#I know broadway bmc has problems

[jeremyheereissomeow]

I’m sure other people have said this, but I feel the need to reiterate it:

The reason so many of you HATE the Be More Chill broadway run is because there aren’t as many white people in it as there was in the original Two River production.

[cecelianonymous22]

Hot Takes for No Nuance November :) [BMC Edition]

1) IF YOU’RE GONNA WRITE CINNABUN, THEN IT SHOULDN’T JUST BE A BACKGROUND SHIP TO BOYFS, RICHJAKE, AND P*NKBERRY

2) LIKEWISE, IF YOU’RE GOING TO DO EXPENSIVE HEADPHONES, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO DEERE? DO LIKE- UPSTAGE OR PUPPY LOVE OR SOMETHING. MAKE IT INTERESTING.

3) I GET RIVERWAY BUT WHY WOULD YOU DO ANY OTHER SQUIP SHIPS? THAT’S LITERALLY LIKE SLAPPING YOUR DICK ON YOUR PHONE AND CALLING IT EROTIC

4) BOYFS, STAGEDORKS, AND P*NKBERRY (AND ANY CHLOE SHIPS IN GENERAL) ARE TOXIC AS FUCK

5) RICH’S LISP ISN’T CUTE. STOP SEXUALIZING IT. AND STOP WRITING IT OUT IN FANFICS UNLESS IT’S FOR EFFECT

6) MOST FANS THAT ARE LIKE “uwu smol boy rich” ARE PROBABLY SHORTER THAN HIM (REMINDER, HE’S 5″5′, THEREFORE HE IS ONLY SHORT FOR A GUY)

7) IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE A CHARACTER THAT ISN’T CIS, DON’T MAKE THEIR IDENTITY THEIR ENTIRE PERSONALITY. PLEASE. (HAVING TRANS/NB HCS ARE FINE JUST PLEASE HAVE A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF IT)

8) RICHJAKE, SLUSHPUPPIES, APOCALYPSE PLAY, EXPENSIVE PLAY, STAGEDORKS, CHATTY DRUNKS, AND BOYF RIENDS ARE ALL BETTER AS PLATONIC SHIPS

9) Y’ALL ARE SLEEPING ON GAME THEORIES (JENNA X JEREMY)

10) MICHAEL ISN’T AS DEPRESSED AS A LOT OF PEOPLE MAKE HIM OUT TO BE. HE HAD ONE MELTDOWN. GRANTED, IT’S ENTIRELY PLAUSIBLE HE HAS ANXIETY OR EXISTENTIALISM BUT HE’S CONSISTENTLY SHOWN TO BE A BETTER OFF CHARACTER THAT WOULDN’T BE “DEPRESSED AND HIDING IT.” YOU FUCKERS WANNA KNOW WHO CANONCIALLY HAS DEPRESSION THOUGH? RICH. 

11) WE NEED TO OVERTHROW THE BOYF RIENDS SUPREMACY

12) DON’T MAKE AN OC IF IT FUCKS WITH CANON (LIKE MAKING A “JEREMY’S SISTER” OC OR SOMETHING). SHIT LIKE RICH’S BROTHER OR FAMILY MEMBERS THAT AREN’T EXPLICITLY MENTIONED ARE OKAY. AND SO ARE SECOND GEN OCS. HELL, I HAVE AN OC THAT’S LITERALLY JUST MICHAEL’S SHITTY EX. BUT SOME OF YALL JUST GOT SOME MARY SUES IN THIS BITCH

13) JAKE ISN’T AS BUFF AS RICH. AND MICHAEL’S A LITTLE CHONKY. BE REALISTIC HERE PEOPLE.

14) A LOT OF SHIPS WOULDN’T HAPPEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SQUIPCIDENT. IT MIGHT TAKE SEVERAL MONTHS. OR HELL, EVEN YEARS. P*NKBERRY WOULDN’T EVEN BE NEAR TO PLAUSIBLE UNTIL CHLOE GOT HER SHIT TOGETHER (AKA, PROBABLY POST-HIGH SCHOOL)

15) IF YOU’RE GOING TO DRAW A SHIP, MAKE SURE THE PRODUCTIONS MATCH. DON’T DRAW TWO RIVER JAKE WITH BROADWAY JEREMY

16) CONSIDER: DUSTIN SHIPS. 

17) Y’ALL ARE ALSO SLEEPING ON MELLMAN (JARED X MICHAEL)

18) CHRISTINE ISN’T AS INNOCENT AS PEOPLE ALWAYS PORTRAY HER TO BE. SURE, SHE MIGHT NOT SWEAR AS MUCH BUT SHE’S STILL A TEENAGER

19) SPEAKING OF CHRISTINE, SHE’S ALSO AN EXTREMELY INDEPENDENT WOMAN WITH COUNTLESS INTERESTS, STRONG OPINIONS, AND A VIBRANT PERSONALITY. HELL, SHE SET BOUNDARIES WITH JEREMY BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH HE’S THE LOVE INTEREST, SHE’S NOT GOING TO BE BENDING OVER BACKWARD FOR SOME BOY’S ATTENTION

20) JEREMY’S KIND OF A JERK. HE CAN REDEEM HIMSELF BUT REMINDER: STILL A JERK. HE OBJECTIFIED CHRISTINE BECAUSE HE GOT SO INVESTED AT THE IDEA OF HAVING A CRUSH AND A GIRLFRIEND LIKE HER

21) JAKE AND RICH WOULDN’T BE SO OPEN TO TALK ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS, EVEN WITH EACH OTHER

22) WE NEED MORE JENNA REPRESENTATION

23) CONSIDER: POLY SHIPS (SPECIFICALLY EXPENSIVE PINS AND PATCHES)

24) YALL ARE ALSO SLEEPING ON PLAYRIDE

That is all. Will update if I think of anything :)

[paladin-lynx]

Jeremy Heere for the ask meme!

Oh man, it's been a hot minute since I've thought about Be More Chill so here goes!

Favorite Thing About Them: The first thing that comes to mind is that I find Jeremy super relatable. I never got to see the Two River production of BMC, but I did get to see it on Broadway and I shared a lot of anxieties with Jeremy. I also discovered BMC during a particularly rough time in my life and so being able to relate to a character so well while going through the motions helped a lot.

Least Favorite Thing About Them: Eh, nothing much, really. I guess I could do with a little less horny energy but Jeremy is a teenage boy so I kind of have to give him a pass.

Favorite Line: "Especially now, since I clearly see -- The problem has always been me!" (honestly, I just love the entirety of Loser Geek Whatever and I'm so glad they added it to the show)

brOTP: I think I have to go for the obvious one of Jeremy and Michael (although I do enjoy them as a ship, too).

OTP: I'm a huge sucker for Jeremy/SQUIP.

nOTP: None, really? I've seen good content for him with most characters in the show.

Random Headcanon: I think I've said this in the past, but I love the idea that Jeremy retained some Japanese even after the SQUIP shut off and he sometimes just switches to it without really realizing.

Unpopular Opinion: I have yet to read the BMC book (although I do own it), but I know that the dynamic between book Jeremy and book SQUIP is very different than musical Jeremy and musical SQUIP, and that book SQUIP is a bit softer than musical SQUIP. However, I do think that the SQUIP, even in the musical, did have Jeremy's best interests at heart and just went overboard without really understanding that it was doing such, and I think to some degree Jeremy knew that and losing the SQUIP did upset him in a way.

Song I Associate With Them: There are many, including those from the musical, but a few are "Voices" by Groundbreaking, "Lead Sails (And A Paper Anchor)" by Atreyu, and "Zero" by Imagine Dragons.

Favorite Picture of Them: I have many pieces of BMC fanart saved on my phone, but in terms of actual pictures, I love this one of Scott Folan from the London production of BMC:

He just looks so cute!

Thanks for the ask! It took me a while to remember all the things I think about Jeremy since it's been so long, haha.

Send me a character and I'll list things about them

[unproduciblesmackdown]

which bmc scenes make you the softest bc for me it's gotta be most of the stagedorks scenes ESPECIALLY a guy that i'd kinda be into. mostly bc of christine cause her and michael are my favs (i love them all sm though) but also bc of jeremy because he is a close second to both of them. also vimh but vimh makes me cry a lot although nowadays i can hardly watch one scene without at the very least tearing up. anyways yeah which ones make you soft

i simply rewatched bmc and took notes for this and really got off track at points in the sense of sticking to What Makes You Softest but that’s how it goes babey

ACT ONE - in mts when jeremy is just having a whole moment being smitten in christine's presence while she's inelegantly picking herself up off the floor and smearing on lip balm and adjusting a skirt wedgie - jeremy and michael just being default that glad to meet each other in the middle of a random schoolday - michael hyping up jeremy's crush on christine and just encouraging this momentum to get jeremy to sign up for the play - ilpr.....that christine stops after like, the first two verses and goes back to her book b/c she doesn't figure someone's looking to listen to her beyond that but then she sees jeremy's still 110% paying attention and the whole rest of the song enfolds with increasing enthusiasm - jake doing that whole bit "all the pressure i feel to be the best at everything all the time" lmao classic stuff here, depressing content delivered in this humorousse way. charming moment - "leave me alone, i've had a bad day" - 2pg......when michael taps jeremy on the shoulder to get jeremy to join in on his choreo, which jeremy then does.....that michael asks if jeremy will be too cool for Video Games and jeremy just responds Emotionally Directly......we love the Favorite Person moment......that this song just ends with the two of them grooving 2gether god bless - jeremy stammering and Tics and Fidgeting when the squip remarks uponst it - jeremy delivering the Looking Pretty Sexy Brooke as awkwardly as possible and she's just like "thanks :)" - jeremy's own Theatricality coming out......hey hamlet - jeremy spinning around in place alternately addressing both brooke and the squip with "oh i'm supposed to meet my friend michael" - nice little detail wherein brooke signals for chloe to join in on her choreo - speaking of, v fond of the Moment jeremy is in on both their choreo......brooke sort of alarming jeremy with her whole attempted grande finale, straw and all, ft. the first instance of her messing with his hair so much she's just tugging his entire head around - cute that jake and rich have a sort of 2pg-esque handshake routine too - jeremy's "that's sad, what should i do" reaction re: jenna - rich's Earnest invitation to come over and play xbox... - "bonjour, jeremy" "ooh brooke!" and this whole exchange, her complimenting him, him laughing at "That Was French" and remembering to ask about pinkberry - love the whole choreo sequence/s in sync up, especially fond of his Moments with the girls, bumping hips with chloe (twice), hearing some Gossip from jenna, posing with brooke.... ;__; - the bowling alley performance art exchange before agtikbi ;____; - agtikbi......the glittery hearts choreo.....the whatever! the interlude or whatever!!! the I Guess A Part Of Me section hhhhoughhh ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; that she pulls him into a hug and puts her head against his shoulder omggg ;_________; - brooke just trying to interact with jeremy the Right Way w/o any guidance on the bleachers and it continues to be awkward and funny....like comforting just his Leg while he converses w/his squip.....how she just ends up Physically pushing him around by the hands and head and shoulder and etc......whole situation here in upgrade.mp3 clearly less than Ideal but jeremy and brooke are nevertheless very cute individually And together - meanwhile jake also trying to genuinely Be With christine in upgrade is also charming lol, quitting archery to hang w/a girl like her.... - i always love when the Playful Shove brooke gives jeremy at "but at the mall, you looked at me" pushes him back a whole few steps....this moment of them truly Getting each other sans anyone else's interference.....tres magnifique - jeremy being That psyched to see michael for the first time (in like, less than one full day lol)....michael being That psyched just hearing that jeremy's cool scifi thing worked out after all - lgw ;_________________________; - like i'm some normal, handsome guy..... - giving us All that silence after "The Problem Has Always Been Me" - the whole bit where he launches into the "I'm Not The [series of insults]" and i've realized it's really especially a stretch to say i'm Soft for these moments in lgw but i Am vulnerable and that's its power. little 1" tall will roland on my screen here just made me shed a real tear doing That.....

ACT TWO - brooke's Howl at the end of her verse lmawooo - oughhh jeremy and brooke Greeting each other at the party too, jeremy unable to disappoint her and going for the Real Compliment, just v charming. rip - jake and jeremy's danceoff lol hell yes and then jake just having Misunderstood the costume plan between him and christine lol - the squip getting in on the dancing :) go you funky little ai - jeremy and brooke singing that last verse of Halloween v enthusiastically at each other, - again that jeremy is just genuinely glad to see michael.... - the inherent intimacy of singing mitb b/c your bff dumped you..... - AGTIKBI REPRISE..... ;______________________________; hhhhuouuuoh my god :'3 the lil detail that at the Height of things christine is Shy and turns away.....just. This Scene oh my god - soft in a vulnerable way like, rip to jenna where we're seeing chloe's Lack Of Enthusiasm in accepting a call from her :[ - the Shift at the start of the pants song :] - and the lil mitb reprise during said pants song lmao, also always having a great time w/this concept of "maybe this teen having a rough time needs some guidance from someone grown w/all that bonus maturity here" - i wish there was a way i could help everyone but i don't know how so i guess i'll just do theatre..... - jenna being Moved simply being asked for the first time ever How She Is u_u then her being like "....Okay!" lmfao jenna's great - just have to say in whatever context i'm v fond of pitiful children there at the end lmfao the bass kicks in like that and we're having a great time - the audience always having that response to "all the way to broadway" - jeremy going "you came to see me in the play? :)" like, that he's processing the significance of that in the middle of these Very Raised Stakes - i'm soft for will roland's vocal glitching mouth noises live every night!!! - jeremy like "ha! >:)" flipping his squip off after he's successfully Apologized lmfaoooo love him - but then having that real And I'm Stronger Than You Think I Am victory like :'| - that michael's been by like a ton btw during jeremy's probably somewhat concerning coma. also cherish the lil dance he does while they're celebrating mr. heere's bepantsedness - jake and jeremy sharing a Dab - and just the Popular Kids actively seeking him out to help re: christine b/c they just Want To Be Supportive.....very nice - this vimh interlude or whatever with christine and jeremy like jlsdfhh i think of this all the time - me and the voices in my head have made up our collective mind ;__; what do they say we should do ;______; and the Woohoo! ;_______________; - huoughh kiss and you KNOW especially the [jeremy spinning away in sheer enthusiasm] of 2.0 just KILLS THE MAN ;O; - jeremy not missing a beat despite the squip's interruption leeet's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - the more than survive na na na na na na na na na na na's but they're all So, and jeremy ending With everyone but also there with Himself and it's so Good and Everything Wants What Vimh Has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hhrough ;0; - that jason does that spin at curtain call w/his excellent squip costume... - that in virtually any given curtain call when they get into line together there's that lil ritual of george smacking will's ass lmao love languages

i mean tl;dr quite Same in that like, most likely to inspire tearing up over something or other includes agtikbi reprise and vimh which is just like, again any finale wants what it has, and the I Guess A Part Of Me bit of the non-reprise agtikbi like Oof augh this is so cute, and lgw always Gets me, and while i was rewatching speaking of being soft and move-able i was also just continually struck with delight over various moments throughout, and noticing little details for the first time thank god. just Vulnerable the whole time

[hs-conspiracy]

Non-Romance Sad Songs in Musicals

Listening to a lot of musicals this past couple months really opened my eyes to how many sad and emotional songs are about romantic love. Most of the biggest musicals today like Rent, Wicked, Six, Hadestown, and more all have their emotional climax songs be about love. This isn’t something everyone can relate to, and it can get boring and lose its touch after a while. So I decided to list sad, emotional songs that are not about romantic love that other people can relate to.

