#How To Succeed In Business

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Had a dream the other night where I asked someone if they'd seen Daniel Radcliffe's turn in how to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and the dream friend said no.

And, like, he spent 40 hours a week for a YEAR learning to dance for this show, and he's SO GOOD.

So here. Watch it.

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

Summary: An unexpected offer to buy the Kent farm sends Clark on a collision course right into his soulmate. The only hitch in the plan is that while Clark has his soulmate's words, his soulmate doesn't have Clark's.

Author: @snailwriter

Note from submitter: Fun soulmate and identity shenanigans fic!

[sunlit-mess]

[googleeyes]

I love it love it love it when the characters in Dracula start reading the same stuff we've been reading it's like Yayy Book Club :) Tell me more about how much you love Mina

[mikifoldi]

Daniel Radcliffe / digital painting by Miki Foldi

[d-criss-news]

From Hedwig to Helperbot: Darren Criss Looks Back on His Stage Journey

It’s nap time for Darren Criss’s newborn son, Brother, when the Glee star hops on our video chat. The camera’s off, but he quickly turns it on to say hello face-to-face dressed in workout clothes — a green sleeveless top and a ball cap — as he tries to do some chores at the same time.

Criss has a limited window at home as he prepares to star in the new musical Maybe Happy Ending, now playing at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. The story, with book, music, and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, takes place 100 years in the future in Seoul, South Korea. Criss plays Oliver, an obsolete Belperbot along the lines of Siri or Google, “except more human-like, who is definitely past his prime and has been just waiting [in a Helperbot retirement facility] for his owner to pick him up,” Criss describes to Broadway Direct of the role. He stars opposite rising star Helen J Shen, who plays Oliver’s retired Helperbot neighbor. “It almost feels like two people in an old-folks’ home trying to connect with a family member.���

The plot sounds dramatic, but “make no mistake: This is a musical. It’s a musical comedy,” says Criss. “It has a lot of heart and a lot of joy and a lot of humor and amazing music, and it’s a hell of a spectacle.”

His friend Michael Arden, who won a Tony Award for his direction of Parade, was a big reason for Criss to sign on to the project — and serve as an executive producer as well. Arden brought the show to Criss’s attention many years ago, and again recently when Criss was starring in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway.

“This had been kind of percolating for a while, and between the pandemic and strikes and just a lot of other things, that really comes down to timing. So the stars just kind of aligned,” Criss says.

Criss, a figure on Broadway for well over a decade, started to gather a following while at University of Michigan as a founding member of Team StarKid, the student-run theater company behind the viral Harry Potter musical parody A Very Potter Musical. His big break came on the hit Fox TV show Glee back in 2010. The show had already aired for a full season before he was cast as Warbler Blaine Anderson and future love interest to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. If not for Glee, he believes his career would not have had the same trajectory.

“I felt like this was my master’s in performance of music on camera,” Criss says, admitting that, until Glee, he didn’t consider himself a singer — rather, a musician who acted. “I have that show to thank for giving me any headway in the musical-theater space.”

In the middle of filming Glee in 2012, his Broadway debut called. Criss was asked to succeed Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for three weeks during a winter break from filming Glee. “I left on, like, a Friday night from my last day of shooting. I started rehearsal on a Saturday. Within 10 days, I was on a Broadway stage. I left my Sunday matinee, got on the plane, and went to work [at Glee] Monday morning as if nothing had happened. So it was a bit of a fever dream. It goes by as quickly as it came, like all other moments in life.”

Three years later, Criss stepped into his next Broadway role. This time, he played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch for about two and half months, succeeding John Cameron Mitchell. “People always ask me, ‘What’s your dream role?’ I’m like, ‘I kind of did it,’” he says of the opportunity. “Hedwig was a role I always loved so much when I was a teenager, and getting to jump into it was so special to me and my wife. We both love Hedwig so much. It’s a big part of our relationship.”

More recently on Broadway, Criss starred in the play American Buffalo with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in 2022 for a three-month limited run. “I completely idolized them,” he says of his scene partners. “I mean, if you see a pattern here, I recommend this to everybody, to just chase their heroes. I’ve just been chasing my heroes my whole life, and I’m not being bashful about it at all.”

Getting Rachel Evan Wood to play Audrey opposite Criss’s Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre earlier this year was something that he says was his idea.

