"You Could Have Chosen Any Number Of Other Projects And It Would Have Been Less Of A Gamble!"

Now I'll talk about (or try to inform the readers) about the nominees for Best Play!

The first one is the play Act One, written by James Lapine. 

The show is based off of the autobiography Act One by Moss Hart and is about Hart's impovershed New York childhood and his difficult struggle to Broadway success--he became a famous American playwright (Once In a Lifetime, You Can't Take It With You, Jubilee the Musical) and successful theatre director (Junior Miss, Dear Ruth, My Fair Lady). Despite the man's heart attack at age 57, he became inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1972.

Act One was nominated in five categories this year, which are:

1. Best Play
2. Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Tony Shalhoub--Moss Hart)
3. Best Scenic Design of a Play (Beowulf Boritt)
4. Best Costume Design of a Play (Jane Greenwood)
5. Best Sound Design of a Play (Dan Moses Schreier)

Here's a clip from the play, showing a pivotal moment between Hart and another colleague (I'm guessing it's Kaufman).

"Let's Have A Drink, It's Foolish To Think You'll Ever Stop Loving Her"

I think I'll finish the list of 2014 Tony Award Nominees for Best Musical with A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.  

This musical is actually pretty hard to find the full synopsis, but I'm liking its soundtrack! From what I can understand, this about a guy in 1909 London named Monty Navarro who discovered he's a part of this D'Ysquith (pronounced dyesquith) family on his mother's side--in this family, he's ninth in line to inherit a dukedom so he results to eliminating the eight heirs before him so he can claim it, and ends up attracting two women and cannot decide which one to marry. It's very perky and upbeat, despite its theme of greed and death.

The show has ten Tony Award Nominations (some categories have two different nominations): 

1. Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical (Robert L. Freedman), 
2. Best Original Score (Music: Steven Lutvak, Lyrics: Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak), 
3. Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (Jefferson Mays [D'Ysquith family] and Bryce Pinkham [Monty Navarro]), 
4. Best Performance by a Featuring Actress in a Musical (Lauren Worsham [Phoebe D'Ysquith), 
5. Best Direction of a Musical (Darko Tresnjak), 
6. Best Orchestrations (Johnathan Tunick), 
7. Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Alexander Dodge), and 
8. Best Costume Design of a Musical (Linda Cho)

Jefferson Mays amazes me--he plays the D'Ysquith family (Asquith D'Ysquith Jr, Lord Adalbert D'Ysquith. Reverend Lord Ezekial D'Ysquith, Lord Asquith D'Ysquith Sr., Henry D'Ysquith, Lady Hyacinth D'Ysquith, Major Lord Bartholomew D'Ysquith, and Lady Salome D'Ysquith Pumphrey).  That's an awful lot of people to portray. 

I would never want to be in the show (the women in this show are great operatic sopranos) but it would be fun to watch and work backstage!

Deciding for this post's clip has been really hard because the show has a lot of catchy songs--simple and done before, but they're pretty entertaining to listen to--I could possibly post on here. Alas, I can only pick one so I will choose..... "Foolish To Think," a song sung entirely by Monty Navarro (Bryce Pinkham aka my favorite male singer now). It's simple and cute. But if you want to listen and fall in love with the Broadway soundtrack, here's the YouTube link for it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGA_rouGAHXbcV02UDT0a9rDQzdZTgPyM Some of my personal favorites are this song, "Sibella", "I've Decided To Marry You", and "Stop! Wait! What?"

"I'll See You There Jekyll!"

I have good news and bad news. 

Bad news: Jekyll & Hyde ended on Saturday. 

Good news: after two days, I finally figured out how to upload my videos and put them on here—use YouTube. So I spent the majority of last night uploading the video below to YouTube (from 7 to 11:30 I think).

Here's a good portion of the song "Confrontation" sung by Jekyll/Hyde from my high school's production of Jekyll & Hyde recorded on the last (Saturday) night—bear in the mind, the kid playing Jekyll/Hyde (who's remaining anonymous for his safety) is only a sophomore. 

(I swear this video is my last one!)

"Is That Squire, On The Fire?"

I have exciting news! (Well, it's exciting if you have the PBS channel.) 

Recently, the New York Philharmonic staged a production of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on March 5-8. which was recorded. That recorded version of the performance will be played on the PBS channel on September 26 from 9-11:30 PM with Bryn Terfel as Sweeney and Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lovett.  I'm actually really pumped for it! Here's the full link: http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/05-2014/new-york-philharmonics-sweeney-todd-starring-emma-_68503.html

I've never heard of Terfel before today but after seeing some clips of the concert performance of Sweeney Todd for Sondheim's 80th birthday, he is definitely one of my favorites for Sweeney Todd portrayals.

Speaking of clips, here's a clip from the birthday performance of "A Little Priest" by Terfel and Maria Friedman (Mrs. Lovett).  The two compliment each other rather well--I really enjoyed this!

"There's A Beast At The Door And He's Wild And Free!"

Originally I wanted to post this yesterday during my AP Psychology class but technology and I didn't work out as well as thought so I'm posting now!

Here's raw footage of "Façade: Reprise 2" sung by the character Spider from my high school's production of Jekyll & Hyde. (Fair warning, it's a bit blurry and my finger apparently kept going over the lens). 

"Show Me A Reason And I'll Soon Show You A Rhyme!"

Hi guys! I normally don't post during the school day but here I am, in my procrastinating glory.