“She Used to be Mine” (Waitress)

Arguably the best song in all of Waitress. Hearing Jenna mourn the death of the person she used to be is heartbreaking and shows how her marriage and depression have taken a toll on her. She states that she knows who she used to be was not perfect but it was her, not the cold shell she currently was. While the show never says outright that Jenna has depression, this song makes it clear and is a song many people with depression or other mental illness can relate to. Watching Jenna throughout the musical, you see her trying to get some of her light back through her affair Dr. Pomatter, but cheer when she realizes that it was not the right way and finally seeing her happy away from romance is heartwarming and makes “She Used to be Mine” a great song during any re-listen

“No One is Alone” (Into the Woods)

A song about grief and mourning the death of your family, how can you not cry? Red, who was always a bright light throughout the musical, and the slow Jack both crying after finding out their mothers and grandmother(in Red’s case), the last of their families, had died is devastating. Both Cinderella and the Baker have to set aside their own grief, Cinderella from finding out the man, who she thought could be family when she had no one, cheated, and the Baker from finding out the death of his wife leaving him alone with a child he had a hard time caring for without her, to comfort these children is so sad that leaves everyone in the theatre crying by the end. Anyone who has lost someone close to them or fear it can relate to this song, making it hit even harder.

Each of the Trio’s solos from The Lightning Thief: a Percy Jackson Musical

Okay so this musical has three emotional songs that have different themes that anyone can connect with. Percy sings about how no one has ever treated him like anything more than misfit except his mom, who he watched “die” in front of him, leaving him feel alone and needing someone who sees him for him. (“Good Kid”) Annabeth sings about how no one trusts her with anything important and she had to fight to be respected, but she still feels like no one does. (“My Grand Plan”) Grover sings about his insecurities caused from the trauma of not being able to save a friend even though that was his job as a Protector. (“Tree on the Hill”)

I would also like to point out the reprise of Percy’s song in “Last Day of Summer” sung by Luke. It shows how people could be in a similar situation and have the same mind set but still have two completely different views on how to fix their problems, a theme consistently in the Percy Jackson books between these two characters that was brilliantly executed in this musical based on the first book.

“Lifeboat” (Heathers: the Musical)

One of the most popular songs from this musical that has yet to make it to Broadway; “Lifeboat” shows what happens to someone when they lose their place and friends, only to get constantly belittled. This song is why Heather McNamara is most people’s favorite character.

“When the World’s a Stake” (Trail to Oregon)

A song for the mothers out there. Mother laments about how she had to give up her dreams after she got pregnant with her daughter, but she does not want the same for her. Mother married Father to give her daughter the best life she could even though at the time she did not want her. However, after seeing her daughter for the first time, she vows and pleads to God to let her daughter have “a better life than I can provide,” something any mother can relate to.

“Michael in the Bathroom” (Be More Chilled)

Of course I have to talk about this song (otherwise the BMC fandom will attack me lol jk) A song about losing your best friend and how much it hurts, something everyone has experienced. I haven’t really listened to BMC so I’m sure someone else can do a much better job of explaining this than I can.

“What Tim Wants” “If I Fail You” & “Black Friday” (Black Friday)

Another Team Starkid musical. I’m trying not to fill this list with all Starkid but I can’t not bring up these three songs from their most recent musical. Tom sings about how he is trying to make his son happy after the death of Tim’s mother (“What Tim Wants”) and then him releasing that all Tim wants Tom to do is be there, not something superficial like a toy (“If I Fail You”).

“Black Friday” is a beautiful song sung by Lex. Lex thinks she is about to die and leave her younger sister, Hannah. She remembers how she vowed to protect her sister from their mother and the world. The song ends with Lex accepting her death even though all she wants to do is fight for her sister. A song parents, siblings, and friends can relate to.

“All Grown Up” (Bare: a Pop Opera)

Probably one of the saddest songs in the saddest musical. With the setting being a Catholic school where all the students all have something serious going on, of course it's going to be sad. But to me, “All Grown Up” is the saddest non-romance song in the musical. Ivy sings about how she messed and feels like her family will be disappointed, that she let them down. How did she mess up you might be asking? She got pregnant at 16 with a guy she doesn’t feel like has true feelings for her (which the audience knows he is in love with his best friend, another boy). This song is her crying to Nadia, her roommate and sister to the father, about how she doesn’t know what to do. In the first act, Ivy isn’t a character most people like since she unknowingly getting between Jason and Peter, but this song makes her a character everyone sympathizes with. And while not everyone is/was a teen parent, the feelings she has of disappointing her parents are painful and relatable.

I encourage anyone to add to this list if you know anymore songs I haven’t thought of.

[thewhaatever]

BE MORE CHILL LONDON

My brain was very bad at processing things that day but seeing the show on Saturday was honestly the best experience of my life and here's why:

First of all: Joe Iconis was sitting two rows in front of me.

I was freaking out a little and my friend was laughing at me but I didn't want to annoy him so I tried to chill

But then he was standing behind us in line for merch (he was buying a whole bunch of his own merch which was kinda funny) and some other people talked to him so I did too and I'm not entirely sure what I said to him but he was SO nice and then I got a picture and... yeah I was just really happy.

Now to the show:

The set was incredible. Absolutely amazing.

The screen was used so perfectly and made everything seem like a videogame, honestly.

It was basically the only set. The only furniture they had was a desk for Jeremy's room, chairs for the school and some other minor things (I have to say it did seem a little bit empty at times and I wish that would have used a bed at least - didn't make sense to me that Jeremy falls asleep at his desk - but I'm probably just too used to the Broadway set)

More Than Survive was SO good! Scott puts so much emotion in his portrayal of Jeremy... I can't really describe what exactly he did but something about his Jeremy felt so real and yeah I might have cried a little... (I honestly think he’s my favourite Jeremy so far)

Also: Blake's Michael is very different from George's but in such an interesting way. I loved him the second he entered the stage. He really did capture the "Doesn't care about what anyone thinks, but deep down he does a little" - Energy.

Play Rehearsal was.... wow.

Miracle's Christine had no chill. At all. She was so unbelievably weird and quirky. (Also, she seemed much colder / not interested in talking about anything except theatre and when she didn't want to talk about something she was really showing that by acting uninterested... I thought that was an interesting take that definitely worked for the character) Every normal person would have been a little freaked out by her energy during the song probably but Jeremy was just staring at her the whole time with heart eyes it was really cute.

Favourite part was how Jake said: "Rich is doing it cause he's MY BOI!"

Squip Song was great, his VOICE!! WOW. I love James's Rich. Like, you could really see that even though he's the school's bully, there's something underneath that's not right. Everything he did felt very forced and I loved it (also, I told James at the stage door that Rich is my favourite character and that made him really happy apparently)

Now that I am thinking about it, I think they changed that scene a little and Rich didn't pee (so that conversation was missing) but that was probably due to the set bc the toilets were just projections on the screen so it would have been weird if he pretended to pee on the screen 😂

Also really loved the use of the screen during that whole scene, it was flashing and glitching when Rich's Squip was acting up

They brought back the bean bags for Two Player Game!!

The staging for this was so cool because at the end when Jeremy and Michael were dancing the screen made it look like they were the characters in the game (but differently than on Broadway) and I loved it (I'm sorry I'm really bad at explaining this)

Also, Blake's 'Is it really true, I'm your favourite person' was so funny, he did like a model pose or something and was sliding off the bag.

Scott was basically sitting on the floor the whole time because he somehow didn't manage to properly sit on that bag

Also, I think they changed the dialogue about Jeremy's mum a little bc when Michael asks him if he's heard from her Jeremy said "A little" and I'm pretty sure he didn't say that before

I feel Blake's Michael is that kind of person who's really bad at expressing how he feels... like, you could see in his face that he didn't like Jeremy's idea about going to the Payless and that he was genuinely scared about being too uncool for Jeremy afterwards but he really tried to say the "will u be to cool for... videogames" kinda jokey and yeah I'm overanalysing but I loved it

One thing in general: Everyone seemed really young on stage, definitely much younger than the Broadway cast. Especially Jeremy and Michael. I really believed that they were teenagers!! And I really love that.

Scott was fidgeting a LOT with his hands and I feel like that was very in character for Jeremy. I thought so often that he would drop things.... (like the money in the scary stockboy scene.. it took him so long to give it to Michael)

Jakes favourite restaurant is Pizza Hut now

When the Squip was activated Scott was screaming and rolling across the entire stage and it would have been funny if it didn't look like he was actually in pain

Because the stage was different the Squip had to walk on for his entrance and somehow that was incredibly funny to me but I can't explain why

Stewart Clarke. Holy shit. I'd totally swallow a supercomputer if it looked like him! I loovveeed his take on the role. I've seen interviews with him where he was talking about how he has to think of so many weird questions like how does a computer act, does it feel, how does it feel etc. And I really saw that he was thinking about those things. At the beginning his Squip was very robot-ish, simply focused on making Jeremy cool, without any secret plan or anything. But throughout the show, the Squip clearly evolved and became more... human, I guess? Like it was showing more and more human traits/emotion which peaked in The Play (later more on that)

In conclusion: I loved the Squip so so much

Squip: "Everything about you makes me wanna die!"

Jeremy: "Uhhhhhh this is intense!!"

The Brooke/Chloe scene in the mall was so funny and the part where the Squip tells Jeremy what to say (u know, in bmc pt.1) might have been my favourite part of the show. Scott looked so awkward and confused by everything but he did his best to mirror the Squip (they did identical movements the whole time which I don't remember from Broadway but my memory is shit so...)

Millie's Chloe was so over the top I love it.

They changed the dialogue a lot here, so that there's no mention of Madeleine at all so Chloe wasn't pissed or anything (I'm not sure if I like that) Jeremy just said something along the lines of "Oh you wouldn't know her because she's French" and that's where Brooke picks up her trying to speak French- thing

I THINK (not 100% sure tho) that Millie said "Jeremy?" Instead of "Jerry" At the beginning of that scene and that Scott was a bit confused for a second but he just continued with "It's Jeremy" and then Millie had to duck away because she was laughing (but maybe she did say it right and was just laughing at Jeremy in character idk)

I loved how Eloise's Brooke was so awkward. From the second that Jeremy noticed her she tried SO hard to impress him and it didn't work very well but it was so cute. Chloe tries to show her the whole time what to do but that doesn't make it better.

During Do you wanna ride, Jermey got so scared of the girls that he climbed onto the table with the t-shirts (actually now that I'm thinking about it he was climbing on things a lot)

Guy That I'd kinda be into was so cute!! I never particularly liked that song but Miracle somehow gave it a very different flair and I loved that. They changed the staging a bit and there weren't other people with hearts (there were hearts on the Screen) but at one point Rich was coming on stage with a helium heart balloon for like a second and then he disappeared again 😂 that was a bit weird but...

now lets get to the Act 1 Finale which was SO GOOD

Okay, so they changed it up quite a lot: After the whole "Eminem is dead?!" The Squip tells Jeremy that Brooke likes him (and Christine doesn't, yet) and Jeremy is so shocked that he turns to Brooke and says "You like me?" And she's like confused but nods and he's like: "Why???" (I loved that, Scott delivered that line really funny) and then Brooke explains the whole thing with Chloe, that she always gets noticed first etc. (That whole scene was really cute Jeremy and Brooke really seemed to actually like each other and I was really able to relate to Brooke - good Job Eloise!)

Then Brooke starts singing the "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" Jeremy repeats it and then she starts Upgrade with the tres magnifique bit. It's like on the OBC until Jake's and Christine's part. They do their verse but run off after "Gotta get an upgrade" (Miracle was singing this up the octave which sounded SO cool) so they didn't have their conversation about Jake's parents (I did miss this a little but I get why it was cut) and then Jeremy ran back on stage followed by the Squip (you can see in Stewart's performance that he's already much more persuasive in a human way than before) who starts to sing the aggressive "C-c-c-come on Jeremy can't you see we got a plan, now be the man..." From the original cast album (I loved this SO much). Everyone came on to sing the "Christine" part in that and was surrounding Jeremy. He then shouts "Arghh too many voices in my head" the Squip leaves, Michael comes on, they do their "Jeremy that's amazing" dialogue, the Squip explains optic nerve blocking and says that he has to cut Michael off if he wants to be popular (Squip: "Cut your ties... or you'll both drown" I remember that because it sounded so unbelievably dramatic), Michael asked "Are you coming" and leaves the stage for Jeremy to sing Loser, Geek, Whatever.

I loved all of that so much because Scott puts so much emotion into this song, it nearly made me cry!! He really conveyed Jeremy's inner struggle without making him look like an asshole, more like a stupid kid that's going to make a really stupid decision

The second verse and chorus of LGW were cut (the "Dad taught me follow your instincts..." part) which I really liked (I never enjoyed the chorus of this song tbh).

"THE PROBLEM HAS ALWAYS BEEN.... .... me" the way Scott sang that truly broke my heart.

AND THEN (Loved this SO SO MUCH) after "ever agaaiiiiinnn" He went straight into that part that I guess you could call an Upgrade reprise from the Original Cast album ("And I wasn't sure before but now I wanna go all the way and more so give me that upgrade" etc.) AND it tied in so perfectly with Michael then asking again "Are you coming" and "Optic nerve Blocking on" and as much as I loved the "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" chorus, this was SUCH a great way to end act one, I might even prefer this.

I just love how they mixed in the old parts from this song that I was really missing on the OBC.

When the Squip came out in his first dress (is it a dress?) Costume people were cheering, loved that. (I mean that costume IS gorgeous and Stewart Clarke looks absolutely fabulous in all the costumes)

That was Act 1!! (I am so sorry if you actually read everything up to this point...)

