Popular Broadway Songs [Youtbe Clips]

Behind the Scenes: Hamilton

I know everyone is looking forward to the big political transition this week.

Of course, I am talking about former Saturday Night Live cast member Taran Killam taking over the role of King George III in the musical Hamilton on Broadway. Taran is a good friend of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, and on Twitter promised to not screw up Lin's show.


In the lingo of the Hamilton cast, that will give Taran the title of King George III, the Fifth. The honor is transferred to Taran from the current King George, Rory O'Malley (formerly of Book of Mormon).

The role originated with Brian D'Arcy James (Shrek, Something's Rotten) off-Broadway. It arrived on Broadway with Jonathon Groff (Spring Awakening, Looking) in the role. When Jonathon took a break to film the Looking finale, Andrew Rannells (Book of Mormon, Girls) stepped in for six weeks. Groff finally left the show last spring, handing the role over to O' Malley.


Every Broadway cast has their backstage rituals. For the Hamilton company the peaceful transition of power is symbolized by the Ceremony of the Garter in which the current king confers the garter to the incoming monarch and the garter is blessed by none other than George Washington.

Yesterday (January 14) the official ceremony took place in between Saturday performances at the Richard Rodgers theater. This was a special ceremony because it included the blessing of two new Regents (understudies) as well. The original King George, Brian d'Arcy James was on hand to add gravitas.


More information

• By the way, happy 37th birthday to Lin-Manuel Miranda!
• The coronation of King George III, the Fourth (video)
• "The Schulyer Sisters" performed by King George III, 1-3 (Brian D'Arcey James, Jonathon Groff, Andrew Rannells) (Video)

The Book of Mormon

The Mormon boys adapted the beginning of their opening number to start the Tony Awards in 2013 - but once the curtain comes up this is pretty much what it looks like on stage.

What's not surprising about The Book of Mormon is that it is vulgar, blasphemous, and hilarious - considering it is coming from the minds of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matthew Stone. The twist is that it cares about these characters and actually makes a case for religion by the time the talented cast takes their bows.

Andrew Rannells as Elder Price confronts a crises of faith. Musical fans may note the homage in the opening verse to Maria Von Trapp's "I Have Confidence" in The Sound of Music.

Mormon is laced with Broadway references. Of course The Lion King gets a lot of traction, but there are really dozens of small riffs buried in the show. The religious pagent at the end is almost a complete steal from The King and I.

For More Information

• The Story Behind: Turn It Off with Elder McKinley (video)
• The Story Behind: Hasa Diga Eebowai (video)
• The Story Behind: The Show's Anthem 'I Believe' (video)
• Theater Talk: "The Book Of Mormon" cast, and choreographer/co-director Casey Nicholaw (video)
• Theater Talk: "The Book of Mormon" with co-writers Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Robert Lopez

Candide


Candide began as author Lillian Hellman's adaption of Voltaire's 1759 satiric novel of overly optimistic religion and philosophy. She wanted some music from Leonard Bernstein.

What Bernstein wanted was an entire comic operetta which became the 1956 musical on Broadway. The show flopped, but is remembered for its sparking score and Barbara Cook's incandescent performance. (Cook would go on to create the role of Marian the Librarian in The Music Man.)

Interesting to note that Leonard Bernstein was writing Candide at the same time he was working on West Side Story with Stephen Sondheim. Some songs originally intended for West Side ended up in Candide. Though Stephen declined to write lyrics for the original Broadway production, he did help out with adapting material for he 1973 revival.


The music went on to have a life of its own (especially the spectacular overture), but the show was largely avoided.

Hal Prince brought it back to Broadway in 1973, threw out half the songs and Hellman's book and had Hugh Wheeler (Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd) write a new one. With a young fresh cast and Eugene Lee's environmental set (shades of this season's The Great Comet of 1812) the new production ran for two years.

Since then it has become a favorite of opera companies looking for lighter fare. Right now New York City Opera has a production, again directed by Harold Prince, that opened to great reviews this month.


