#And Andrew Lloyd-Webber I guess

[pinnyguin]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. SONDHEIM

The absolute king of musical theatre song writing. His scores are one of a kind, his ingenious lyrics and compositions make his songs one of the greatest in musical theatre history.

Go listen/watch one of his musicals

(musicals and images listed below)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962-1964)

Anyone Can Whistle (1964)

Company (1970-1972)

Follies (1971-1972)

A Little Night Music (1973-1974)

Pacific Overtures (1976)

Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979-1980)

Merrily We Roll Along (1981)

Sunday in the Park with George (1984-1985)

Into the Woods (1987-1989)

Assassins (1990-1991)

Passion (1994-1995)

Roadshow (2003,2008)

Here We Are (2023-2024)

[chaoticninjar]

FOR CLARIFICATION: would you get upset if you went to a musical expecting a certain actor playing a specific role, but to actually have a swing/ understudy playing instead

I ask because I have a friend who’s big into Six. She went to many shows a few years ago, literally became friends with them and knows them personally now, but now the cast has changed she refuses to see it

I’m mainly curious since I’ve been into musicals for the past ten years and I’ve never really cared which actors I get. Not that I don’t care about the actors at all, don’t get me wrong, but for example when I saw Cats, Nicole Scherzinger but we had a swing and it was still good, dare I say better. Saw Stex earlier this year and we had an understudy for Rusty and I didn’t even notice! Like yeah I love Jeevan but Scott was still amazing?? I do understand where my friend is coming from, but it’s just a little strange to me

EDIT: maybe I didn’t word this as well as I should have. I don’t mean that it’s not right to have a favourite actor/ cast. For example I’d love to see micheal crawford play the phantom! But I wouldn’t never go and see it ever again just because there’s a new phantom. BUT if he did come back and I went just to see him, am I not watching micheal crawford, not phantom of the opera?

[nyhne]

.

[yowzeight]

ok i need to know something,,, i know both ramin and hadley have played judas in jcs but if they were ever cast opposite each other who would play who

[litloverscorsetlaces]

Holy Week coinciding with the anniversary of POTO's closing on Broadway is a very dark combination when you think about it.

[fairytalelagoon]

Currently listening to the OBC of "Sunset Boulevard", and I regret not exploring this musical more years ago, because the score is absolutely gorgeous.

[dross-the-fish]

Love Never Dies- Thoughts and Reactions

This might end up being split into multiple parts but I am not finished talking about Love Never Dies. I did give it a rewatch to refresh myself and...oof. This play needs to be taken out back and shot because that is what it did to every single character in it. NO ONE looks good. Not even Christine. Let's start there. Let's talk about what this show does with Christine because we have completely reduced this character to nothing but her voice. What does Erik miss about Christine after ten years of pining? Her voice. He just wants her to sing for him one more time. The only thing he ever really mentions about Christine is her voice. Though I can't really fault him because if we're being serious about Christine's character...

What does she have outside of her voice? Nothing. Somehow LND Christine has even less personality than she did in the OG musical. She is a cardboard angel that other people pine over, try to control, or envy. She has almost no agency. I said before, I suspect that Andrew Lloyd Webber hates women and Christine does not come out of that unscathed. She spends pretty much all of the musical being bullied by Raoul, mothering Gustave, or being threatened by Erik when he and she aren't reminiscing about that one time they banged 10 years ago. Seriously what even the fuck was "Beneath a Moonless Sky?" For a song about how two characters couldn't resist each other neither of them seem particularly filled with desire. Christine is recoiling in horror and disbelief and Erik looks like a 15 year old who thinks sniffing his crush's hair is peak sensuality.

Mmmm....sexy. But whatever. Christine says at the end of the song she woke up to swear her love and was ready to dump Raoul but Erik had skedaddled so she ran back to Raoul. You read that right. Christine was going to pick Erik after they banged it out and he left and that is the only reason Christine is with Raoul. Seriously Andy? You're going to make her regret picking Raoul over Erik when she didn't even actually DO that? Erik made the choice for her?

*internal screaming* Erik, seriously, how are you going to be upset that she's moved on with Raoul if YOU left HER? Do you really think you have the right to coerce her to sing for you one more time when you were the one who broke it off? The hell is wrong with you? Of course when Christine resists he immediately goes to threatening her child.

When I say Erik is the WORST I mean it. He is reprehensible in this.

But this is about Christine. We'll get to Erik later. LND Erik deserves his own post.