Act 2

Halloween had such an amazing energy!!! The dances!! Ahh

At his "I don't have a machete but a loaf of bread will do" line, James threw the bread up in the air but didn't catch it and just hit his head as he went to pick it up as if he was blaming his Squip (not sure if that was supposed to happen but I loved it)

I loved how the Squip joined the dance, it looked so fancy with his costume 😂 I know he did this on Broadway too and I never really understood why (the others can't see him after all) but there it kinda felt like it was hinting at the fact that the Squip was becoming more human-ish??? (I'm definitely overthinking this) Like he was having fun maybe??? Idk

Millie's Do you wanna hang was so hilarious!!!

Like I said they didn't have a bed so she was just dancing around him (which looked good but I missed a bed here tbh) and they added a bit of dialogue (I think, maybe it was in the Broadway version) where Jeremy asked her "Are you jealous of Brooke??" And she was like "I'm not jealous I just don't understand why everyone likes her and no one likes me." (Or something like that) and the way Millie delivered that line really gave Chloe a whole lot of character depth. She sounded so heartbroken, I just wanted to hug her.

When the Squip shuts off (it looked really funny), Stewart just trust-falls backwards off stage and someone has to catch him and I was just thinking what if whoever catches him forgets about it??? 😂😂 (No seriously, dear catch person, don't forget this, ever... we need him as a Squip)

And now, the moment we have all been waiting for. MITB

Ahhh I was having so many feeling during this scene. I already told you that I love Blake's Michael and I really loved how rational and smart (?) He sounds in the scene before the song compared to Jeremy who kept insisting that the Squip isn't bad.

They added a bit of dialogue here too I think, because Jeremy said something along the lines of "You said technology isn't dangerous-" "Yeah unless someone uses it like you do!" (Something like this), really loved that as people somehow keep insisting that this is a show about the dangers of modern technology (It's definitely not).

Blake and Scott both did such an incredible job in this scene (and overall obviously), you just knew something bad was about to happen...

At the "Leave me alone" (not sure if that's what he's saying) line Jeremy steps reaaalllyy close to Michael (like there noses were almost touching close) and he looked so intimidating towards Michael and Blake sounded actually a bit scared when he says "Or you'll what?"

Then they just stand there for some seconds, not moving, before Jeremy says the "Get out of my way, loser" and Scott says this with so much hatred, my heart was actually hurting. Michael then just steps away and he looked sooo sad I almost cried.

MITB was absolutely amazing. Again very different than George's version but with just as much emotion and Blake's voice was sooooo beautiful, I can't!!

He sang the last "Michael in the Bathroom by himself" a bit different (can't really describe it but the note on "bath" was higher than usual? I don't know much about music sorry) and I loved loved loved that

The scene with Christine and Jeremy was so sweet. They were so unbelievably weird, I love them.

When the costumed person between them leaves, Christine pulls Jeremy across the stage by his legs and places them on top of hers (like in the promo pic) and it looked so cute!!

After that when Rich comes on and says the "I'll burn you out" I was soo sure somehow that there used to be a voiceover of his Squip but I can't find it anywhere so idk I'm confused... But it's definitely not there anymore.

Smartphone Hour. Holy shit, that was SO good. Renée Lamb's voice OMG!! Absolutely incredible.

(I just had to notice once again how much I hate the costumes in this scene... like the colours are great but what teenager wears THAT to sleep???)

The screen was so cool here again!! It obviously showed Jenna's selfie with the house (which I want printed to hang on my wall tbh) and then at the end it was full of fire that changed its colour and all of that was so fitting for the colour scheme!! The entire set design is just so incredible.

Also, Brooke is eating a banana when Chloe calls her and when she tells her about the fire Eloise just yeets it across the entire stage

They all looked like they were having so much fun!!

Back to Jeremy: For the scene with Mr Heere, Scott was switching back to total asshole mode... Internally I was like "Uhh that little shit" but yeah, great acting!!

I LOVE the pants song! It's so underappreciated!

The "You're burning incense" line got a lot of laughs

"Say it like you're in the army!"

"NO, SERGEANT, SIR!!!" *salutes*

Loved that

Pitiful Children was actually SO intimidating!! The use of the screen here and in The Play was almost overwhelming but like in a good way, I really felt the seriousness of the situation.

Again great acting skills from Scott and Stewart. Jeremy was so torn between giving in and knowing that it's wrong and the Squip really felt humanly evil at this point.

Renée Lamb's riff!! Omg! She did it very different than in the press videos but it sounded so cool!!

Also, I felt so bad for Jenna. Her "No one's ever asked me that before" really hit me.

"Michael makes an entrance!!!!!" was perfect, I love Blake!

The fight between Jeremy and Michael looked SO violent 😂 at one point towards the end Jeremy punched him and he was just lying there on the edge of the stage for some minutes and only woke up to join everyone screaming at the end.

I loved how everyone acted when they were squipped!! They were very obviously not themselves.

Especially Christine was acting very very differently. Her voice sounded completely different and you could see that Jeremy made his decision to give her the mountain dew red the second she opened her mouth.

Jake's "God I love me!" Was just really wholesome. He sounded so surprised about that.

They didn't have the "My Squip says I can go all the way to Broadway" :((( but I can live with that...

The part where the Squip “Died” was SO good!!! This was really the moment where the Squip felt very much like a human being. He was screaming and begging and sounded actually terrified. His acting here was absolutely incredible. I almost, almost felt bad for him a little.

Also, the projections were amazing, it looked like the screen shattered when the Squip died. 

Again, one thing that really bothered me: What kind of hospital doesn't have beds??? Jeremy and Rich were just sitting in wheelchairs which was fine but like... Why no bed???

I loved James' acting in this scene!!! He was a COMPLETELY different person and everyone noticed that right away. Even without the l lisp, you would have noticed simply by the way he was talking. James really did a great job with Rich!!

His "I'm totally bi now!!" Sounded so surprised and got a lot of applause.

Voices in my head is my favourite song and made me cry 😂

Christine's Squip is now Greta Thunberg!!!!

I loved how Jeremy was totally his old self again when he was talking to Christine. He was stammering and fidgeting with his hands a lot and only managed to bring out the "Bowling Alley performance art?" Because Christine kept encouraging him which was so cute. If there are somehow still people out there who think that their relationship is underdeveloped they should watch this version.

The kiss was so cute!! Miracle and Scott have amazing chemistry!

I really think that's all I have to say... It's a lot I'm sorry 😂😂😂 just had to write those thoughts down.. I hope it makes a little sense I was a bit sick in the last few days so excuse me if anything's worded in a weird way...

I loved it so so much and I'm so happy they got the well-deserved extension! I'm definitely going again sometime soon 😊😊

[ayashiki-i-i]

Last Friday, I had the absolute joy and privilege to see Be More Chill in London!

(Yes, last Friday, this has been sitting in my drafts for over a week because I couldn’t figure out how to appropriately convey my delight with this show, and also yes, joy and privilege, call me dramatic but I swear to god nothing on this Earth makes me appreciate my life quite as live theatre.)

I have loved this show for a very long time. Not quite since its first Two Rivers Theatre run, but very early on from when it caught the internet’s attention. I was at the start of what was to become a viral sensation, and I was with the show, rooting for it, hoping for it, ever since. I feel like I walked the journey from crossing million hits on Spotify to the Broadway alongside the cast and creators. I felt immensely happy and proud for these people I never met when they announced their off-Broadway return, and I honest to god cried the day they opened on Broadway. Needless to say, I was overjoyed, literally jumping with happiness, when they announced they will stage a production on West End. Or technically off-West End? I’m still very confused how The Other Palace is not West End and Victoria Palace literally around the corner is West End... Anyway. I have not walked into that theatre on Valentine’s Day with low expectations.

And my Mount Everest high expectations were far, far exceeded and shot somewhere into the stratosphere.

I really can’t with words describe how much I loved this show. Joes Iconis and Tracz managed to hit some very special spot with this musical. It’s truly hard to describe, but this show just makes you happy. It makes you involved and interested. And I gotta tell you, I think we hit the press night, because there was a bunch of people (very respectfully) scribbling on their pads and iPads during the show, so this wasn’t an audience primed and geared for this type of musical. And that’s not even counting all the parents chaperoning their teenagers. And I can guarantee you everyone had a great time. During the intermission I went to get a drink and witnessed several conversations between aforementioned parents that all pretty much amounted to “wow, this is actually good!” It’s honestly such a treat to be in an audience that’s genuinely enjoying themselves.

This show is funny, and heartfelt, and charming. So charming. It has somehow a vibe of a really well done high school production, which could maybe sound like a criticism but i swear it isn’t!

I haven’t seen much of the previous productions, except few clips from the Two Rivers bootleg slime tutorial, but I really tried not to watch too much, hoping against hope there will be a revival one day (I try not to watch shows I have a chance of seeing one day. I’m fortunate to have the chance of having the full experience live so I try not to ruin it for myself lol). I gobbled up all the official promo clips and videos from the NYC revival, being super unlucky and managing to plan my New York trip in that small window when BMC just closed Off-Broadway and before it got on Broadway. I haven’t even listened to the Broadway recording, because by the time it came out I knew they’ll be staging a production over here. So i went in quite blind. With all that previous ado, this is how it was:

The book is so good. So so good. Many times when I fall in love with an album, the actual musical doesn’t hold up because the book doesn’t compare (hi, Dear Evan Hansen). But BMC is as engaging and fun between the songs as during them. Tbh I don’t love the changes to the songs they made, but I don’t really hate them either... Now having listened to the Broadway recording they reverted somewhat back to the original album on West End and I’m happy they did, but still. Especially Pitiful Children did not deserve the cuts. But I mean its still mostly the same album and it’s brilliant and fun, and ok, Looser, Geek or Whatever is a bop.

(Although I always kinda liked that Jeremy didn’t have a typical big “hero song” because he keeps mentioning how he isn’t a hero and it was kinda ironic that his own show refused him the hero treatment, but the song is solid.)

This cast is EVERYTHING. I’m sorry all previous casts, I love you and I respect you but i really think the British cast is (so far) the peak? Obviously as I said I don’t have the full picture to compare, but honestly these guys are all so good and I can’t imagine anyone else in these roles, they set the bar so high. Yes, even Michael. Omg I’m so sorry George Salazar! This role is his in a very special way, and I feel blasphemous saying this! But that’s what makes Blake Patrick Anderson so special, because I didn’t think I will ever be able to accept another Micheal than George Salazar. But from the first moment Anderson appears on stage, you don’t think of George Salazar. This right here is a Micheal and that’s it. I think he’s slightly less... Manic, than Salazar, and more caring, but also more stubborn, and nerdy. My friend said after the first act the character’s problem is that he’s a bit too likeable and it’s almost unbelievable he would be a social outcast and she was right. The dude is so damn likeable! So charming, so positive. And then Micheal in the Bathroom hits and omg does it hit. Also Blake Patrick Anderson has a really long name is very pretty. A+ snack. I’m in love. Scott Folan is, uh, I don’t really love him vocally... Ok I liked him until Loser Geek of Whatever. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t his day. Or maybe that song is just written for Will Roland and no one will ever measure up? Tbh I haven’t seen Roland sing it live so who knows, maybe it is one of those songs that’s hard to perform without yelling a bit. Praying circle for the West End cast album? However Scott Folan’s acting is a masterclass. He’s so awkward in the first act, so sad, but also sweet. Actually I said i didn’t love his singing but when his voice cracks all over in his first few songs it’s superb and also his “Christiiine~” is really beautiful and lovely, so, dunno *shrugs*. And then in the second half he totally sells his confidence and assholer-y and like... They seem like two different jeremys, the squipped and un-squipped one. But ultimately he just gives such good-kid vibes. He seems like the perfect midpoint between Will Connolly’s shy Bambi and Roland’s geeky recluse. This Christine is absolutely feral. Like, you have no idea. Some people commented on the video of I Love Play Rehersal from the rehearsals that this Christine is not chaotic enough, so I’m seriously worried how chaotic Stephenie Hsu was? :D In any case Miracle Chance I thought was perfect, the ideal mixture of quirky but relatable, sweet but strong. Also she is hilarious. I’m pretty sure she got the most laugh out of the audience, not just because the actress’s absolutely perfect comedic timing but also that role is so well written. Like you really can’t get the full idea of this character until you watch the show, you know? It’s very layered, but each layer is easy to get so she makes a really fun character to watch. The Squip is hot. Like so hot. And his costumes are wonderful. And I know I’m not the only one who didn’t love Jason Tam’s accent as Squip and like... I think I know what he was going for but it just doesn’t work for me. This Squip is a lot more like Eric William Morris, just more hot. Oh yeah I mean the dude is fantastic actor too, and his voice is something impressive, but mostly I was just thinking “hot” whenever he was on stage :D James Hameed’s Rich is vocally stunning. By far the best Squip Song I have ever heard. Also he has Pickle Rick tattoo?? It’s fucking brilliant I HATE IT! :D Millie O’Connel is perfect of course. She has such a presence on stage. It was hilarious when she came out after the show, with her hair down and make-up off and said hi and people mostly kinda ignored her cause... She’s really a hurricane on stage and when she dials it down just a notch I really think people don’t connect her to her stage persona :D

(Also like, massive kudos to The Other Palace’s stage door, cause they allow you to just hang around the bar where the cast has to go through to leave the place, so no dirty alleyways stage dooring in rain and cold and possible pickpockets around.)

I really loved the staging, and it’s very small, very minimal, which isn’t something I normally like, so well done! They definitely dialled back from the Broadway (the bean bags are back!) and honestly the minimal props and simple set really suit this show. It adds to that almost-like-a-really-good-school-play charm. But also they have this massive LED screen as the background so they can change and move and animate their backdrop and it’s honestly so impressive. The artwork is so perfectly in line with the show’s aesthetic. And it’s building up and up towards the show’s climax which I thought was pretty subtle and pretty neat creative decision.

Ugh this is so long I didn’t think it would be so long :D But I have one criticism I cannot not mention. And I kinda always had this, but seeing it live it jumps out on me more - I don’t feel Jeremy and Christine :| I mean don’t get me wrong. The actors have amazing chemistry, their added song is the one that I actually really like and it makes sense, there’s so much more meaningful interaction they have in the show than the songs wold suggest. But. It still doesn’t quite sit well. Besides the fact that I don’t think the show’s narrative is about Jeremy getting the girl - that’s not really his character arc. But also, although they’re not incompatible, he gets the girl he doesn’t even really know, and she definitely doesn’t know him. I think I would prefer if they just stayed friends at the end, but if there had to be romantic conclusion... Well, I mean who doesn’t ship boyf friends, but seriously if Michael was a girl I’m pretty sure he’d be the romantic endgame for Jeremy. You know the type, the old friend who was by the protagonists side and believed in him all along? Yeah. But besides that, i was surprised to find I kinda liked Jeremy with Brooke too? I mean they have the same problem as Jeremy and Christine, with not knowing each other and all that, but at least it’s mutual, and they seemed to have a spark. But maybe it’s just because I unexpectedly really, really loved Brooke (she doesn’t have much space on the album and no one ever really talks about her, why does no one really talk about her???). She defies a lot of her archetype, she seems like such a sweet person. I guess I would just like to see more of her, and more depth to her, which a romance with the protagonist would’ve given her.