For more information

• Candide Overture conducted by Leonard Slatkin (video)
• New York Times review of the 2017 New York City Opera production
• Christina Bianco of Forbidden Broadway parodies Chenoweth with "Glitter and be Glib" (video)
• The Best of All Possible Worlds from the 2005 concert (video)
• Excerpt from the 1996 revival on the Tony Awards (video)
• A Guide to Leonard Bernstein's Candide on the Sondheim Guide website
• Leonard Bernstein teaches you music theory and history in five minutes (video)

Best of the Tonys


The Tony Awards provide these time capsules for shows and I ran across this gem from 1990. Tommy Tune's Grand Hotel was one of those shows that seemed destined to fail until the pieces fell together during previews. The show is done with minimal sets. (Here, a hotel bar is suggested by two dancers holding a single rail and the actors miming drinks.) But Tune's staging was so inventive, that you never noticed.

The number is Michael Jeter and Brett Barrett doing "We'll Take a Glass Together".


Listen to that crowd roar after the song. They are in love with that little man! Keep watching because the first award presented is Jeter's category and you can hear his acceptance speech which is one of the most touching I've ever seen.

Before Grand Hotel, Michael Jeter almost left acting behind. He had small parts in shows and films (including Hair in 1980) but they were few and far between and he got into drinking and drugs. Finally, at the end of the 1980's he managed to pull himself together, and right before he packed it all in Tune cast him in Hotel. His performance turned his career around. He went on to do popular movies (The Fisher King, The Green Mile) and TV (Evening Shade).

What Jeter does here is extraordinary. There is not an ounce of ego in this performance; he gives everything over to this simple man who is waiting to die. His mime skills with the drinks are so specific you forget there are actually no props involved. His legs seem to be made of rubber. Note - Jeter was not a trained dancer. But you can see he is a natural here.

The other thing I have to mention is who isn't on stage, and that is the exquisite David Carroll who originated the role of the Baron. The irony backstage was that while Jeter's character - the bookeeper - was dying in the play, it was actually Carroll who was ill with AIDS. His health went up and down during the run, and unfortunately he was out during the Tony Awards, so Barrett went on in his place.


The Original Cast Album for Grand Hotel was delayed until after the show closed due to rights issues. David Carroll went in to record his tracks early because his health had seriously deteriorated. Tragically he collapsed in the recording studio and passed away. Brett Barrett again stepped in to complete the album.

Broadway 2016-2017 Season

Broadway junkies might be interested in spending 25 minutes with theater columnist Michael Riedel and three of New York's top critics discuss what they are looking forward to this spring on Broadway.


Theater journalists Jesse Green, Michael Musto and Patrick Pacheco discuss the upcoming productions for spring 2017 in New York City, including revivals of Hello, Dolly! starring Bette Midler, Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard, Sunday in the Park with George starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, Miss Saigon, August Wilson's Jitney, Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon swapping roles in The Little Foxes, new plays Sweat, and Indecent.

Newsies: Part 1


Newsies, is coming to movie theaters in February. Not the flop 1992 Disney live action musical film; rather a new live capture of the 2012 Broadway stage hit starring Jeremy Jordan. It finished its National Tour back in October, but while it was playing LA they snuck the original leads back into the show, and filmed both the evening shows, as well as close-ups and sweeping crane shots during the day.

While this isn't a movie, it looks like a lot more elaborate than your average play shot for broadcast on PBS. Fathom Events is putting this in movie theaters across the US for three days. (Expect streaming and maybe DVD offerings worldwide after that.)

All good news if you are already a Newsies fan - and if you aren't there is a lot to recommend it. (It's a stage full of cute athletic dancing boys - how bad could it be?)

Over the next week or so, I'll put up some of the background of this show. It's origin story is somewhat unique, because it came to the stage based on demand from fans, rather than being churned out of the Disney marketing machine. It also redefined the relationship between a show and its audience by using social media to bring the fans into the lives of the cast and crew backstage.


UPDATE January 28 2017: I just saw an article saying that the Newsies: The Musical will be shown in movie theaters in Spain on March 9, so if you are in Europe keep an eye out for the show coming to theaters in your country maybe this spring.

Newsies: Part 2


In 1992 after several years of success doing Disney's animated musicals, Disney put composer Alan Menken to work on Newsies, a live action original film musical based on the newsboys strike of 1899 in New York. It was kind of Oliver! meets Annie, with a dash of West Side Story street life. The film opened to lukewarm reviews and even worse audience attendance and soon dropped out of sight.


