authors will be coming from my growing population of theater and criticism stude…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:43PM[SHARE]One of the most overused punchlines of recent times has been "[Fill in the Blank] -- The Musical." You take the most unlikely property and speculate about making it into a Broadway tuner, an…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:42PM[SHARE]One recent trend on Broadway has been a series of revivals of well-regarded plays that, in the harsh light of retrospect, have revealed themselves to be somewhat less than we once thought. T…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:42PM[SHARE]Dear Reader: For some reason, I didn't receive a press invite for the return engagement of Hair on Broadway. Harrumph. But I did get a chance to catch and review the touring production when …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:33AM[SHARE]I missed Sleep No More when it played in Boston in 2009, under the auspices of the American Repertory Theater. There was a mix-up with my press tickets, and by the time I realized something …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 10:00AM[SHARE]We don't see a lot of revues any more. There was a time, some 80 to 90 years ago, when musical revues were a staple of the Broadway theater scene. Of course, this was when "book musicals" we…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:53PM[SHARE]Every once in a while, I see a production that reminds me of what theater can really be. I'm not talking about commercial theater. I'm talking about theater in its purest form, which, at lea…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:59PM[SHARE]You may recall that the Tony Awards got booted out of the Radio City Music Hall this year and had to make do with the Beacon Theatre, which is about half the size. (Roughly 6,000 versus 3,00…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:14PM[SHARE]We seem to be seeing quite a bit more of these "cinecasts," i.e. Broadway shows and the like taped and presented in local movie theaters. It started with Rent, of course, and lately we've se…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 10:17PM[SHARE]