So show week is a big pain in my butt--I'm just looking forward to eating food after the show at a restaurant.  For a post, I wanted to put up raw footage from my school's production of Jekyll & Hyde but my phone refuses to cooperate and send the video to me so I will be posting something else.

Here's the 2013 Tony Awards performance of Pippin (which won Best Revival of a Musical, Best Leading Actress in a Musical [Patina Miller], Best Featured Actress in a Musical [Andrea Martin], and Best Direction of a Musical [Diane Paulus]).

"'Cause We Don't Want To See What Is Lurking Right Behind The Façade!"

Welcome to show week at my school! This week—this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to be exact— the drama department will put on the smash musical Jekyll & Hyde.

(I know there's a different poster but this version is what my school advertised with so I'm using it!)

Created in 1990 and put on Broadway in 1997, this musical is based off of the novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson—since its the premiere, the show has been put on a national tour (U.S.) four times, the most recent in 2012. The music is by Frank Wildhorn; the lyrics are by Frank Wildhorn, Steve Cuden, and Leslie Bricusse; the book is also written by Leslie Bricusse. 

In the 1997 Tony Awards, the show was nominated in four categories: Best Book of a Musical (Lesie Bircusse), Best Actor in a Musical (Robert Cuccioli—Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde), Best Costume Design (Ann Curtis) and Best Lighting Design (Beverly Emmons). Alas, none of the nominees took anything home. 

(Here's a snapshot of the show—the guy on the left is Jekyll right as he's turning into Hyde, and the guy on the right is a techie stuck behind the laboratory!) 

Because I have a better understanding of this show now than I did a few days ago, I have two favorite songs to post about (one is my favorite but wouldn't be understood unless you know the show, and the other is more known and catchy). 

Here's "Murder, Murder" from the final (1997) Broadway performance with David  Hasselhoff as Jekyll/Hyde—this is the more known and catchy song.

If you dare, here is "Façade (Reprise #2)"—this is the song with Spider (the pimp) primarily singing. I like the whispering behind it, it sounds so cool! Just so we're clear, I didn't think I'd ever have a favorite song from this show, but stranger things have happened. 

"So Tell Me Now And I Won't Ask Again, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"

We're still in the Best Musical category, so we will learn about the musical called Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

This musical, which first performed in San Fransisco the year before, is another Jukebox musical that relates to the life of Carole King. 

It has been nominated for 7 Tony Awards which are: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical (Douglas McGrath), Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical (Jessie Mueller- Carole King), Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical (Jarrod Spector-Barry Mann), Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical (Anika Larsen-Cynthia Weil), Best Orchestrations (Steve Sidwell), and Best Sound Design of a Musical (Brian Ronan). 

Apparently the show even made it as far as perform a song ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow") via television? Cool.

"Why Dorothy and Toto Went Over The Rainbow, To Blow Off Auntie Em!"

Note to self--I really should keep track of anniversaries of when musicals went on Broadway (if they are ever fortunate enough to make it there).  The musical I'm talking about is Johnathan Larson's most famous script that is known as RENT.

Based off of Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème, the show follows the lives of eight friends over the course of a year starting and finishing on Christmas Eve from 1987 to 1988, while living in New York City.  Four out of the main characters--Roger, Mimi, Collins, Angel--have AIDs, while the other four--Mark, Benny, Maureen, Johanne--do not.  (I mention that because a theme for the show is not regretting anything and to make a great impact in the world somehow before inevitable death comes.)

For the 1996 Tony Awards, this musical was nominated in ten categories but won only four (Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Score [all three taken posthumously by Johnathan Larson--he died the morning of RENT 's first preview Off-Broadway on January 26, 1996] and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical (Wilson Jermaine Heredia--Angel).

Personally, I would most likely choose the song "Santa Fe" because it's my top favorite song out of the whole show (I have four favorite songs in it, and two of them are from Mark's Mom, so they aren't really songs).

However, I do have a soft spot for "La Vie Boheme" but only if I include the entire Life Cafe scene it's in--it's the only scene from any show I can recite by heart.

"After A Million Miles Or So, We Find Out Who We Are"

I told myself I'd post more often--ugh, I hate when I do this! 

Anyway, welcome to Post Two of the Tony Nominations!  Since we're still in the Best Musical Category, let's go onto the next musical: Aladdin.  

Based off of the 1992 Disney animated film of the Arab folktale of Aladdin and the magic lamp musically written by Alan Menken, Aladdin was put onstage in 2011 in Seattle but was not officially performing the whole show on Broadway until March 20 of this year.  Adam Jacobs, Courtney Reed and James Monroe Iglehart respectively play Aladdin, Jasmine, and the Genie, as well as Andrew Keenan-Bolger making an appearance as Omar in the original Seattle cast (I will post about him one day).

The show is currently nominated in five categories; Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical (Chad Beguelin), Best Original Score (Alan Menken-music, Howard Ashman- lyrics, Tim Rice-lyrics, Chad Beguelin- lyrics), Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical (James Monroe Iglehart-the Genie), and Best Coreography (Casey Nicholaw).  

This show has always been my favorite for two reasons relating to its movie version: one reason is that I've always enjoyed watching the movie version and that Scott Weinger (Steve in Full House) voices Aladdin's speaking voice.  Eeep! (That's my happy cheer.)

The clip below is directly from the Broadway show (well, before it was put on Broadway)--it's a new song written fresh for the musical called "A Million Miles Away".  When listening to it, it sounds very Disney--just a note.  And sorry this clip doesn't show the entire song--since the show is really new on Broadway, there isn't even an official Broadway soundtrack I could find yet!