But like The Princess Bride, Newsies found new life on home video and the kids that grew up with it found it fun and inspiring. Disney kept getting requests from schools and summer camps for the rights to do amateur productions, but nothing like that existed. That didn't stop bootleg amateur productions from popping up all over the US as fans cobbled together their own shows taking the songs and dialog from the movie.

Around 2009 Disney Theatricals approached composer Alan Menken about getting a staff writer to do an official stage adaption of the musical that they could release to schools, since productions seemed to be happening anyway. Rather than just sign off, Menken wanted to be involved and produce something of quality that he could be proud of. Disney engaged Broadway vet and script doctor Harvey Fierstein to work on the adaptation.


Fierstein dropped film scenes and combined characters - particularly two supporting roles to create a love interest for the lead Jack Kelly. After several readings, Disney gathered a creative team including director Jeff Calhoun (Bonnie & Clyde, 9 to 5) and choreographer Christopher Gattelli (South Pacific, Alter Boyz). In February 2011 they gathered a cast started work on the first workshop.

After some rewrites they brought the cast back together to mount the first public production at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey in September 2011. The short run sold out quickly. It was clear that the fans (or "Fansies", as they dubbed themselves) were ready to show up. Disney started looking for a Broadway theater for the Spring of 2012.


One small problem was that Newsies director and star were already opening a musical on Broadway in December: Calhoun's Bonnie & Clyde starred Jeremy Jordan and both of them had been working towards putting this up on Broadway for two years. Calhoun could take on the Disney show after the holidays, but Jordan was committed to B&C for a year.

That turned out not to be a problem when Bonnie & Clyde only ran a month, leaving Jordan free to return to his Disney company and open the show at the Nederlander theater (former long-term home of Rent) in March.

The show opened to good reviews, especially for the cast and Gattelli's non-stop choreography. Gattelli went on to win a Tony award and Newsies ran for a year and a half, followed by a national tour.


Newsies only exits because the fans demanded it. It ran for as long as it did because the fans kept coming back to see it again and again. The fans were particularly connected to the show for several reasons.

One has to be the vocally powerful and charismatic performance of Jeremy Jordan. Jeremy drew so much attention for his performance, that NBC bought out his contract with the show to get him into their TV show Smash. In a Cinderella story so typical of Disney, Jeremy was replaced by Corey Cott in August, who had just graduated from Carnegie Mellon University the same day Newsies won their Tony awards.

Another reason was featured actor Andrew Keenan-Bolger used his filmmaking skills to package backstage life at the Nederlander theater and sent it out to fans. But, that's a story for another day.

Recordings

Nick Pitera

To call Nick Pitera a YouTube celebrity completely overlooks the incredible talent, imagination, and technical execution he brings to his musical work online.

Haiducii sent me the link to his One Man Les Miserables which is typical of the drama and fun he brings. He definitely has a thing for show music - especially a fondness for Disney. This isn't surprising considering that his day job is as a animator for Pixar.

His signature visual look is using a "Brady Bunch" style grid, and then playing all the parts. One Man Into The Woods is one of his newer videos (below) and you can see he is adding costumes and some interaction between the characters.


Check out the Nick Pitera YouTube Channel.



Peter Hollens

Meanwhile, in another part of the Internet, Peter Hollens also started a YouTube channel after founding the a cappella group On The Rocks, and appearing on the NBC singing competition The Sing Off. Peter's style is more pure a cappella and does pop, hymns, and movie scores in addition to the occasional movie or stage musical.

Last September Peter set out to do the ultimate a cappella Hamilton medley. He enlisted his wife and friends to do the score justice.


Check out the Peter Hollens YouTube channel.

Bonus! Peter and Nick join forces for a medley of tunes from Wicked.

Stephen Schwartz


In the early 1970's Stephen Schwartz had three shows running on and off Broadway (Godspell, Pippin, and The Magic Show). So hopes were high for his new show The Baker's Wife when I saw it's out of town tryout in Los Angeles in 1976.

The show was so-so, but the score was beautiful, including this beautiful ballad.


It starred Topol (Tevye in the movie Fiddler on the Roof) and Carole Demas (Grease, The Magic Garden). The story was based on the 1938 French film La Femme du Boulanger about a young woman who is married to much older man but falls for a young lothario and runs away.

