The news just went out that Colleen Ballinger, who is famously known for creating the internet sensation Miranda Sings, will be making her Broadway debut as Dawn in Waitress for a four week run from August 20th through September 15th. I think that is wonderful.
Read MorePerforming in a Broadway show should be a dream come true for anyone stepping on the stage. But according to one actor, the last months of working on Broadway’s Anastasia were a nightmare.
Read MoreOn Sunday, Broadway’s biggest and brightest will converge on Radio City Musical Hall for the 73rd Annual Tony Awards. While many may disagree with me and the nomination totals might say otherwise, I don’t see any one show dominating the evening.
Read MoreThe 2019 Broadway season has been filled with theatre that speaks directly to the culturally relevant shifts shaping our world. From diversity and inclusion to feminism and politics, this season’s shows have tackled some tough subjects telling the stories that need to be told. I had the pleasure of speaking with a few of the Tony award nominees on June 3rd at the 2019 Honors for Excellence in the Theater and 2019 Special Awards recipients about the power of theatre to affect change, both personally and culturally.
Read MoreMay is #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, and Broadway is no stranger to mental health issues. Anxiety and depression have been tackled head on in recent hits like Dear Evan Hansen, and Be More Chill. These shows have brought the issues out of the shadows and into the spotlight by weaving relatable stories of characters who suffer into heartbreaking raw and honest songs.
Read MoreWhen the average person thinks about musicals, they often think about musicals from the golden age, like Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, or South Pacific to name a few. These musicals have maintained their popularity among musical theatre lovers and occasional theatre goers alike: they’re nostalgic, safe, and predictable. However, in today’s world, safe and predictable can also be exclusive and out of touch.
Read MoreYoung people today are bombarded by images of what they ‘should’ look like, due to social media exposure. The ‘perfect’ body is just a societal construct and this unhealthy ideal needs to be eradicated. Young people should be encouraged to accept themselves no matter their shape and size, and to be confident in themselves as people. No one likes horrible people, even if they are a size petite. The popular movie musical Grease is still hugely popular today, and while the songs are undeniably catchy, I don’t think the message portrayed by Sandy’s drastic change at the end of the movie is entirely the right one to be sending out to today’s impressionable teens and young adults.
Read MoreIt’s true that musical theatre has never been afraid of trying new things, and this seems to be especially true today. Whether it’s the diverse hip-hop influences in Hamilton, or the electro-pop opera that was Great Comet, or the musical melting pot of Hadestown, new musical landscapes are constantly being explored. That said, there remains one genre largely untouched by Broadway: heavy metal.
Read MoreBe More Chill has everything you could want in a musical- teen angst, a party scene (everyone loves a good party scene), catchy songs, and lovable characters. But at some point, everyone around you is going to get tired of you playing it every time they give you the aux cord. So- here’s a list of musicals you’ll fall in love with if you like Be More Chill.
Read MoreThis past weekend, I had the immense pleasure of visiting the Walter Kerr Theatre with a high school theatre company to see “Hadestown.” Going in, I had seen bits of the promo video, I had heard a few of the songs, and I knew the premise of the plot- Orpheus, and Eurydice set in a bluesy coal mining town kind of style. I knew, basically, what the production looked like, and I knew what it sounded like.
What I did not know, is what it would feel like.
Read MorePlaywright, Musician, Actor.
Dave Malloy’s effect on the musical theatre scene has already rooted itself in a place of absurdity and incredible thought. Through his ability to tell a story in both text and score, the audience can see a compliment and counter of the characters' emotions on stage. The subtext is brilliantly woven into the smallest of decisions, and each character seems to have reflective timbre, tone, and even instrumentation that supports what each person truly needs. Each one of his works finds a new way to enthrall the entire theatre, and call attention to the smallest of storylines, secrets, and tales.
Read MoreIn a world seeking connection, fans of Broadway seem to be able to find it even when they will never be able to be in the room where the magic happens. It is fascinating in a time when media’s success is measured by how many people it can reach, that the Broadway industry still thrives even as it’s isolated from so many of its fans, geographically speaking. A pinnacle example of this is the hit almost-Broadway show Be More Chill, whose unexpected success lies solely on the backs of the fans that revived it after a swift death off-off-Broadway.
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