But tbh the show devotes a lot more time than I thought it would for Christine and Jeremey’s relationship to develop and it isn’t unrealistic, so it ended up being a pretty minor issue, which i though would be a bigger one.

Tl;dr (oh my god why is this so long????) this show is everything I wanted and more. The West End cast is amazing, charming and delightful and each of them is perfectly cast to really embody their character, while giving some fresh outlook on characters I thought I knew very well and filling very big shoes of the original cast I thought couldn’t be replaced. Also I didn’t talk to any of them but they spend a long time hanging out with the fans after the show and seemed genuinely super nice and pleased with the love the show is getting. The book is more than an equal partner to the music I already was in love with (also Joe Iconis was at the show I saw! I didn’t talk to him because I’m me and I will forever regret it!). The Other Palace’s staging and direction is wonderful, and the choreography is impressive and very on brand with the rest of the show, very modern, very electro and robot. I enjoyed every second and the standing ovation at the end was well deserved.

Just to re-affirm how much I loved this show - just few days after seeing it I booked a ticket to go see it again almost immediately lol. So if anyone is seeing it this Wednesday 26th Feb and you can telepathically pick me in the audience come say hello!

(Or like, drop me a message like a normal person if you’re also going alone and want to meet with someone to seem less like a weirdo! :D)

[bwayfanficblog]

Opinions on the BMC OBCR!

(Friendly reminder this is just my opinion! I think this cast recording is over all insanely good, I’m just being a little nit picky because I’ve loved BMC for a while. I had the privilege of seeing BMC in NYC in March, which was amazing and the live performance did influence my opinions a bit. If you have doubts about Will Roland as Jeremy, seeing it live will flip your opinions. Trust me. ❤️)

(edit: my overall opinion of this is that it’s great, but it’s trying WAY too hard. Am I the only one who thinks that the try hard sound completely erases the actual message of BMC? that you don’t have to be someone or soemthing you’re not to impress someone? I feel like the old score was just as amazing and the new actors could’ve done it justice without all of these wild changes. They basically took the creepy retro vibes out of BMC to keep up with modern broadway. I don’t have a problem with it, I just think that it erases the actual message of the show to an extent. I am so in love with Will Roland! He was wonderful live. Feel free to message me and discuss this!)

More Than Survive

- Inclusion of more dialogue is good but I kinda think it breaks up the flow a little

- Will Roland yesss, this song is actually how he sounded live, I wish you could see how incredible he looked and acted during this song

- Inclusion of the “Boyf” dialogue is cute and definitely should’ve been added to begin with

- The new harmonies on “Christineeee” where Jeremy goes up a step is so nice

- Michael’s new part is just as adorable as before, kinda sad they took out the “so own it!” line tho

- Buttt more sweet giggles from Michael makes up for it!

- I don’t like how they cut off the last Canigula so quickly to make room for the chorus singing though idk

- The louder beat slaps tho

- I don’t like how Chloe’s last “I like gay people” is isolated unlike the original cast recording

- Will gives a heartbreaking “I’m never gonna be the cool guy” performance though like damn I almost cried

- The “na na na” is now “na ahh ahh ahh” if that makes sense and it doesn’t give as much impact which makes me wanna die bc that part was so pretty

- Will’s riffs at the end make up for it

I love play rehearsal

- There’s more instruments at the start and I think a flute which is so pretty!!

- Stephanie yessss with those improved vocals

- I think the extra instruments overpower her soft sweet sound at some points in the song tho

- YESS the dialogue that’s now included yesss

- The extra instruments at the end actually add more tho I love it

- A little more dramatic

More than survive (reprise)

- ICONIC

- IM SO HAPPY THEY INCLUDED THIS

- nothing bad to say other than I’m not a fan of the weird pop-y instrumental at the end, when I saw it I think it was a little more spread out instead of included in the song but I could be wrong

The Squip Song

- Gerard’s vocals have gotten even better like yes

- The instrumental sounds about the same as the old recording which makes me glad they didn’t change it too much

- Jeremy sounds scared when he says “you got quick” and I don’t know why ? That’s kinda odd like buddy are you good

- Is rich ok like at all in this song

- The song isn’t as like soft if that makes sense

Two Player Game

- Michael sounds like wants to die when he says “apocalypse of the damned” at the start shaksksks

- BUT THIS SONG IS SO GOOD it’s another one they didn’t change very much

- The instrumental is a little more pop-y but otherwise it’s still got that retro vibe

- George was keeping it real and not changing his vocals in the song for us thank u

- Will Roland come thru with those harmonies once again

- Jeremy’s verse is really soft and sweet and I love it he just sounds done

- The extra lil video game sounds are spot on

- The “You know that you are my favorite person” lines are done so perfect but I’m sad Michael’s little giggle isn’t as prominent

The Squip Enters

- Jake’s “that freak is freaking out” isn’t that funny in this recording sjsksksksk I’m sad

- The Squip’s surfer voice was less prominent live and more realistic and I’m not sure I like it that much in the recording

Be More Chill PT 1

- The Squip has a solo part at the start!! It’s adorable

- Jason Tam yessss

- The Squip calling Jeremy Bae and Boo makes me wanna die tho

- The first part isn’t sung anymore which makes me wanna die too bc he has such a nice voice

- The Squip’s vocals in the chorus tho yes ma’am

- Instead of Jeremy saying “Jesus” he just has a lil panic attack that poor boy

- The Squip kinda sounds British in some parts of it

- You can hear George doing a funny voice for his mall character which makes me laff

- “Jerry?” —“jerry-ME” I love Will

- Chloe is a lot more pissed in this song

Do you wanna ride

- The instruments overpower Brooke in some parts

- They didn’t change the vocal lines too much but they did slow the song a bit ?

- The harmonies are really nice though come through Brooke and Chloe

- The end is also sped up a little

- Brooke’s giggle and the little French at the end was so cute

Be More Chill PT II

- “Everything about me makes me wanna die” LINE WAS SO SAD

- the instrumental build up was so incredible !!

- This is probably my favorite song for the Squip he just brings it vocally

- JEREMY’S LITTLE GIGGLE AFTER “be mORe CHILL” I CRIED

Sync Up

- This replaces the original More than survive reprise

- I don’t like how it takes Michael’s little part out of it because I think it was necessary plus the instrumental part of that slapped

- Also I think it gives us a good insight into the characters but it could’ve been placed somewhere else maybe?

- I also think the beat isn’t very uniform and is kinda messy and the dialogue is more interesting than the actual song

- It shows how nice Jeremy is tho

- I liked this song live better because the actual song just isn’t interesting enough to be a song on its own

- Jeremy and Brooke’s interactions in the song is really nice

- I love the distorted little “na na na” from more than survive though you can tell it’s slightly off

- I don’t like “head to play rehearsal” instead of “drama practice” though I don’t think it flows well

- I’m sad they changed one of my favorite songs !!

A Guy That I’d Kinda Be Into

- Once again stronger instrumental, especially guitar

- The vocal track doesn’t seem to be changed very much again thank u god

- Weird clappy sounds ??

- The harmony on “absolutely” YES

- Christine’s little breathy laugh after “I guess there’s a part of me that wants to” yes sir

Upgrade

- Brooke speaking French at the start SNSKSKSKSOSK

- I think the dialogue gives more insight into Brooke and Jeremy’s relationship

- “Jere-Bear” NAJAKAKA

- THEY TOOK THE LITTLE “damn” OUT NO

- Jake and Christine’s part is cute but it felt a little out of place for some reason and I don’t know why, like the little sad dialogue they have about Jake’s parents feels weird but it’s really

- “I’m tired of being the person everyone thinks that I am” feels like it should’ve been a part of sync up instead of upgrade

- Brooke saying she was happy Jeremy looking at her instead of Chloe first made me wanna bawl

- Also it makes me wanna punch Jeremy

- Poor Jenna got like 1 like in this song

- I feel like it wasn’t smooth transition into Loser Geek Whatever at the end I don’t like the whole weird chorus thing leading into it at all

- Feels out of place without Michael’s little part at the end, I’m sad they’re cutting significant Michael parts, I know they kept it in LGW but it felt more in place in upgrade

Loser Geek Whatever

- It’s great and Will re recorded it for the album because it seems to have more emotion and be more genuine

- He sounds super excited at the start and it makes happy

- One of the few songs that managed to keep BMC’s kinda creepy computer tech vibe which is weird because it wasn’t even in the original album I wonder if it was written newly or was a draft from the first run back in 2013-2015

- A little more upbeat but in a good way

- Will’s vocals sound a lot better than the first recording

- Extra beeping at “my one real friend” was nice

Halloween

- Brooke does a little bark at the start awe

- The beat doesn’t go as hard as the OG cast recording which sucks bc it went hard

- Everyone kinda sounds like they wanna die at the start again which seems like common theme??

- The chorus doesn’t slap either what

- The song also got cut a little short I think unless I’m crazy but I feel like it was longer than this?

- Extra verse at the end and I don’t really like it

- Kinda boring now and doesn’t give you a panic attack vibe like the OG one did

Do You Wanna Hang

- Only song where they changed a lot that made it better

- Included the dialogue at the start which makes the song make more sense

- The Squip’s Voice is so smooth ssnskskskw

- Chloe’s losing her mind a little but I love it

Michael in the Bathroom

- Jesus George’s vocals OWN MY WHOLE ASS

- He’s only gotten better somehow

- No to the new pop-y sounds in it it takes sad creepy feel out of it

- Too much instrumental added bc it doesn’t sound like ballad anymore

- I dunno how I feel about it because George’s vocals are perfect but the instrumental is doing him dirty and not making it sad enough

- This song gives me anxiety now wjsjsksks and I don’t know if that’s good or bad?

- The few lines and instrumental lines are the same as the OG which is good

A Guy That I’d Kinda Be Into (reprise)

- SO HAPPY THEY INCLUDED THIS TOO

- Whoever’s playing that flute was told to play that shit LOUD

- Jeremy’s “Christineee” omg he’s so in love

The Smartphone Hour

- The new instrumental sounds at the start sound bonk

- The phone sound effects make me wanna die dndkjssk

- Tiffany Mann’s voice COME THROUGH

- The “whoaaaa” was changed which makes me sad

- I’m glad they specified it was Jake’s house because when I listened to the OG one at first I was like did he just burn down a random house ??

- The dialogue between Chloe and Brooke is kinda dramatic now but it’s not a bad thing

- KATHYLN CARLSON’S VOICE IN HER SOLO CHORUS YES SIS

- the whistle noise has gotta go that’s what my track coaches whistle sounded like when I wasn’t running fast enough

- I’m scared now the dance break sounds like salsa music

- “Matches, ashes” was changed to “drama, drama” girl what

- Brooke’s screams yes

- The random auto tune voices in the back are trying to capture the creepy vibe that this song originally has but isn’t doing it

- This song isn’t changed much though and still has the OG vibes which is good

The Pants Song

- The weird piano at the start scares me

- The lyrics have changed a bit too

- I’m not too familiar with this song because I don’t listen to it so often but it doesn’t sound too different from the OG cast recording which is good instrumental wise

- The chorus sounds different though I don’t know how I feel about it

- The “Michael in the bathroom” melody playing in the back during the dialogue YES

- Omg the dialogue where Jeremy’s dad tells him to say it like he’s in the army omg I’m weak

- YES THE HARMONY RIGHT AFTER RHAY DIALOGUE

The Pitiful Children

- My fav song

- Not this version I don’t think but

- I don’t mind the lyric changes but I think it takes the dark creepy techno vibe out of the song

- If it was anyone other than Jason Tam singing this version I wouldn’t like it

- The chorus lost its punch with this new pop sound

- I’m really confused as to why the lyrics had to change tho these make less on an impact, I think a solo song with Jeremy and the Squip about Christine would’ve cooler

- The Squip and Jeremy’s harmonies tho like fuck me up

- The techno voice singing “lets save the pitiful children” is eh like it makes it cheesy

- I’m scared of the Squip singing “Squip Squip Squip”

- “Everything about us” run is still amazing as always

- I just realized the Squip is using Christine to manipulate Jeremy into squipping everyone that makes sense that’s why the lyrics are changing

The Play

- The dialogue at the start is different but it makes sense, it’s Jeremy realizing the Squip made him Squip the whole cast

- The instrumental sound is the same thankfully

- “Michael makes an entrance” sounds like Michael wants to die is he good

- It adds Michael and Jeremy’s fighting dialogue in it which I like and adds the two player game melody in the back

- Jake’s “living the upgrade” line was cut short :((( I love his voice

- They changed the “having sex” convo between Brooke and Chloe which doesn’t make it relevant to that scene anymore ?? But they also validate each other so idc

- The “I love play rehearsal” melody playing when Christine talks yes ma’am

- “I’m stronger than you think I am” I LOVE JEREMY

- The LGW melody playing when Jeremy is telling the Squip to fuck off

- Jeremy and Michael saying “oh god” back and fourth to each other in different tones of voice is an accurate representation of having a best friend conversation

Voices in my head

- The start sounds like pac-man and I’m so here for it

- RICH HAS HIS LISP YES QUEEN also his harmonies !!

- This instrumental is kept pretty much the same too which I’m happy about

- “Don’t dump her on Halloween” BYE I love u Brooke

- “We are your squad” AWE

- It’s so pure

- The second verse has some lyric changes but I like them more

- LGW melody is playing when he and Christine talk which is so soft bc he’s like owning being a loser?

- The “bowling alley performance art” line wouldn’t make sense if you haven’t watched the show but it’s cute

- The loud flute is present again shsksksksks

- Awe the ending harmonies are soft

- The Squip was tripping balls in the end of that wtf

- The “na na na” runs at the end don’t sound like the more than survive ones sjsksksk

- “You ready?” I LOVE

- Jeremy is such a dork and I love that so much in this song

[heereandthere]

~A Massive Thank You to @bemorechillmusical~

As I’m sure all of you know, today marks a bittersweet ending to a glorious journey: “Be More Chill” has officially finished its 5-month Broadway run. I’m really sad to see it ride off into the sunset so soon, but I’m also really proud of everyone who has made this show what it is today and helped so many people get out of very bad places. This show means so much to so many people, and though it’s disappointing to see it being taken away, it’s remarkable that everyone made it this far.