Infamously, the show toured serveral cities on it's way to New York. Changes were made; Topol was replaced with Paul Sorvino and Demas with a young unknown named Patti LaPone. But before it moved in to start previews, the producers cancelled the show. Word of mouth wasn't good, and the story wasn't really complex enough for a two act musical.

Still an album was recorded, and the show has lived on through the cast album and has been mounted multiple times around the world.

Into the Woods

topdog said:

Nick Pitera

To call Nick Pitera a YouTube celebrity completely overlooks the incredible talent, imagination, and technical execution he brings to his musical work online.

Haiducii sent me the link to his One Man Les Miserables which is typical of the drama and fun he brings. He definitely has a thing for show music - especially a fondness for Disney. This isn't surprising considering that his day job is as a animator for Pixar.

His signature visual look is using a "Brady Bunch" style grid, and then playing all the parts. One Man Into The Woods is one of his newer videos (below) and you can see he is adding costumes and some interaction between the characters.

​

Check out the Nick Pitera YouTube Channel.



Peter Hollens

Meanwhile, in another part of the Internet, Peter Hollens also started a YouTube channel after founding the a cappella group On The Rocks, and appearing on the NBC singing competition The Sing Off. Peter's style is more pure a cappella and does pop, hymns, and movie scores in addition to the occasional movie or stage musical.

Last September Peter set out to do the ultimate a cappella Hamilton medley. He enlisted his wife and friends to do the score justice.

​

Check out the Peter Hollens YouTube channel.

Bonus! Peter and Nick join forces for a medley of tunes from Wicked.

Click to expand...

Thank you for reminding us of this great musical

Stephen Schwartz


Pippin was Stephen Schwartz's first musical on Broadway in 1973. He takes a real historical medieval Prince - Pippin, son of Charlemagne - and takes him on a journey of self-discovery, looking for his purpose in love, war, sex, politics and family.

The 2013 revival was a chance for Schwartz to revisit the score and make it stronger, while director Diane Paulus grafted in a circus setting for the new production.


The revival cast starred Patina Miller (Sister Act) as the leading player and former Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark understudy Matthew James Thomas as Pippin.



More from the 2013 Revival

• A Conversation with Stephen Schwartz - Schwatrz remembers recording the 1973 Pippin Original Cast album for Motown and compares that with the current recording
• PIPPIN: History of the Music Box Theatre
• No time at all - Andrea Martin (bootleg video)
• With You - Pippin (bootleg video)
• Morning Glow - Pippin (bootleg video)
• Morning glow - Kyle Dean Massey (bootleg video)
• Pippin (Full Show) with Patina Miler and Matthew James Thomas (bootleg video)

More from the Original 1973 Production

• Magic To Do - Pippin - Ben Vereen
• Pippin, live in Toronto, 1982 - This is the whole show professionally shot for DVD release.
• With You - William Katt (bootleg video)

Bluezh said:

i don't get the fascination with broadway shows. they are so fake. what's the big deal?

Click to expand...

Beware, the jerk almost inevitably fails to appreciate the full range of human goods – the value of dancing, say, or of sports, nature, pets, local cultural rituals, and indeed anything that he doesn’t care for himself.

Web Series


Here's a bit of a lark that I enjoyed when it came out three years ago - a response from Broadway performers to the Russian anti-gay laws that were put in place ahead of the Sochi Olympics.

Harvey Fierstein, Andrew Rannells, Michael Urie, Roger Rees, Jonathan Groff, Laura Benanti: All of these familiar Broadway faces, and a ton more, got together in this YouTube musical comedy about gays in Russia.


The video imagines an alternate-universe Broadway in Mother Russia, where everyone speaks like Boris and Natasha and wears giant fur hats. In accordance with its gay propaganda laws, the government has ordered homosexual content taken out of all musical theater — “Glitter and be sexually conventional,” sings Rialto regular Rebecca Luker — before it shuts down the Great Red Way completely. The Broadway-in-Russia community responds, natch, by putting on a show — an agit-prop tuner called Love and Punishment.

Russian Broadway Shut Down - Government Deems All Theatre Homosexual Propaganda


The thing that holds this whole piece together is Andrew Rannells sitting in the Russian Tea Room in his fur hat. Just as he did in Book of Mormon, he manages to skate on the knife's edge between sentiment and parody and even bring some heart to this spoof.