There's honestly not much more to write about Christine. She spends a lot of time cowering from or trying to appease Raoul. She worries about her son and her death is honestly so unwarranted. When I say ALW's work has an undercurrent of meanspiritedness I mean shit like this. Christine hasn't really done anything wrong. I guess she cheated on Raoul 10 years ago? But well she was going to leave him and only stayed because her first option bailed on her? She didn't do anything to Meg. She's been living 10 years in an abusive marriage and her crazy ex who kidnapped her came back to threaten her kid and coerce her to sing his music one more time. Then she just...gets shot. She dies. It adds nothing to the story that she dies. It doesn't feel earned or justified in anyway. It just feels miserable for misery's sake. It's almost unceremonious the way they ax her off because it's not even intentional. Meg misfires the gun because Erik fucks up in trying to talk her down. Christine's death isn't even about Christine herself. It's about Meg and Erik. It's such a useless and stupid death to give this character. How old even is she? Supposedly she's around 18-20 in the original musical (we're ignoring the 2004 movie that puts her at 16) and this is 10 years later? She's barely 30 but she ends up a casualty to everyone else's vanity, jealousy, and selfishness. I feel like we're supposed to find it tragic but it doesn't hit. It's a meaningless and undignified end to a character that was given no agency over her own life or her death.

[mango-dot-yum]

What’s with Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s obsession with the name Belle? Belle the Sleeping Car, Belle the Bar Car, Belle the Lounge Car(2017 workshop), and a second unrelated Belle the Sleeping Car. There are so many non-Belle names, but it’s always Belle with him.

The lounge car one probably confuses me the most because it doesn’t even sound good. Most of the coaches have names that have to do with what kind of car they are(Pearl for observation, Ashley for smoking, Carrie for luggage, etc) or the name at least starts with the same letter as the type of coach.

I guess Belle doesn’t have to do with sleeping(as far as I know, I feel like there’s a retelling of the Princess pea story thing where she’s named Belle but I’m blanking on the name of it), but she was separate from the other coaches so it was fine to do once, but he’s just dragging it on at this point.

I can think of so many other names he could’ve picked!

Belle the Bar Car: Brandy, Sherry, Rhetta

Belle the Sleeping Car: Briar, Pea, Luna

Belle the Lounge Car: Lailah, Lily

Those names took me about a minute to come up with. Does anyone know if there’s an actual reason why he names so many characters Belle, or if he’s just a fan of the name.

[spiribia]

obsessed with your baru cormorant musicals do andrew lloyd webber next please.... phantom of the opera and/or cats edition...

to be honest i haven’t known a lot of Cats but my best loose guess is it’d be like “young and brash, and full of cash / and wagging her tailfeathers, / the cormorant came to tilt the game / proclaimed, ‘a change of weather!’ / in a dour mood, the duke pursued / to pin her on his plate / (but let it be known, for cold supper’s grown, / we haven’t seen the duke of late!)”. To be further honest I don’t think I realized Andrew Lloyd Webber did phantom of the opera until this ask #theater kid fail

[wizard-loving-wizard]

"Not enough actual plays rely on the work that Andrew Lloyd Webber has done for them already." (TAZ Abnimals #5)

Griffin: And guess what happens to an Abnimal's soul after they die? Justin: Well, that's Valhalla. That we know, that's known. It goes to Valhalla. Griffin: Oh. Clint: They go to hay-ven. Justin: They go to the Heaviside Layer. [chuckles] Travis: Yeah, they cross the Rainbow Bridge to Heaviside Layer. Griffin: [guffaws] Clint: See, we don't have to recreate the wheel. I mean, some people like Andrew Lloyd Webber— Justin: [laughs] Clint: Andrew Lloyd Webber has done the work for us. Justin: Yeah, it's—this is known. [chuckles] Travis: Not enough—not enough actual plays, or RPGs in general, rely on the work that Andrew Lloyd Webber has done for them already. Justin: He's already done it for us. Travis: Yeah, you guys don't have to figure it all out. Most of it's already there. Griffin: Yeah, yeah. Justin: Yeah, it's all there. It drives me crazy when you hear like, Mercer describe a piece of armor. It's like, you don't have to. It was [sings] 'red and green and yellow and violet and–' It's done! Just describe every garment that way. Griffin: Yeah. Travis: I've heard Brennan get stuck on like, "It's a phantom, but where is he? Where could he be found?" Griffin: Yeah, yeah. Travis: And it's like, Brennan— Justin: Brennan! Travis: The opera. Griffin: The opera. Is where he lives.