Thank you, “Be More Chill”, for introducing me to theatre and helping me find a place where I really belong, for guiding me to an outlet for the stresses of the world. This show helped me discover that the root of my issues was having no way to project by introducing me to the world of drama because “it seemed fun”, which led to some of my fondest memories. I now volunteer frequently at my local theatre, and, since I was also helped in figuring out what path I want to choose in life, I have wild dreams of making my Broadway debut.

Thank you, “Be More Chill”, for being there for me when I felt the most lost. When I first found this show is when a lot of emotional issues began to worsen for me, and I remember very fondly how BMC became, much like theatre, an outlet for all of those problems. I was having difficulties with my friends that I didn’t understand or could articulate properly, which made Michael’s story, in particular catch my eye; “Michael in the Bathroom” always helped me with a healthy cry, and flashing back to songs like “Two-Player Game” always put a smile on my face when I needed it.

Thank you, “Be More Chill”, for changing my life with only one performance and making a birthday I was secretly dreading one of the best ones possible. This was the very first Broadway show I had ever seen and, thanks to my amazing family, I was able to see it on the day I encountered a very big birthday that would change the course of my life. I was terrified of this day and, honestly, there was a part of me that just wanted to hole up in my house for the weekend and let it come and go. But, I wound up doing the exact opposite, and for those two hours I spent watching Jeremy’s story play out, I was convinced that things were going to be perfectly fine. The fears I had about fighting for my spot on Broadway and the troubles that would come with it dissipated, and I felt completely comfortable in my skin for the first time in I didn’t know how long. Being at the Lyceum made everything feel perfectly alright, and, in the words of the wise Evan Hansen, it gave me a reason to believe I’ll be okay.

Thank you, Will Roland and Jeremy Heere, for teaching me that, no matter how much I may dislike myself or how bad my anxieties get, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and the best person for me to be is myself. There will always be voices in my head telling me ridiculous things, but there’s only one me, and I need to embrace this me and enjoy life while I still can.

Thank you, George Salazar and Michael Mell, for making me smile when I needed it most while also showing me that it doesn’t matter whether or not the world is watching. You taught me that self-love does not equal narcissism and is pivotal to living your best life, and that the condescending looks from your peers don’t matter as long as you’re being your best self.

Thank you, Stephanie Hsu and Christine Canigula, for teaching me that a little weird in this world is a good thing. It’s okay to be quirky, especially when things seem the worst, and oftentimes being odd is the best way to be. Times are confusing and scary and I may feel pensive about letting my inhibitions go, but sometimes letting loose and making some of the most obscure noises known by humankind is what can do you best.

Thank you, Katlyn Carlson and Chloe Valentine, for teaching me that confidence is possible, even when it feels like you have to fake it. Other people being self-confident and happy is not a comment on me and my progress, and even if it may take me a bit longer to reach that station in life, if I can break away from that negative mindset, I’ll be able to achieve a pure confidence in myself one day.

Thank you, Lauren Marcus and Brooke Lohst, for teaching me that I’m strong and deserve better than to be walked all over. I don’t have to take toxic behavior on the chin and wear it, because my mental health and feelings are just as crucial to care for as anyone else’s. I am no one else’s toy, and no one has any right to use me and expect me to stay when they hurt me.

Thank you, Tiffany Mann and Jenna Rolan, for teaching me that my voice matters, too. I shouldn’t let people take advantage of me for one exclusive thing, no matter what it is, and that friendship is a two-way street of effort. I’m important despite what the behavior of other people may lead me to believe, and I’m allowed to leave relationships if they’re toxic to me. I’m allowed to speak out against what I don’t believe in.

Thank you, Gerard Canonico and Rich Goranski, for teaching me that I do have a say in who I want to be. No matter what mold society tries to place me in, it is possible for me to break that and fight to be my own person, with all of my quirks and peculiarities in the mix. If people don’t like who I really am, it may hurt, but that’s okay because as long as I’m living my best life, it doesn’t matter.

Thank you, Britton Smith and Jake Dillinger, for teaching me that vulnerability isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I don’t have to suppress my thoughts and feelings for other people, and it’s okay to open up about what’s bothering me. I’m never alone, no matter how barren my life feels, and it’s worth it in the long run to confide in someone, anyone. It’s okay.

Thank you, Jason Tam and the squip, for teaching me that my inner voices are intimidating and controlling, but don’t define who I am, as long as I put up a fight. I don’t always have to listen to what my brain tells me because, even if it is an extension of me, there are times when it’s wrong and irrational, and so if I assert myself and keep my true self in mind, it’s possible to deny my mind the luxury of hurting me.

Thank you, Jason Sweettooth Williams and Mr. Heere (and, of course, Mr. Reyes and the Scary Stockboy), for teaching me that sometimes you have to defy what your emotions tell you and stand up for your loved ones. It may feel like my problems control me, but it’s always okay and even encouraged to stand up and fight back, especially in the name of those you care about. Recovery is possible.

Thank you, Cameron Bond, Troy Iwata, Morgan Siobhan Green, Anthony Chatmon III, Joel Waggoner, and Talia Suskauer for working so incredibly hard on this show and in memorizing all of your roles, prepared to go on at a moment’s notice. You’ve fought for this just as hard as anyone else, and you deserve all of the respect and credit in the world for the times you’ve stepped up and absolutely killed it on both the Signature and Lyceum stages.

Thank you, Ned Vizzini, for creating a book that would come to inspire so many in such a great way, and for giving us the courage to stand up and be ourselves through the whole ordeal that is adolescence. This musical and this community wouldn’t exist without you and your work, and you laid the groundwork for what all of this would become. None of us would be here if it weren’t for your creation.

Thank you, Joe Iconis, Joe Tracz, Stephen Brackett, Chase Brock, Beowulf Boritt, Bobby Frederick Tilly, Tyler Micoleau, Ryan Rumery, Alex Bosco Koch, Dave Bova, Charlie Rosen, Emily Marshall, Michael Aarons, J. David Brimmer, Amanda Michaels, and every other intern, backstage worker, and stage managers for creating a show that has made me laugh, cry, and felt like I’m where I need to be, for creating a show that has helped me find a community of amazing people, both locally and online, and helped me feel like I was a little less alone. I know there are thousands of people just like me who say these same things, but I have no idea where I would be if it weren’t for this show, and I feel like I’m a better person for having found it.

Congratulations on an amazing comeback and a fantastic Broadway run, and I wish every single person who ever worked on this show the very best. It’s been an honor watching you get where you are today. I look forward to seeing you guys making theatre headlines once more very soon.

~Sincerely, Me

[ash-bway]

BMC OBCR Opinions

Nobody asked and I’m sure I’m in the very small minority here but it’s the tea. I took down notes in a GC while I listened to the whole album so that’s it.

First time hearing More Than Survive (Days earlier)

•The instrumentals are better

•I don’t like the extra dialogue

•When Rich wrote boyf I really hated the sounds in the music

•Gerard sounded weird

•On that a couple people it was hard to distinguish voices

•George lowkey sounded like he inhaled helium

•I like the harmonies in this version

•There was something else around here I didn’t like

•I’ve never like the way Will says “since the zombie army’s yet to descend and the period is going to end” ever since the first theatermania video from in the off broadway rehearsal room I’ve been saying how much I don’t like how he says that

•Not as bad as I expected 6-7/10

The actual day of the release

Jeremy’s Theme

No comment

More Than Survive

-Still feels awkward, not as bad as expected

-Michael does sound very high

-It seems like Will is putting in too much and George not enough

-Gerard sounds aggressive and Katlyn sounds mean

-The falsettos seem unnecessary

-The dialogue makes it worse

-Honestly people are complaining about Will but when he’s singing normally and not doing weird shit he’s not half bad

I Love Play Rehearsal

-I didn’t mind the new instrumentals

-I think it slowed some parts and sped others and it kinda worked

-I didn’t like the dialogue I think it was executed really weirdly

-Other than that I don’t think it was too bad

More Than Survive (Reprise)

No comment

The Squip Song

Squip song. Oh boy

-This was something

Honestly I’m not even gonna comment I’m just gonna keep going

Two-Player Game

-I expected this to be pretty bad because of the live version I saw which set my expectations about as low as they could go but it was better than I expected

-The fucking oh is so sexual

-I actually liked at the end where they added a higher note where it used to be a pretty similar note

-George sounds way too soft. Again I think Will is giving too much and George not enough

The Squip Enters

-What the fuck is that voice. That’s my only comment. I know he doesn’t actually talk like that so he chose to do that voice. Why

BMC Part 1

-ITS SO BAD

-HES LITERALLY DOING THAT THING WHERE YOU CAPITALIZE EvErY oThEr LeTtER BUT WITH HIS VOICE

-EW

-Will is being super extra

Do You Wanna Ride?

-Do you wanna ride is really weird and up until the very end I wasn’t sure if it was ok or if it i hated it but nope don’t like it

BMC Part 2

-Ok like Jason can actually sing when he’s not trying to do that stupid voice

-I’m spamming but my thoughts are if they just tried to do less and be less extra it actually wouldn’t be half bad. It’s just when they try to do extra things it makes everything sound bad but most of them can actually sing

Sync Up

-There’s just a lot going on here and I don’t know if it’s bad

A Guy That I’d Kinda Be Into

-At this point Stephanie Hsu is the only person who hasn’t disappointed me. She hasn’t tried to add in all of these extra things and she’s still pretty true to the original character. Her two songs are the only ones up to this point I haven’t really had much negative to say about

The Squip Stalks

No comment

Upgrade

-Oof I forgot they changed so much of the song

-Ok but the new upgrade really isn’t that bad

-I kinda like it. I mean they’re really like two separate songs and if I’m thinking of it as a separate song and not the new upgrade I actually really like it

Loser Geek Whatever

-Ok but since the last video they released of loser geek whatever it’s improved a lot and it’s actually not too bad

-Ok I feel like since this is the first time this has been on a cast album and he’s the only one I’ve heard sing it I have no one to compare it to and I actually like it

Halloween

-I feel like Halloween is slower and I don’t like that

-Other than that I don’t hate it

Do You Wanna Hang?

-Actual song not too bad

-Dialogue kinda ruined it

-I don’t like the drunk voice but I get why it’s there

Michael in the Bathroom

-There were a couple of weird instrumental things at the start but other than that I enjoyed it

-I think because of the over exaggeration there’s actually a lot more emotion

The Smartphone Hour

-I don’t like the phone sound effects that’s a big nope

-“Rich set a fire and he burned down JAKES house”: the clarification that nobody needed or wanted

-Honestly we love Tiffany

-It wasn’t too bad. There were bad parts but most of the songs have bad parts

-(A friend asks if Michael stops sounding high and I say I think so)

The Pants Song

-Besides a few lyric changes that caught me off guard I actually really enjoyed it

-This is the only song where I think adding in the extra dialogue had a positive effect on the song

-They slowed it down a bit I think but not unbearable

The Pitiful Children

-Terrible

-The lyric changes made it worse

-Jason’s literally out here instead of beep booping just screaming SQUIP SQUIP SQUI-SQUI-SQUIP

The Play

-Michael sounds high again in the play

-The Michael makes an entrance was really anticlimactic

-Bad

-The dialogue didn’t really make a difference because it was already a mostly dialogue song

-I think I had something good to say but over all of the bad parts I can’t remember what good things I had to say

Voices In My Head

-Some was bad

-The end was ok though

-Rich has a lisp on this soundtrack. They didn’t on the original but he had it in the show. I think it’s fine in the show but it doesn’t work on the soundtrack it just sounds really bad

Overall

I was originally going to rate it out of 10 when I finished it but I had no idea where to start and almost a day later I still don’t. Every song on the original was better. I know I’m being one of the “I liked it before it was cool” fans but honestly there’s just so much about it that’s bad. They over act and it makes everything worse. If they took a step back and dialed back the acting maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. They’re all talented and can sing so the real problem spot is the acting. Again I’m sure these are super unpopular opinions and I seem like a bitch right now but these were my true opinions in the moments after I listened to each of the songs

[mavrustheunskooled]

Why is Bare: A Pop Opera not as super popular as Dear Evan Hansen or Be More Chill? The fandom loves LGBT rep (which Bare has) and the songs are amazing and I think B:APO is actually superior to both of those. Thoughts? I mean the musical fandom tends to try to find LGBT characters even when they aren't stated, so why do you think Bare is not as popular?

this is a very interesting question and I am hopefully going to do it justice by analyzing Fandom, Musical Writing, and Many Other Things I’m Super Passionate About

the short: many factors and a lot of luck

the unnecessarily long: 

(opening disclaimer: I love dear evan hansen and be more chill, and I’m not upset that they’re popular musicals because I feel that they’re popular for a reason. anything that sounds like an insult in the following response isn’t such because I truly enjoy both of those musicals a lot) 

(another disclaimer: spoilers for bare, DEH, and BMC, also mentions of homophobia) 

on paper, bare seems like the exact sort of musical that would be popular. bare the musical (cursed as it is) has a cast of super popular actors like Barrett Wilbert Weed, Gerard Canonico, Taylor Trensch, Alice Lee, Alex Wyse, a high quality bootleg exists of the 2013 LA cast, it’s got LGBT+ rep, complex women characters… and yet it’s got a tiny fan base. Why? 

first let’s look at why dear evan hansen and be more chill are popular. I’m more well versed in bmc, so let’s look at its history (disclaimer: I’m estimating dates but this is roughly the timeline) 

the original bmc run was in 2015 I believe. they recorded a soundtrack, everything was fine, and they closed. in 2017, people began discovering the soundtrack in hoards. specifically, they were discovering one song: Michael in the bathroom. that’s even how I learned about the show- I heard that song and had to look up the rest of the soundtrack. and in February of 2019, they’ll start previews on broadway because the fandom was revived 

why this song? I think a ton of fame comes from talent, yes, but also from luck. I think bmc was lucky that Michael in the bathroom, a great song, was discovered as the great song that it is. I also think the fame came because that song is super relatable. as someone with pretty bad anxiety, that song really touched me because I’ve definitely spent parties hiding in the bathroom and avoiding everyone and wishing I was dead because I’m so overwhelmed with anxiety. it’s relatable, so people flocked to it. 

this made me pause to think “what is bare’s hook song” my first thought was a quiet night at home if we want a song in the same vein as MITB, but that song isn’t as hype as MITB (and fandoms don’t care about fem characters as much as it cares about masc characters). my next thought was are you there because I think it’s a bop and a relatable “pls someone help” kind of song, but I don’t know which song everyone could relate to as much as everyone could relate to MITB 

and speaking of relatable content- that’s where the DEH connection comes in. dear evan hansen is similarly relatable, although it takes that to an extreme given what Evan does as a result of his anxiety. Michael and Evan are relatable characters, even if you don’t condone everything they do (and if you condone everything Evan does, we have much to talk about)

but doesn’t bare have relatable characters?? absolutely !! there’s Peter, a closeted gay kid who wants to come out, and Jason, someone who acts tough but is secretly very insecure, and Nadia, with her body image issues, and Ivy, who people won’t take seriously because they’ve decided they already know her, and so many other complex characters. so why are they left behind? 

let’s look at bare’s history: 

bare was originally written in the 90s (I want to say 1999, but I could be wrong) the performance most people consider the quintessential bare performance was in 2004 with Michael Arden, John Hill, Jenna Leigh Green, etc. 

if you compare this to DEH and BMC, the first issue is clear. DEH was hugely popular around 2016. BMC began to grow in popularity in 2017. these are very, very new shows. 20 years doesn’t sound like a lot, but in our current age where time seems to pass so quickly which each new fad, bare seems like an older musical, and a lot of people aren’t the biggest fan of older musicals. and they don’t have to be !! but it’s a personal preference of some people that could affect how they view bare as a potential musical to be a fan of 

in terms of the music of bare, it’s definitely catchy, but it’s not like a pop song. (again, no shade at DEH and BMC because those aren’t jukebox musicals or anything). bare is simply not as easy to listen to as DEH and BMC are in my opinion (and it’s not the most complicated thing ever either, but holy cow its lyrics are smart and I have to throw that in here) 

now let’s look at reasons why people may not want to watch bare. while it is great that it has canon gay characters, compelling women characters, and is very cleverly written it also has issues that can be turn-offs to people. this includes: 

-bury your gays

-gay-guy-cheats-on-boyfriend-with-girl trope 

-gay-guy-gets-outed trope 

-and potentially other homophobic tropes

I’m not shaming bare for perpetuating these tropes because it was written 20 years ago, and lgbt+ people are allowed to enjoy media in spite of its perpetuation of negative tropes, but for some people these things are enough to turn them away. and I don’t blame them! I watched bare the musical before I watched bare a pop opera, and when Jason I died I closed out of YouTube without finishing the show because I was so Sick of bury your gays. 