The video is the work of a circle of Broadway denizens who know each other, and seemingly everyone else, though their overlapping resumes.

The new video turns heads with its length (nearly 12 minutes), its wealth of original songs and a cast of more than 100 that encompasses not just actors — Jackie Hoffman, Jeremy Jordan, Michael Cerveris — but seemingly every facet of the Broadway industry, including composer Andrew Lippa, costume designer William Ivey Long, journo Michael Musto, producer Robyn Goodman and directors David Cromer and Casey Nicholaw. For the kind of YouTube comedy that’s usually put together as a lark, it looks like it cost a relative fortune (but it didn't, almost everything was donated).

The in-jokes are deeply embedded - many of them depend on recognizing the performers and their past and present roles. For example Danny Burstein appears as his South Pacific character Luther Billis, and Laura Osnes of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella gives us a lyric from the show ("...impossible things are happening every day"). For a play by play on who is who, take a look at comments in this Reddit thread.

Hunchback of Notre Dame


Theater doesn’t have to be perfect to reach your soul. Wicked, Merrily We Roll Along, and Follies are all examples of shows that move me deeply, even as I can point out their flaws. The Stephen Schwartz / Alan Menken musical adaption of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame falls into that category. This is a sweeping score that can soar into the heavens and then rumble in hellfire - all with its central character, the innocent, debased Quasimodo caught in between.

Someday
Life will be fairer
Need will be rarer
And greed wil not pay
Godspeed
This bright millennium
Let it come
Wish upon the moon
One day, someday...
Soon
​

Disney’s first take on this material was the 1996 animated film which required some softening of Victor Hugo’s tale. (Plus the addition of some comic gargoyles.) In the musical the wise-cracking gargoyles are gone and book writer Peter Parnell has gone back to the novel and restored some of the darker elements – the cruelty, sexuality, and religious torment. These are important because, just as with Hugo's Les Miserables, this is the backdrop that highlights the selflessness and love at the heart of the story.


The idea for the staging is to tell and act out the story in a cathedral, repurposing chairs, benches, ropes, and stairways as necessary to create the various locations. Musically it is a combination of a choral cantata and theater songs. The show is staged with a choir in the loft at the back of the stage. Some key musical moments like the opening “The Bells of Notre Dame” have an antiphonal call and response structure between the choir and soloists. (The opening of the second act consists of several melodies from the first act, but sung in latin by the choir.)


Menken’s fabulous score and Schwartz’s soulful and witty lyrics are what keep people coming back to this. A year ago Disney took the cast into the studio for a lush production of the score, even though by that time they had decided not to bring the show in to Broadway.

Michael Arden adds depth and suffering to the innocent Quasimodo’s vocals while retaining the purity required for his beautiful songs.

Ciara Renee makes a fiery Esmeralda but also wrenches at the heart with numbers like "God Help the Outcasts" and "Someday" (reinstated into the score after being relegated to being sung over the credits of the movie).

Patrick Page gives a stunning performance as the villainous Frollo, his rich voice dripping with pious menace and commanding your ears to listen every time he appears. One of the many highlights is the clever pairing of Quasimodo’s tender "Heaven’s Light" with Frollo’s "Hellfire" – songs about the same subject sung from two very different perspectives. However it is the powerful and intricate liturgical choral work performed by a strong supporting chorus that dominates this CD – much of it sung in Latin.



My main regret is that this may have been our last chance to see Michael Arden tackle a role of this size. After recording this, he directed last year's Broadway revival of Spring Awakening with mixed cast of deaf and hearing actors. This year he staged a production of Merrily We Roll Along in Los Angeles, and is coming back to New York to start workshops on a revival of Once on This Island. I love his direction, but I am going to miss that huge voice and heartbreaking character.

For more information

• Background on The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Paper Mill Playhouse
• "Out There" | The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Michael Arden sings the soaring “Out There” from the Studio Cast Album
• Made of Stone - Hunchback of Notre Dame (bootleg video)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Paper Mill Playhouse Full show (bootleg video)

Newsies: Part 3


Newsies broke the fourth wall in a unique way by bringing the backstage experience of the cast directly to fans via YouTube. They also got lucky because one of their own happened to already be a working director and editor on his own web series, and brought his camera along with is dancing shoes.