[operafantomet]

Do we know how many (and if so, which) casts Gillian Lynne personally taught outside of the original London and Bway companies?

That is a good question, and something I have paid too little attention to. My GUESS is that she was at all the original / early productions, if only for a day. She would also have trained the associate and / or resident choreographer for the production.

So yes, she would have instructed the original and many later West End and Broadway casts, as seen here with Sarah Brightman:

Then the early productions around the world - I assume both Tokyo, Stockholm, Toronto, Vienna, Hamburg etc. Here she is with Marina Prior (Christine) in Melbourne:

And probably the US sit-down productions and tours. Here with Davis Gaines (Phantom), Lisa Vroman (Christine), Raymond Saar (Raoul) and Hal Prince (director) for the San Francisco production:

I also think she adored Sierra Boggess, cause she was present and working whenever Sierra Boggess was present... For Las Vegas:

...for the RAH celebrations...

...and for Paris...

(Sierra Boggess has also addressed that they had very good chemistry, and that she learned a lot from Gillian Lynne)

But I also know Denny Berry (original swing on Broadway, and later associate choreographer and production dance supervisor) has had a lot of responsibility in keeping Gillian Lynne's original vision alive. She has worked with POTO on four continents according to her own bio, in the US, in Hamburg, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, World Tour, Australia etc. In an interview in 2016 she said that "The detail in choreographer Gillian Lynne’s movement is well-known. And those of us who must pass it on, never, ever forget the beats and the meanings of every count.” Denny Berry was also married to Steve Barton, original Raoul, which makes the link to the original staging extra strong. Here's a photo of her rehearsing the Oberhausen cast, with Elizabeth Welch in the middle (Masquerade):

And one from Hamburg, with Rachel Anne Moore as Elissa / Carlotta (Hannibal):

Another original Corps de Ballet, Patricia Merrin who was in the original West End cast, has also worked as associate choreographer on Phantom and kept an eye on many a production, in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Moscow, the World Tour etc. Here she is in Cape Town, instructing Cat Lane and the Corps de Ballet there:

And for no reason at all, two bonus photos of Gillian Lynne on stage, just because. One is with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Zoë Curlett during the curtain call in West End:

And another with Hugh Panaro on Broadway:

[tgwdlmreprised]

I'm not big on musicals so what are the horror stories of shows like BMC going to Broadway? Is it because of cast changes or do they change the story?

they put a musical whose biggest fans were broke middle and high schoolers who watch illegal camrips and animatic compilations on a stage where it cost like 300 dollars for nosebleed tickets + tickets to new york, hotel stay, the cost to see a broadway show is way more than just actually Getting in the theater so much so that the main money for broadway comes from older people who arent gonna be interested in a high school sci fi musical. andrew lloyd webber left after act 1

it felt like for a bit there we had this gold rush of more contemporary musicals getting big productions immediately getting replaced with classic musicals because thats just who goes to see broadway shows, if you dont already have a long standing name in the game like the lion king or wicked its a gamble and i think even with tgwdlms insane success (it is their most viewed musical After avpm) it would 100% go down the same vein. maybe a few good shows in the first few weeks and after that theyd be kaput

i think off broadways smaller stages and more experimental productions would be way better for them, personally, as did howard ashman with little shop of horrors when they proposed That back in the 80s. then they actually did it and it failed Who wouldve guessed, saying it losing the smaller theater made it lose its intimate feel. compare its 20 million dollar box office to avenue q's 120 million dollar box office (which opened around the same time)

[naturepointstheway]

Summary: He knows he's gonna lose, but Tugger will compete with Mistoffelees on who can do the most spins without getting dizzy.

Just one of my guilty pleasures: re-reading and occasionally posting links to my fanfiction. Enjoy the Tuggoffelees fun! I think you can guess who wins ;)

[onetoomanyfandomfixations]

OM Demons & Their Broadway Duets

A.k.a the duet you two perform together that’s just a lil bit too on the nose

LUCIFER

You cannot tell me that he’s Not the same person as Hades

Mans has shit to do!!