I am aware that there are reasons Jason died at the end of bare (they’re making a statement about how homophobia kills, particularly how homophobic religious people can have an awful affect on young religious gay people), but there comes a time when “reasons for a gay character to die” is just too much. sometimes, you just want the gay character to live, and I completely respect that notion because I felt the exact same way when I watched bare the musical. I remember when I first watched bare the musical I wrote a thread about how as a Romeo and Juliet adaptation, bare follows some things closely (like death at the end) while avoiding other extremes (Romeo running off to another country) and I thus felt the death was unnecessary. if someone else feels similarly about being sick of gay characters dying, they have every right to not want to watch bare 

that’s enough on why someone might not want to watch bare. let’s get back to bare vs DEH and BMC 

I also think a big aspect of fandoms is shipping. the fetishization of MLM (and consequently ignoring fem characters completely, along with focusing solely on white men for their shipping and ignoring men of color) is a huge problem in fandoms that I could talk about forever, but for the sake of this response, I’ll keep it a bit shorter 

DEH and BMC profit heavily off of shipping in terms of gaining popularity. people love Evan x Connor (and other ships but that’s the main one I see), and people love Jeremy x Michael (and others). so why then do people not care about bare, a show with a canon relationship between 2 basic white men, which is their ultimate goal? 

I think people like the idea of these mlm ships more than canon content. if there’s canon, it’s harder for them to make a variety of ships because it feels like everything else has to rotate around the canon without touching it (which is where the bare fandom gets Matt x Lucas because they’re the closest they have to 2 basic men- I can write my criticism of them another time though) 

I’ve also seen posts saying that things with canon lgbt+ characters sometimes have smaller fandoms because there is no need for lgbt+ theorizing- it’s right there, and if you want lgbt+ content, watch the thing. I don’t necessarily agree with this for myself (I’ll reblog every pilgrim’s hands gifset I see) but I can definitely see how other people might think this way 

failing to hype up stuff with lgbt+ characters can have a negative impact. BMC is the prime example of how a show can be revived by its passionate fan base. if people aren’t talking about bare, it’s not going to spread like other shows do 

this is kind of all over the place but anyway- I want to talk about characters more. one thing DEH and BMC have are great, complex characters that are very easy to boil down to a fandom’s favorite stereotypes. I am absolutely not saying DEH and BMC have simple characters because I think all of them have layers; however, fandoms do love to go “this is precious cinnamon roll who can do no wrong and this is evil awful terrible irredeemable person” and it’s a bit difficult to do that with bare. 

you can say Peter is your perfect son, but he does try to force Jason out before he’s ready. you can say Ivy is the evil seductress trying to tear apart your gay babies, but I will physically fight you. there aren’t any black-and-white good or bad bare characters (except Father Flynn- hate him), which doesn’t fit in line with the way fandoms function. sweeping generalizations about the current state of society based on the internet are exhausting and bad, but we do live in an age where everything must either be perfect or evil, and you can’t do that with bare. no one “did nothing wrong uwu” and that’s what fandoms Want 

(note: they will excuse wrong actions, such as everything wrong Connor Murphy has ever done, if the character is played by a mildly attractive guy they want to ship with another mildly attractive guy) 

another point that I don’t have fully fleshed out thoughts on enough to devote too much time to is the integration of parents into the shows. in both DEH and BMC, the parents get redemption arcs. in bare, Claire does say she love Peter at the end, but she’s much less of a sympathetic character than Mr. Heere or Heidi (that’s her name right- Evan’s mom) or the Murphys. when I was younger, I wasn’t allowed to watch anything that painted parents, or adults in general, in a negative light, but maybe that’s not a universal experience 

this is getting way too long and it probably has more thought put into it than what was necessary, so I’ll try to close this quickly 

I think, first off, that DEH and BMC completely deserve the hype that they have received. they’ve got compelling stories, interesting characters, and fantastic soundtracks. I also think that luck factors heavily into them getting what they deserve. there are plenty of great shows, like bare and the boy who danced on air and spies are forever and probably more that I’m not thinking of, that have great music and characters and story that, out of sheer chance, don’t get the chance they should have been given. there is no bulleted list someone can follow and at the end they’ll be on broadway with an armful of tonys; is the luck of the draw, and bare has not been afforded that chance 

I’ll end with some reasons why anyone who happened to read this but might not be a bare fan should listen to or watch bare: 

- it is an amazingly clever show; every time I watch it or listen to it, I realize another moment of foreshadowing or a line I originally brushed off was actually very significant or there’s another recurring motif/theme in the music 

- it’s full of bops (go listen to you and I or are you there or portrait of a girl) 

- canon gay characters in a canon gay relationship 

- 3 dimensional fem characters that actively criticize stereotypes 

- it’s about a religious gay boy who grapples with his religion and his sexuality and how those two things can coexist 

- it is Very Very Good

in conclusion: bare is very good and deserves attention xx

[corn-on-ja-cob-s]

A cell bio major talks about “Loser, Geek, Whatever”

(Because if anyone knows how to talk about this, it’s me)

Background!: Be More Chill recently had an off-broadway production, where (amongst other changes), they added a new song! “Loser Geek Whatever” is the new Act 1 Finale, and replaces the end of “Upgrade”. Where Jeremy sings “I already know what it’s like to be the loser” in “Upgrade” the show transitions directly into this new song and the original ending of “Upgrade” (the “I tried to be genuine and true, but now it’s time for something new” part) is no longer there.

Song Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COpT7Lmfizw

Lyrics Link: https://genius.com/Will-roland-loser-geek-whatever-lyrics

I Have THOUGHTS about this song and you all get to hear them lucky you

Things I Like!

Sweet god the show needed this song. There are 3 big reasons for this:

Have you realized that Jeremy doesn’t have a solo in the entire show?  Yeah he has solo -parts- but before this song he never had a song all to himself. Even Rich has a solo! Bit of a hot take, but Jeremy should probably get a song all to himself.

From my perspective, BMC has two major plotlines in the show. One is the threat of the Squip and the other is the relationship between Jeremy and Michael. This song works more towards developing the latter story (which, for the record, I prefer; I’m not huge on the whole “zombie apocalypse” thing in general tbh even though i understand why they went that route), since without it you have a pretty big gap between “Two-Player Game” and “Michael in the Bathroom” when it comes to songs focused on developing that whole idea. Yes Upgrade in its original form still touches on developing that idea, but now we have an entire song towards it, and that allows more time.

Following off on that note, even in the orginal show the whole “Optic nerve blocking on” thing is a pretty big deal as it’s Jeremy turning on Michael in pursuit of his goals. From the original Upgrade we know that Jeremy’s doing this because he’s sick of what his life has been like until now, but we only really get two verses of deliberation. Not helping this fact is the fact that, until now, Jeremy’s desire have been pretty lowkey. “Aw shucks, being unpopular sucks I sure would like to be slightly better than I am now”. This isn’t a bad motivation, just it never seems -super- strong. With this new song, however, we finally get to see just how distraught Jeremy is over how his life is (i mean sweet fuck lines like “the problem has always been me” and “if brooke can look me in the eye like im some normal handsome guy” are fucking heartbreaking), which is something the show never really had before.

Will Roland does a rocking job mixing both “voice cracking with sadness and depression” and “fuck yeah go jeremy , achieve your dreams you funky little bean” while stille sounding so good

In general the song just does a good job drawing the audience into Jeremy’s head by making you feel for his utter despair over how he hates himself, his worry over if what he’s doing is the right thing, his defeated giving up on trying to figure things out for himself, and his excitement and relief to finally have what he sees as the solution

Following up on that last point: by making the audience feel conflicted yet happy for Jeremy (much like how Jeremy himself feels) it not only leaves wanting to see more like any act 1 finale should but it also makes Michael in the Bathroom hit even harder than it already does

Things I Didn’t Like! (this list is shorter don’t worry)

I don’t like the “woah oh oh, uh huh uh huh”s. yeah sure they sound nice, but they clash with the rest of the song thematically and lower its overall impact by mixing “emotional solo” with “hah chah chah”. It’d be like if “I Dreamed a Dream” had Fantine doing Christina Aguilera style vocalizing during it.

As much as I like Roland’s performance in this I also don’t like it since I think he goes a little bit too far in the voice cracking and the “gyu-huck imma nerd” and it ends up taking away from the emotion of the song by bordering on sounding silly (especially when he sings “the please don’t speak” in the final verse). I don’t think it’s any thing that can’t be fixed, I just think that, at least in this specific recording, he could do better.

I really love the line in Upgrade on the original recording of “now, let’s get to work” and then the spooky chords that follow. It sends chills down your spine of “oh shit things are going even more south” and at first that it wasn’t in the off-broadway, and I was bummed. But then I saw that it was and I realized that it doesn’t work following this songas well as it did following Upgrade. Like, at all (or at least the the spooky chords don’t). Might be because of the dissonance between the music of “Loser Geek Whatever” and the spooky chords, might be some other reason i can’t think of.

Things I didn’t necesarilly like or dislike but just things that I noticed, along with potential interpretations that I recognize may not be that good!

The rhyme scheme in “Michael thinkgs that weird is rad, but being weird just makes me sad, and I deserve to not feel bad” is a super simple rhyme scheme. This might just be less-than-stellar writing, but if we wanna spin it in a positive light we could interpret the simplicity of the rhyming reflecting the simplicity of the idea being expressed in the lines. When I say the idea is simple, I mean that it’s simple both in the sense of “it’s something that everyone feels and experiences and understands really early on in their lives, that idea of ‘i don’t wanna be weird and the outcast because it makes me sad’“, and it’s simple in the sense of “it’s pretty much the kernel of what Jeremy is singing about the the entire song”.

The final verse of this song, where Jeremy is listing off a bunch of insults that he’s likely heard others say about him about himself mirrors the final verse of “Michael in the Bathroom” where Michael lists off insults about himself that he’s likely heard others say about him.

The notes Jeremy sings as he holds out the final word of the song are almost identical to the final notes sung in “Be More Chill Pt. 2″, with the exception of the final note (they go up in “Be More Chill Pt. 2″ but Jeremy goes down in “Loser Geek Whatever”). The similarity between the two shows that Jeremy is being influenced by and is striving towards what the Squip has been promising him, while that small difference at the end shows that Jeremy still isn’t completely under the control of the Squip and is still able to do things unique to himself.

point of all this: I like this song and I want more like it. Thanks for reading if you got this far byyyyyyyeeeeeee

[beccaboosthings]

1-35 for the musical asks ❤️

Okay I warn you, I have only seen/listened to Deh, Bmc, Heathers, Newsies, Mean Girls, 21 chump street, The Last Five Years (dose that even count?) and a handful of team star kids musicals. I know I’m basically a fake theater fan. I promise I have been meaning to get into others. Don’t hate me haha. So I’m sorry if i don’t know how to answer some of these lol

1. Best cast recording to listen to during a long car trip

Mean Girls

2. Song you’d blast from the top of a skyscraper?

Either “You will be found” or “Disappear”

3. Song that never fails to make you cry?

“So Big/So Small”, “In the bedroom down the hall”, and “A little bit of light”

4. Off-Broadway or Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet?

Broadway? Idk haha

5. If you were to make a your own production of your favorite musical with complete creative rights, what would you change?

I would change how much stage time Connor Murphy had. I feel like hes a really complex character and i would have loved to see more cannon him. Even if it just was like how he really treats his family/the people around him.

6. Best song to break something while listening to?

“Good for you” or “Someone gets hurt (Reprise)

7. Hamilton or In the Heights?

I have no clue. In the Heights?

8. Top three Broadway actors or actresses?

Mike Faist, Barrett Wilbert Weed, Olivia Puckett

9. Hugh Jackman, Neil Patrick Harris, or James Corden as the host of the Tonys?

Neil Patrick Harris

10. Best musical theatre breakup song?

“I’d Rather be Me”

11. Stephen Sondheim or James Lapine?

Idk who they are (Don’t kill me lol)

12. Favorite romantic or platonic duo on Broadway?

Platonic Janis/Damian, Jack/Davey, Veronica/Martha, Michel/Jeremy. And for romantic Zoe/Evan,  Cady/Arron

13. “Waving Through a Window” or “For Forever” from the cast album of Dear Evan Hansen?

“Waving Through a Window” Got me into DEH which I the started to get into other shows so i have to go with that

14. If you were to write a musical, which composer/writer would you like to team up with?

Pasek and Paul

15. What would you say if you met your Broadway fave?

If I met Mike Faist i would probably thank him for bringing such an important character and story to life. I relate to Connor in so many ways and deh has helped me through so so much. So just thank you.