“I pitched her pretty hard,” he said of getting casting directors to choose the Westworld actress as his costar. “When they heard her sing, I think it was very clear that this wasn’t like a favor to anybody. She was doing us a favor. The fact that she said yes just blew my mind.” The role of the nerdy floral shop worker wasn’t something Criss thought he’d get the opportunity to add to his résumé “because it just was never something that I thought anybody would let me do. … I wasn’t sprinting to that in the way that I was the other things in my life.”

Criss welcomed Brother, his second baby, this past June with his wife Mia. The timing couldn’t be more coincidental, since their first, Bluesy, was born during his run of American Buffalo.

As our conversation comes to a close, Criss says he kind of got all of his chores done and haphazardly put things away and folded laundry. The next project he wants to pursue is his writing, something he hasn’t tackled much in five years. Until then, he’s reveling in Maybe Happy Ending.

“I do find myself at a loss for words, trying to truly put into words how special this experience has been,” he adds. “I think it really is a thing of beauty that can really add quite a bit of ornamentation in perhaps a grim world.”

[easy-copper]

Sentimentality?? The professor killed his own mentor. In what world did his sentimentality get in the way??

He killed his mentor because something else was more important to him. Or rather, someone else. If he was really so intelligent, he would have sent that someone away for their protection—preferably when he first started killing people, but at the very least when he was exposed. I can only assume it was his sentimentality that stopped him. He wanted his brother close, and he wanted it so badly he was prepared to risk both of their lives to that end.

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[miyagi-hokarate]

The fact that there are no free uncut subtitled HD pro shots of every theater performance Ralph Macchio has been in I can watch is CRIMINAL. IT'S CRIMINAL. WHAT IF I WANT TO SEE A RECORDING OF HIM ON STAGE.

[musicalgifs]

good news everyone i went to a local theatre show of songs from musicals and discovered that i can and will start crying if children start singing when i grow up from matilda even in public and out of any context

[welcome-to-roomba-fazbender]

This is gonna sound like a dumb question but like-

What does/would Charlie do if a child and/or adult is feeling extremely overstimulated and on the verge of crying/melting down?

"f-friendo, my entire life is meant to be a joke why would you want to know this?... I..."

Charlie sighed rubbing the bridges of his nose before slowly nodding.

"no no it's completely fair, why you would this is in reality a very good question and important for me to answer! thank you and sorry I can take things genuinely serious just a lil harder for me... ahem."

"Okay!"

"Well, when that happens with one of my customers, the Roomba's directly tell me and I come out of my office, I shrink down to a nice normal height usually around 5'0."

"I then snap my fingers and make everyone in the restaurant go quiet in an instant, and tell everyone calmly to please quiet it down, and explain the situation, I of course let them know if they are not respectful that they will be escorted out."

"I like to take disabilities and such very seriously, I know how loud and weird my restaurant can be trust me, I ain't no fool."

Charlie softly sighed before continuing.

"I am of course softer with children, due to caring about them alot but I do try and help the adults as well, I take time and help the person who's over stimulated calm down, and pull out a chest with an assortment of items I own, for them to pick from, and let them choose what would help them best."

"I then take them to my security office, and once inside, I snap my fingers and let everyone speak again once inside my office I sit the person in my chair and let them know, they can sit here in the quiet safe space for as long as they need to."

"they just need to return the items I let them borrow before they leave."

"Look I get it, I might be a cursed asshole... most people would except me not to care, but when it comes to my customers? I really do!"

"I love my business! I genuinely want to make people happy and feel safe here."

"I would also let the person pet Hubert since that old seal of mine due to his calm personality makes for a great therapy animal."

"Once they are ready to re-enter the restaurant, I escort them back to their table in a calm manner, then I go back to what I was doing and change back to my regular height."

"Hope this answers your question, and that I was helpful thank you for your time!"

[jack-kellys]

have now realized that my asks request is basically "send me ur newsies hate and i'll make u like it" lmao

[tammydarling]

On this episode of Where In The World Is Hedy LaRue...

[doyouknowthismusical]

[squidpat]

i really love this clip tbh.  i want to hear the full versions of both of these jingles </3

[thepersonalwords]

Do not assume that people are seeing you. The more you can clarify, optimize, and engage your fans and strangers with branded marketing and merchandise, the better chance you have of being seen and then heard.

Loren Weisman, The Artist's Guide to Success in the Music Business (2nd edition): The "Who, What, When, Where, Why & How" of the Steps that Musicians & Bands Have to Take to Succeed in Music