But that doesn’t stop him from wanting you one bit

He knows he can seduce you, and that’s exactly what he will do

Also has that Stunningly deep voice thats just perfect for this roll

Enjoys making you squirm on stage with his words and voice

Probably circles around you whilst singing

10/10 very hot

Will def invite you to see him after the performance for some quality time

MAMMON

The exact kind of greedy, insecure loving he needs

He wants to sing more because “The Great Mammon deserves the spotlight”

So he sings Elphaba

Tbh, finds it really therapeutic to express his feelings for you so wholly

LOVES that its so intimate; he gets to hold you, with an undeniable excuse!

Gets so flustered during rehearsals

Only makes him love you more

Listens to it often, cause it makes him happy to think of you

He will deny this

LEVIATHAN

He would have died if it was a romance duet, c’mon guys

He was struggling getting on stage as is

So getting to pretend to play video games, right next to you in stage while talking about how he hates everyone else?

Perfect

Has the audio clip of you saying “is it really true, i’m your favourite person”

Listens to it daily

Actually has an Amazing voice, holy shit

It’s Your song and no one else can sing it with you

Probs get the matching pac-man tattoo from the original musical

SATAN

As said before, a hopeless romantic to the core

Thinks this entire musical is god tier

The only one to know and love the entire musical connected to your performance

You see it together “as research” before doing the scene together

Perfect on stage, as expected

Probs cups your face for a Significant portion of the song

Loves being to protector, instead of the persecutor; like he is so often made out to be

Will sing it to you quietly as you slow-dance in his room in the early hours of the morning

Wants it to be the first dance at your inevitable wedding

ASMODEUS

Guess who’s back on their asmo-is-baby bullshit

Mans relates to Audrey So Hard

So its only right he plays her part

You are his Seymor

He tries not to think about it, or else he’ll cry

Thinks its a really beautiful song

Don’t tell him the ending of Little Shop of Horrors, he’ll be devastated

ADORES being on stage, makes every minute of it

Kisses you as soon as the songs over, so deeply and passionately

The audience goes wild

Both of you are grinning wildly

BEELZELBUB

He’s more than happy to sing a song about loving you in front of as many people as you want

Honestly just happy to be spending time with you

Sings Zoe, because he just wants to reassure you that he loves you

Like Lucifer, has a beautifully deep voice

Constantly checking you’re not as insecure as Evan

Makes sure you know he loves you, even if you aren’t insecure in the slightest

A custom bed needs to be built for the two of you to sit on for the scene bc he’s so Large

Puts his heart into the line “I don’t want you to fix what I’d rather forget”, because he needs you to know that you aren’t a replacement for Lilith

He loves you, as you.

BELPHAGOR

Idk what bullying you had to do to get this but go you ig???

Hates JD with a passion

He reminds him too much of how he was during his time in the attic

But it’s almost like a redemption for him; he can do it again but this time he chooses you

He chooses you instead of the anger, the hurt

Voice is probs really raspy because he’s always sleeping

Didn’t do rehearsals, just wung it on opening night

Enforced naptime afterwards

DIAVOLO

Listen, this is Very Directed

He chose this song for a reason; he needs his people to know that loving you is not a political choice

He just loves you

Relates more to Alyssa, but sings Emma for impact

Probs doesn’t have time to be doing something like this??

Barbatos is On Him for the overdue paperwork

But this is Fun

And it’s with You

He loves preforming

Probs has a good vibrato too

Post show fancy dinner date 💕💕

BARBATOS

l i s t e n

Mans is perfect for Warner

Is more than happy to let you have the spotlight

Loves being able to say he loves you so plainly

Sometimes the song makes him think about the realities where you stayed in the human realm

It makes him grateful that you chose the Devildom

That you chose him

But he tries not to linger, because you both have a song to do

Master of honey tea before going on stage

Warm them vocal chords UP

Always praises you on how wonderful you were the second that mics are off

[musicalhell]

What do you think is this new musical based on a movie that Andrew Lloyd Webber is working on? Im almost afraid to know, but then again, he did surprisingly well with School of Rock…

It wasn't really my thing, but on the other hand I'm kind of fond of Sunset Boulevard...

The only thing we know for sure is that it's set in 1900 Vienna, but that doesn't necessarily mean the original film had that setting. So we'll have to wait and see, I guess.

[birdstooth]

Let them him eat cake!! (Carlotta still in her Marie Antoinette era I guess)

ACT I

Brief musical interlude:

🎵Who would have the gall to send this?

Someone with a puerile brain🎵

ACT II

… ACT III/FINALE 🍽️🍽️🍽️

PART TWO here