16. Best musical theatre location? Orlanda, Santa Fe, Chicago, or the Emerald City?

Santa Fe. I wanna be a cowboy baby

17. Sally Bowles or Roxie Heart?

Once again I have no clue who they are sorry

18. Role you could play at this very moment and absolutely nail?

Veronica Sawyer. I know all of her lines in all of her songs. Or Racetrack Higgins. I know basically all of his lines. Although I can’t dance for shit so thats a problem

19. Movie stars on Broadway or Broadway stars in movies?

Both

20. What book, movie, or TV show do you think should be made into a musical?

Can we get a Queer Eye the Musical? I would pay good money to see the fab 5 singing and dancing for two hours. They would just critique the audience wile trying to sing and dance.

21. Tap dance breaks or 10-second costume changes?

10-second costume changes

22. Best Broadway Elder Price?

No clue

23. Best meta moment in a musical?

Idk

24. Top three women-driven musicals?

Mean Girls, Heathers… I have no clue for a third. 

25. Are you more excited for Spongebob: The Musical or the Broadway adaption of Frozen?

Spongebob. I used to give it shit but after seeing them preform at the Tonys this year I was completely blown away. I’m sad i didn’t get to see it wile it was running.

26. Best young love song?

“Seventeen” or “What the Heck I Gotta Do” (It gets stuck in my head every time without fail)

27. Matilda or Groundhog Day?

Idk haha

28. Historical event that should be made into a musical?

I have no clue haha.

29. What non-Broadway singer/actor would you love to see in a Broadway show, and which role would you like them to play?

Dodie or Carrie Hope Fletcher as Zoe Murphy. 

30. If you read fanfic, what’s your favorite fanfic about characters from musical theatre?

“Hair Dye” by @indigo-streaks-in-her-hair I reread it all the time and it was the first deh fanfic that i had read. Other then that anything i have ever rebloged on my side blog @becca-winchester26 

31. Dream cast your favorite musical.

I have no clue. I feel like the Deh cast (Both OBC and not) and the Mean Girls cast are already all of my faves put together. Maybe a mix between the two

32. Set design or lighting design?

Set. I’m pretty sure if I’m ever going to end up on Broadway its in set design because i have no other real talents.

33. Favorite empowerment-themed Broadway song?

“Seize The Day’

34. Which Broadway star, from the past or present, would you love to have dinner with?

Mike Faist. Hmu fam ;) XD

35. Favorite musical theatre trope?

Idk haha

[unproduciblesmackdown]

You're so right about the Will Roland fanart problems. It seems like back when Will Roland was only known for Jared people were way more proWill because he could be their funny meme boi who ate bathbombs but now that he's a lead with all these emotional songs it's like God forbid he's not their "twink bby". Idk it annoys me so much especially when people draw the rest of the Broadway cast and still use WillC or do an animatic with WillRs voice and WillCs character ugh like. Accept the Roland pls

lmao we are all just out here grabbing the mic like “attention all bastards: Look, just because will roland isn’t your ideal fancast for most adorable twink of the year - “

really like, i have never come across any signs of there having been any pattern in the deh fandom of ~taking issue~ with will’s Abilities to sing or play the part of a struggling teen or whatever like what crops up re: him being the lead in bmc.....it also is unsurprising yet disappointing that like, jared and alana are so easily completely ignored, but when they Are acknowledged it’s super flattened interpretations like, either they’re both hypocritical jerks (just based on evan’s gfy accusations basically lol) or if they’re actually viewed in a positive way it’s just like, alana is your friendly local Model Student and jared is memes and neither of them are in the way! :3

you litrally cannot ignore jeremy the Whole Entire Main Character tho and also like. can’t ignore the fact that caring about jeremy as a Romantique Lead is ahhh important to many ppl in the fanbase? so him being regarded as ~less cute~ is more of an Issue b/c the character must be taken seriously and is the sympathetic hero and has a lot more solo material / more of Any material / more focus than jared does in deh.........you Have To Look At Him and care about his actual feelings and not just misinterpret the character as “has no serious emotions b/c he doesn’t say serious things in a serious tone” the way ppl misinterpret jared. there’s the assumption that someone who is good / sympathetic should also be attractive / cute / Personally Appealing To Look At and that wasn’t as much a conflict when ppl didn’t think it was important to sympathize / care about / pay attention to jared too much, and the “conflict” of caring abt jeremy’s capacity for a romantic relationship but that’s less important if he’s not as Cute also not being as much an issue when most people don’t care about jared’s romantic feelings or think that they exist despite jared being in love with evan But Anyways

like it is wild the things people will just make up to “justify” their Dislike for will, which has only manifested as apparent Issues thanks to him playing jeremy rather than jared........there’s the classic “mm idk i don’t think he can sing that well” approach which like. some people are just trying to say they do not like the inherent descriptive qualities of his voice, which is more nasal obviously and don’t anyone come in here with the “Actually the Technical definition of Nasal re Vocals is” b/c we know what i mean, alright? nasal voices are not considered ~serious~ and there’s the kneejerk dumb-annoying-loser-nerd association. god knows that jeremy heere canNot have characteristics that could be automatically judged as irritating and unappealing. then there’s the notion that He doesn’t have the (vocal) range!! which like. do you honestly think they would cast someone who doesn’t have the correct range. you’re aware that will roland was being considered for the part of jeremy in the two river run up to the last round of callbacks. you know that the song that was literally written expressly to suit will roland’s individual voice and singing abilities makes use of his falsetto which people go “omg he can’t hit those high notes” except sometimes when they misattribute his falsetto to other singers they suddenly find it worth complimenting. and then you get people who like, want to subscribe to this softened version of it and get all backhanded like “oh i think will’s vocals are improving whew that’s good” in any random video and always Only single him out apparently like. did you think he gets worse with experience? you don’t wanna talk about any of these other professional singers improving or worsening or anything? only wanna give ur assessment of william’s huh

honestly i for real haven’t seen the 1.0 version b/c i’m here via will roland in the first place & i’ve never gotten the impression that there’s some Essential Content i’m missing out on by having only seen 2.0........but between a) people complaining that will r’s jeremy is Too Frustrated He Shouldn’t Be That Angry It Makes Him Less Sympathetic and b) saying just as a point of comparison betwixt the depictions that will r’s jeremy is more frustrated and c) i haven’t read That much bmc fic but people sure talk about jeremy being like five seconds away from bursting into tears at any given moment which like, okay yeah aren’t we all, but also i presume this stems from will c’s apparently Sadder portrayal of jeremy. i almost forgot where i was going with this one but i think it’s just that yeah people truly take issue with will r’s jeremy being more frustrated and it’s like you realize there’s no Right or Wrong portrayal / interpretation even if you prefer one for whatever reasons......theatre just is Like that.......you have a slightly different portrayal during ever performance even from the same actors, and you’ll often have different actors playing the role........yeah people usually are attached to the first performance they see / have that as their Standard and that’s fine, it’s just like, you don’t have to decide that’s an Objective view and that you have Objective issues with everyone else’s take. 1.0 is still there for you

uhhhh oh yeah and the whole Clout idea lmao......people really putting themselves out there shaking their heads at the supposed fact that will was cast for the off bway run to Boost Popularity b/c he was part of the deh obc......besides the whole thing that it’s hardly likely that would’ve been considered necessary anyhow, there’s the little thing that a) again, will roland had already been very seriously considered for the part even before will connolly was decided on for the original run and b) like.....these people had been collaborating for eons and you really think will roland only popped into their minds thanks to being in deh....and c) joe iconis has repeatedly said they specifically did Not want to cast people based on who was Known enough and whose names would be good for marketing and d) maybe anyone has noticed that the marketing never involved any mention of anyone in the cast? no? cool. and yet people like so truly think they’re Wise to ~real reason~ that they’d go and cast will roland as the lead. like people are making shit up and really just thinking it’s true b/c they Want it to be true b/c they Want to be validated in having actual contempt for will’s casting despite the “issue” being that he doesn’t seem as Likeable (worthy of sympathy...cough...) thanks to his deemed-unattractive looks and sweetly-adenoidal voice and more-frustrated portrayal all seeming less cute or whatever

and i mean i haven’t seen it crop up of late but the one particular Grasping At Straws ~justification~ for will being unworthy of the part thanks to perceived acting/singing incompetence which is soooo wild is when people are like “ough i Hate when he just holds his arms out when he sings” like fmslkdj if anything that’s just an individual quirk and the fact that it was something you noticed means you just latched on to it as potential fodder for “the fact i registered this information abt someone whose existence i Resent means it distracted me which means i hate it and it’s bad”...like another thing he does with his hands while singing is when he makes the loose claws and kind of half crosses his arms in front of his chest! where are the complaints about that?? nowhere, b/c people have not really processed it as a particular thing, so they can’t deem it a Particular Thing To Criticize. people sometimes Notice that his jared talks with his hands a lot, which will says is an acting choice that came from an unconscious tendency, but people really only bring it up to juxtapose will’s jared’s dramatic tendencies and nervous habits with sky’s jared’s more outwardly still and smoothed-over behavior. aka they don’t Complain about it or deem it a weakness / bad thing. and yet people caring about bmc are really jumping on that chance to be like oh ugh there he goes again, having a characteristic i associate with him as an individual, disgusting, can’t believe will connolly was murdered for this..

it’s a bit clearer too with bmc moreso than deh that people aren’t super willing to accept how will roland Looks b/c like, thanks to will connolly’s jeremy having the long hair thing you can Tell The Difference In Which Actor Is Represented when ppl draw the character even if the rest of the features are kind of “generic” (and how even the costuming isn’t a dead giveaway since ppl will draw connolly jeremy in 2.0/3.0′s outfits) and it even serves to specify the actor in writing format too if they mention the hair lol........and honestly?? this fact is one of the most damning things lol in that people the reason so many ppl continue to produce connolly-based jeremys is Not because for whatever reason they can’t / it’s too difficult to draw a will roland lookin jeremy......like a lot of the time The trait which serves to distinguish between the two is the hair thing. people are adopting jeremy’s new costuming and stuff but choosing to make sure we know that jeremy does not Look like will roland and the clearest indicator of this is the longer hair thing......which also means that for many people the main effort they’d need to exert to make it clear they’re drawing wrol jeremy would just be to....shorten the hair. And Yet!!!! it is apparently beyond people to do this

like uh nice on making a lgw animatic but really.........really we’re gonna take the song that is specifically from the 2.0 / 3.0 runs, so it’s obvious we’re Accepting that non-1.0 content, okay......and we’re Accepting will roland’s vocals, which, a person’s voice is a physical trait of theirs too, same as The Existence Of Their Body........and yet jeremy Cannot Look Like How Will Roland Looks, that’s too far, can’t do that. we can take material from the specific versions the actor was cast in, that material being a song written specifically for this individual actor’s voice, in the form of this actor’s actual vocals......but can’t have the depicted image of jeremy be based on this actor’s appearance..............of all the......

really all that it is is that more people find will connolly more attractive than will roland and this makes them feel like will roland Is Worse and then the people who just run with that either just embrace that and are crashing around on public forums saying Lol i hate him cuz he’s ugly lmao....and then you have people who don’t wanna do that but don’t wanna actually examine why they ~take issue~ with will being cast and so they’ve gotta leap on any Other things about him that feel more acceptable / Objective like oh the portrayal is “Wrong” (that’s not how this works) or he can’t sing well enough (yeah he can) or high enough (yeah he can) or he was stunt cast (no he wasn’t) or they wanna label every characteristic / trait they can think up that Isn’t his physical appearance as Annoying And Bad like. maybe stop and ask why you find it SO pressing that this other actor has the part and it Must be objectively inferior if not ruinous for reasons you gotta invent about him being incompetent cuz it’s better to make stuff up about how a professional actor isn’t good enough for a part than to say you don’t think he’s cute enough and are bothered by that

it didn’t matter as much to people when they viewed his character as either Just A Joke or Just A Jerk or flat-out disposable material. being attractive is for serious sympathetic beloved characters, natch

unfortunately jeremy can’t be written off as The Unimportant Meme Friend With No Real Feelings so now there’s a whole problem if an actor is not as cute

like b/c of the way he looks ppl can accept that a character played by will roland can be funny or can be rude or can really not be too important to take seriously / consider complex or sympathetic or likeable beyond being a walking Running Joke, but when it comes to a sympathetic main character whose emotional state is so important it’s practically assigned a character and who’s a romantic lead? now people have a problem with him looking the way will roland does

[cecelianonymous22]

FUCKING PREACH

And not to mention the fact that in BMC (im saying that bc i’ve only seen deh once and never really got involved with it), several characters with underlying but visible mental issues are often looked over

Hell okay 

Sorry in advance for this long-ass post but i just need to like Get it all out in one place

Jake: he clearly doesn’t have much responsibility (mentally, emotionally, in general) because of his absent parents, considering how he mentions it to Christine and then immediately moves on like it was nothing. Also, it’s confirmed in Sync Up that he’s something of a perfectionist. Or at least, he thinks he’s not good enough, so he compensates by doing so much (partying, extracurriculars, etc). But still, he’s mostly just labeled as the tall, hot, popular guy (which may be true to some extent but it’s not his entire character) Don’t even get me started on people who put two river Jake with everyone else being Broadway. I get having a preference. But thats just kinda racist at that point. (and ik thats off topic but i mean-- just on the topic of the fandom ignoring aspects of characters and downplaying them)

Rich: he’s canonically depressed (see the Squip Song) and people forget this. all the time. especially boyfs shippers who use him as either a wingman or a sidehoe. Most of the time, he’s just reduced to his trauma. Or his alleged abuse (i say that because the only reason we all collectively think he has an abusive father is because of a few lines in Sync Up; we don’t even know the extent of his home life. or hell, if he was even telling the truth. but thats another thing). And it’s okay to use that trauma and those issues in a story setting, but most fans don’t know how to responsibly do that (which I guess is a good thing, because they’re clearly not writing from any experience like others do). Really, as a character, he isn’t handled well. Either his problems are completely looked over or are pointlessly used for angst OH ALSO- HIS LISP- 1) stop fetishizing it. it’s not “cute.” It doesn’t sound cute and it’s a pain in the ass to deal with firsthand 2) don’t write it out. the only exception is for emphasis. and look, a few months ago, I was guilty of this, with my Expensive Headphones oneshot, Giggle Watter Fever. But then again, he was drunk so..I dunno..take that as you will. Point is, stop writing it out. Especially if you dont know what kind of syllables are lisped

Chloe: yes, we get it, she’s a bitch. and it’s honestly completely valid to not like her. however, people tend to write her off as only being bitchy. but again, see sync up, it’s revealed that she doesn’t want to lose her status; she doesn’t want to be ignored or alone. maybe she has some issues at home, or was raised in a bad environment, or had toxic friends growing up. point is, she’s not just a bitch for the sake of being a bitch. nobody is