Newsies director Jeff Calhoun assembled his cast, and in the process brought in a young singer-dancer-actor that had grown up at Disney Theatricals – 25-year-old Andrew Keenan-Bolger.

Andrew had been in the cast of Disney’s first Broadway show Beauty and the Beast in the featured role of Chip – the teacup/child of Mrs. Potts. (This is a role Andrew shared with a young Nick Jonas.) Andrew took time off to finish high school and college (University of Michigan).


Andrew then came back to New York to restart his career in some National Tours, before Disney gave him a place in the cast of Mary Poppins.

Saturday Intermission Pics

Andrew was fascinated with the possibilities of the new social media. He had a video blog and jumped into Twitter and Instagram with a small following. He got into the habit of getting the shows cast together during intermission on Saturday matinees to take a silly photo and put it out on Twitter with the hashtag #SIP for "Saturday Intermission Pic".

It quickly caught on with other shows. Within a few weeks every cast on Broadway was putting up their own #SIP photos on Instagram. Fans caught on as well and began to expect the weekly updates.


Saturday Intermission Pics are now shared by casts around the world. You can check them out on Twitter or Instagram by searching for #SIP on the weekends.

Submissions Only

Not one to wait by the phone for a job, Andrew created the web series Submissions Only with his friend Kate Wetherhead. Kate wrote and played the lead role, while Andrew directed and edited the series. (See last month's post on Submissions Only.)


Carrying the Banner Backstage

By the time Andrew was cast in Newsies, he was already finishing work on the second season of Submissions and had substantially boosted his visibility in the Broadway community. As soon as the show went into rehearsal for it's test run at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Andrew was producing a new video about every ten days doenting the process. Since Newsies already had a built-in fanbase (the "Fansies"), his videos were devoured and were immediately more popular than anything Broadway.com had ever sponsored.


In the process, Andrew became the face of Newsies and at the same time introduced his buddies to the world. By the time the show opened, the news boys weren't a faceless chorus, but fans knew each actor and their quirks. But, that's a story for another time.

Today every Broadway show has its own social media strategy. Broadway.com or some other site will give a camera to a cast member to doent what is going on and share it with the fans. It's expected. Cast members build the show's brand (and their own while they're at it - no job lasts forever).

In his own way, Andrew has changed the relationship between a show and its fans. True, someone would have gotten there eventually. But not with the polish or imagination of a Keenan-Bolger production.



For more information

• 13-year-old Andrew created the role of Jojo in Seussical - then his voice changed and the producers dropped him from the show during previews
• Andrew Keenan Bolger - "Letter From the Refuge" The new song written for Crutchie sung by Andrew at the filemd performance.
• Ask A Star: Andrew and his sister Tony winner Celia Keenan-Bolger Spill Family Secrets & Confess Dream Roles
• Take a Fall Road Trip on Newsies Day Off
• Andrew & Newsies Summer Hang Out 2015
• NEWSIES at Macy's Parade: Behind-the-Scenes with Crutchie - including shenanigans in Macy's
• Andrew Keenan-Bolger & The Skivvies/Fuck You Small World - Nothing like seeing Andrew sing in his underwear
• Opening Night at Tuck Everlasting Andrew starred in the musical last year
• Highlights from TUCK EVERLASTING on Broadway
• SIGN - a teaser for Andrew's new film about a deaf man and hearing man falling in love

Call Me Madam


Call Me Madam is an old-fashioned Irving Berlin star vehicle written for Ethel Merman. A wealthy Washington DC society hostess is appointed ambassador to tiny European principality by President Eisenhower. Her diplomacy efforts are hindered when she falls in love with the Prime Minister who is trying to finagle foreign aid for his country from the US. Hilarity and steady stream of Berlin tunes follow.


The lead character is based on Washington, D.C. hostess and Democratic Party fundraiser Perle Mesta, who was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1949. The Playbill distributed at each performance humorously noted that "neither the character of Mrs. Sally Adams nor Miss Ethel Merman resemble any person living or dead."


Merman won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. Alfred Newman won the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, and Irene Sharaff was nominated for her costume design.