Jenna: she has to ride off the coattails of gossip in order to feel seen and appreciated. if it weren’t for that skill, she might be in the same rank as Jeremy and Michael. she isn’t majorly present, which obviously tends to mean that she’s not majorly present in the fandom (unless it’s for the ultimate tag-along ship to richjake, boyfs, and p*nkberry: cinnabun. which is an amazing ship but im not getting into that)

Christine: like OP mentioned, she’s usually boiled down to being hyper and childlike just because she has ADHD. and look, i can’t speak personally about this, i know i can’t. however, i know several people with ADHD and they all act different ways. Because they all have their own personalities. Like its not that hard to understand. Sure, she is bubbly and energetic and opitmistic, but that’s not all she is. She has problems too. She struggles in maintaining relationships (romantic, as we’ve seen, but probably platonic too), for one thing. Also she has very strong opinions about almost anything (see I Love Play Rehearsal), making her an all around interesting character. And as for the whole making her an “uwu soft bean” thing, did- did you guys not watch the musical? Her calling Jeremy a virgin wasn’t out of innocence, it was a joke

Michael: constantly boiled down to gay and depressed. like, wuh-oh, give me shit for this, but Michael just..doesn’t have any visible signs of actual depression?? Guys, he broke down in a bathroom once. Now, okay, like OP mentioned, the autistic headcannon. I feel like, okay, it’s valid if you do your research. Because I haven’t done my research yet, which is why I don’t want to say he’s autistic. Also, even with that hc, you shouldn’t fuckin baby-fy him. He’s not an “uwu soft gay boi.” Literally nobody in BMC is. Nobody in real life is. It’s an anime trope that you see in shitty Undertale fics, really. And look, i’m not saying that having Michael go into gay panic is inaccurate (unless it’s exclusively him), I’m just saying that he’s not just gay. Hell, as far as disorders or mental illnesses go, anxiety is probably your best bet (WITH RESEARCH, I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH). And, personally, I like to think he gets a little existential sometimes (for my justification, that’s why he wears his headphones a lot)

Jeremy: again, the fucking “uwu soft boy” trope. and again, haVE YOU SEEN THE MUSICAL?? More Than Survive? Hello??? Look, it’s okay to think a character’s cute. Just please don’t fetishize them. Please. And as for his mental illnesses, they’re either ignored or amped up for pointless angst. People feel things like anxiety, depression, etc. in different levels. Hell, almost everyone in my friend group suffers from depression and anxiety but it’s worse for some of us than it is for others. Basically, he’s not really handled responsibly either. Also, I’d just like to mention that he’s kind of a dick who objectified Christine. Not even just when he was Squipped, mind you

Brooke: honestly the same case with Jenna: she’s looked over as a character. And while I don’t think she struggles with any genuine mental illnesses or disabilities, I would still like to point out that people don’t give her enough credit. Some people portray her as really sweet and “too good for this world.” Others, basically just a tamer Chloe. But really, I think she’s somewhere in between. She wants to be nice but she’s just influenced by her status and the people around her

Anyway, again, sorry for the long post but

TL;DR  The fandom needs to stop fetishizing, downplaying, overlooking, and dramatizing the BMC characters

My friend said I should post this but PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong but the BMC and DEH fandoms are kinda ableist. Jeremy is neurodivergent coded but everyone pretends he isn’t because he doesn’t fit into the exact “UwU soft autistic bean!!” Stereotype however it is becoming a more popular headcanon. Christine having ADD (an outdated term) is one of the reasons she is infantilized to just being hyper and such. To add on, Michael, who is constantly seen as autistic or ADHD, is always infantilized in those fanfics (ESPECIALLY the ones where he is autistic or has some sort of disability). This is the same thing with Jared being neurodivergent coded like Jeremy but everyone ignoring it because he’s a sarcastic dumbass and not “UwU pure”, unlike Evan who while is yes neurodivergent coded, gets infantilized because of his anxiety. Even with Christine everyone’s headcanon of her being ace is somewhat constantly feels like rooted in BOTH racism and ableism because of infantalizing people with ADHD and the fact that it’s always the “weird Asian” kids that are headcanoned as on the asexual spectrum

[newyorktheater]

Britney Spears, 20 years ago

Will Roland in Be More Chiil

Cast of Mean Girls

Andrew Barth Feldman in Dear Evan Hansen

Isabelle McCalla and Caitlin Kinnunen as high school girlfriends in The Prom

“I’m not a girl, not yet a woman…I’m in between,” Britney Spears sang some two decades ago, and it could almost be the new anthem (gender-adjusted) for Broadway. The opening of Be More Chill this week adds yet another to the New York stage shows that focus on teenage characters (mostly portrayed by non-teenage performers), many of which attract a large teenage audience. These include Dear Evan Hansen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Mean Girls, and, yes, ok, Wicked. (The Prom has a dual focus; and the audience for, if not the characters in, Frozen skew younger.) Teen angst has made its way Off-Broadway as well, with Superhero.

Shows about teens and tweens are hardly new: 13, Bye Bye Birdie, Carrie, Hairspray, Matilda, Newsies, School of Rock, Spring Awakening come to mind. But we’re seeing a particular trend now, and not an especially welcome one. It’s of course a good thing to broaden the demographics of the Broadway audience, and at least one of these shows is widely viewed as of high quality.  Yet their focus is largely on angst and on stereotypes.  How accurate or fair are the depictions of teenagers in these shows?  Yes, high school may be a time when some people are trying out identities, and too many of them might like to assign reductive labels to their classmates or even to themselves.  But surely this is not the full picture, nor a constructive one. As I say in my review of Be More Chill, the actual high school students we see regularly in the news are  taking the lead in attacking such crucial  problems as climate change and gun control — problems that have stalemated adults.

Incidentally, “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” along with “Baby One More Time,” Spear’s first pop single when she was 17 years old, are likely to be two of the 23 songs from her repertorie that will be in the new musical “Once Upon a One More Time” aiming for Broadway, announced today.  The book, thankfully, is not about teen angst. (For more details, see Week in NY Theater News, below.)

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

THE B-SIDE: “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,” A Record Album Interpretation

In “The B-Side,” three men sing along with an album on a record-player —  or, as people prefer to say these days, a vinyl on the turntable. But there’s a reason why the Wooster Group’s encore presentation of its simple and odd hour-long piece, first performed at the Performing Garage in 2017, is filling St. Ann’s Warehouse every night. The album is “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons”…

Austin Scott as Alexander Hamilton and Carvens Lissaint as George Washington, the new cast members of “Hamilton” on Broadway.

  Hamilton on Broadway 2019: New Cast, New Clarity

I recently saw Hamilton again on Broadway, during a rare open captioned performance, and it was a revelation in several ways.

  I would love to see this show but there are not enough OC performances for those of us who want to attend. It’s nice to pat yourself on the back about access, but the reality is that an occasional Wednesday OC performance with limited tickets is not access. #captionallshows

— Dr. Petrified Tree Sap (@a_joy_martin) March 9, 2019

The Cake Review: “This is Us” writer on Christian baker’s Lesbian wedding dilemma

In “The Cake,” Debra Jo Rupp (the mother on “That 70s Show”) portrays Della, a Christian baker in North Carolina who refuses to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding. If the story is inspired by the Supreme Court case decided last year, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, playwright Bekah Brunstetter, who is a writer for “This Is Us,” makes it personal in several ways…One of the future brides, Jen (Genevieve Angelson), is the daughter of Della’s best friend, who died five years ago. Della, who is childless, views Jen like a daughter…Bekah Brunstetter has told interviewers that she wrote “The Cake” as a way to explain her support for gay rights and same-sex marriage to her parents. Her father, Peter Brunstetter, is a Republican politician from North Carolina who supported an anti-gay state bill that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Be More Chill on Broadway

Somebody wrote “NYC Loves BMC” in chalk on the sidewalk outside Broadway’s Lyceum Theater, the new home of “Be More Chill,” the high energy, high decibel pop-rock musical that stars Will Roland as a self-proclaimed high school “loser” who swallows a pill containing a supercomputer and becomes cool. I tweeted a picture of the scrawled public love note; the tweet was retweeted nearly a hundred times. “Be More Chill” has some seriously devoted fans, most of whom seem to be 15 years old. It’s a thrill to see such teenaged enthusiasm for live theater.  I wish I could share more fully in their ardor for this show

  The Week in New York Theater News

The first annual Rave Theater Festival is asking for submissions. Artistic director @kendavenportplans roughly 20 plays, musicals, multimedia, and cross-disciplinary projects, as well as family shows, which will each receive up to five performances, August 9-25, 2019 at Clemente Sito Velez Cultural and Education Center on the Lower East Side.

Simpsons theme song composer Danny Elfman will make his Broadway debut by composing music for “Gary: The Sequel to Titus Andronicus.”

Twenty-three of Britney Spears’ songs will form the score for a new Broadway-aiming musical, “Once Upon a One More Time” with will have a try-out in Chicago from October to December of this year. “Once Upon A Time… Cinderella, Snow White, and the other fairytale princesses gather for their book club, when – oh, baby baby! – a rogue fairy godmother drops The Feminine Mystique into their corseted laps, spurring a royal revelation.” The Times reports that the run at the Chicago theater “had been set aside for “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” a Michael Jackson jukebox musical that canceled its Chicago plans on the eve of an HBO documentary detailing abuse allegations against the pop star. That show’s producers say they are still hoping to come to Broadway.”

The Arts Are Good For You

Three articles that show that the arts are a good thing.

Article 1, by Isaac Kaplan in Artsy:  Arts Sector Contributed $763.6 Billion to U.S. Economy—More Than Agriculture or Transportation, New Data Shows

Article 2, by Tom Jacobs in Pacific Standard:  How arts can help struggling science students do better

A large study released last month found that Florida middle-school students who study music, theater, or visual art subsequently get higher overall grades than their peers.

Article 3 by Robert Ruffin in HowlRound (from 2018) We Need Theatre to Exist, and Maybe Research Can Prove Its Necessity

A new Broadway By The Year, musicals of 1943 and 1951, will be presented at Town Hall of March 25th, “created, written, hosted and directed” by Scott Siegel — for whom 2018 was not a great year, having gotten into a bad bicycle accident. Here is an article about his accident and his show in the Times, written right before the last Broadway By Year, last month.

Alexa’s new skill lets you scour Ticketmaster using your voice

  Robert Barry Fleming has been appointed artistic director of Actors Theater of Louisville, the theater that brings us the annual Humana Festival. He’s been an actor, director, choreographer, arts administrator (at Arena Stage and Cleveland PlayHouse), and championed or commissioned such shows as Dear Evan Hansen and Sweat.

Daryl_Roth – Producing with a Purpose. Theater producer for 31 yrs “Marvel action hero” – Paula Vogel. One of the few female producers on Broadway…she chooses work by women, LGBT folks, and people of color not usually seen as commercially viable

Daveed DIggs is back in New York, for the play White Noise at the Public Theater, and he’s happier to be here than last time.

The last few years I have had not a great relationship with New York, but this time feels really good. The Hamilton experience here was so intense, and it became a pretty stressful place for me to be. That was a show that, at the bottom of it, it’s a bunch of friends getting together and making rap songs. I was involved with that show for a long time because my friend wrote it and asked me to come along for the ride. Everything on the inside of it felt very small, and everything on the outside of it felt very big.

…I love performing in smaller houses. I think you get a different kind of connection there. I’m excited to be doing any play, period, after spending a couple years being in front of a camera. This is a very welcome return. You get a different kind of intimacy in a small space, and I think everybody gets to know each other a little better.

As much as I loved performing on Broadway, I don’t care if I ever do that again. I like telling stories in places where everyone is part of the storytelling.

Oskar Eustis and Suzan-Lori Parks chat with one another about their new collaboration as director and playwright, White Noise, It begins: Oskar Eustis doesn’t believe in giving audiences a heads-up. “When you have a trigger ­warning, you’re implying that people need to be protected from pain,” says Eustis, the artistic director of New York’s Public ­Theater. “I think real art says, ‘No, you don’t. What you need is the chance to face it.’”

If you’re working on a play– especially a new one– and you’re not checking in with your ushers on a regular basis during previews, you don’t actually know how it’s going.

— Evan Cabnet (@evancabnet) March 11, 2019

Thanks Broadway Twitter for having my back. Being a working parent in any profession is really challenging. I never want to disappoint audiences as I am beyond grateful to them, but the health of my family will always come before my job. Thanks to those who understand that 💛

— Laura Benanti (@LauraBenanti) March 11, 2019

.@FosseVerdonFX cast includes: Sam Rockwell as Bob Fosse & Michelle Williams as Gwen Verdon@kelli_barrett as Liza Minnelli@biancamarroquin as @Chita_Rivera +@BranUran as Dustin Hoffman @TheTylerHanes as Jerry Orbach@ethansaslater as @joelgrey Premieres on FX April 9th. pic.twitter.com/lvokxwZUFl

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) March 11, 2019

If you’re an aspiring playwright, this thread by @MikeLew4 might change your life. https://t.co/WouQGQXNUh

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) March 8, 2019

My favorite line: “Get that EXT/INT shit outta there! Dead giveaway your “play” is a pilot.”

Play Formatting PSA: In undergrad one of the 1st things Donald Margulies did was teach us proper play formatting. Which felt like a huge bummer. Shouldn’t it be story first? Who cares about formatting?! Don’t you see that l WILL CHANGE THE FORM, WITH THE POWER OF ART? 1

But now that I’ve done a ton of reading committees, I can see he was right. In the same way you wouldn’t show up to a job interview dressed wrong for the job, when I’m reading a ton of plays my first cut rejections boil down to, “Does this manuscript LOOK like a play or not?” 2/

And the most screwed up thing is that published plays don’t look like manuscript-form plays, so you can’t just learn by picking up an acting edition at the bookstore or your submission’ll look weird. To wit, a thread about formatting. ARE YOU EXCITED?? 3/

A full-length play is approx 100 pgs in length (50 pgs per act). Sure your length may vary. You may have a lean 75 pg straight-through-no-intermission piece or a 120 pg 2-act that “should read really really fast”

Now the formatting nitty gritty! *character names in all caps & centered *dialogue left-justified *in-dialogue stage directions like “(she exits)” should be in parentheses and italics *longer stage directions should be tabbed in and (optionally) italicized 10/

New scenes get their own line (i.e. “Scene 1”) – bolded and numbered *Get that EXT/INT shit outta there! Dead giveaway your “play” is a pilot. *Start a new pg for each scene *End the act on an all-caps “END OF ACT 1” “END OF PLAY” etc – and bold it too cuz that feels GREAT 11/

Teens Take Over Broadway (but is it real?). A Britney Spears Broadway musical? Hamilton Reconsidered. #Stageworthy News of the Week “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman...I'm in between,” Britney Spears sang some two decades ago, and it could almost be the new anthem (gender-adjusted) for Broadway. 2,063 more words