Recordings

UPDATE Feb 15 2017: Dear Evan Hansen has debuted at the #8 position on the Billboard Top 200 list. That is the highest debut of a Broadway Original Cast album since Camelot in 1961.

Probably the most awaited cast album since Hamilton is now in the process of being released. Dear Evan Hansen is available on iTunes and also on YouTube (link below). The CD comes out on February 24 and can be pre-ordered.

Broadway Bootlegs


Have you ever listened to a cast album for a show you didn't see and wonder what it actually looked like on stage? Or maybe wonder what makes a new revival different than the original? Or want to relive a show you did see?

Thank god for bootlegs! Those shaky surreptitious amateur videos can make you a fly on the wall and give you a glimpse of brilliant performances and inventive staging and choreography. Of course it is probably only about 25% of the experience of actually being there.

But theater isn't like the movies, where you can just pop over to your local multiplex to catch the same performances people are seeing all over the country. If you want to see these actors, you are going to have to get yourself to those few city blocks around Times Square where they are working. So for most of us, this is as close as we are going to get to seeing this stuff.

So, pull up a chair and enjoy a Broadway show. Be patient, though. Sometimes the screen may go black, or the picture out-of-focus, or suddenly you have a bizarre shot of the theater ceiling. But it's a small price to pay - and you will at least hear what is going on at all times.

Here are some shows that are either currently playing or recently closed.

• Falsettos (2016 Revival)
• Bright Star in Concert
• Fiddler on the Roof (2015 Revival)

Broadway News

Broadway kicks off what should be a pretty exciting Spring season with two revivals opening their doors this week.


This coming weekend Jake Gyllenhaal steps before a Broadway audience for the first time as previews begin for Sunday in the Park With George. Yesterday he released a video of him singing the song "Finishing the Hat" while also giving us a glimpse backstage at the newly renovated Hudson Theater.


Jake's vocal work here is interesting. He is at the same time not terribly experienced, but incredibly well trained. His vocal placement is studied and exactly right, and these are really hard notes to sing. I mentioned when I heard the audio of his performance from October that he sounded like someone who had been training like an Olympic athlete to pull off his performance and he is even better here.

But you can also hear him making safe choices and not plowing ahead with the vocal abandon we often hear in contemporaries like Dear Evan Hansen's Ben Platt, Newsies's Jeremy Jordan, or Hunchback's Michael Arden - to name a few examples featured in recent posts. Of course, these are masters of the genre who each trained at top arts schools, been musical theater professionals since they were children, and began with incredible instruments - so the comparison isn't really fair.

But I have great respect for someone who is willing to put in the work needed for the craft and what Jake has accomplished is truly remarkable. And the voice is only one part of the performance. We all know what he is capable of delivering as a actor.

Inside Jake Gyllenhaal's 'Sunday in the Park With George' Preview Film: Exclusive Director Interview
Feb 7 2017 Billboard Magazine

"The idea of shooting in this cool old Broadway theater with Jake was too enticing to resist," Cary Joji Fukunaga tells Billboard.

On Saturday, Jake Gyllenhaal will make his Broadway debut in the vocally and dramatically challenging role of Georges Seurat in Stephen Sondheim’s beloved musical Sunday in the Park With George. But before his debut, he shared a hint of what audiences can expect when the show officially opens Feb. 23 at the Hudson Theatre: a short film, directed by True Detective Emmy-winner Cary Joji Fukunaga, showcasing his performance of the solo “Finishing the Hat".

“I knew he could sing, definitely,” Fukunaga said in an exclusive interview with Billboard. “Jake and I are friends, and he just called me up last weekend to say, ‘Hey, I’m doing this.’ I’m in the last throes of writing a screenplay, but the idea of shooting in this cool old Broadway theater with Jake was too enticing to resist.” Gyllenhaal sent him a couple of songs he was thinking of singing, and “obviously ‘Finishing the Hat’ is sort of the most iconic from the musical.”

Click to expand...

Glen Close beat Jake by a few days and started previews last night for Sunset Boulevard which opens tomorrow night. The unique staging features a 40 piece orchestra and stripped down playing space.


Sunset is directed by Lonny Price who is something of the director of the moment. His popular doentary The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened about the making of Stephen Sondheim's flop Merrily We Roll Along in which he starred at age 21 is currently playing in selected movie theaters.