#Once on this Island

[awhitewomansinstagram]

If you ever feel like you’ve made bad decisions just remember that somewhere out there is a theatre director at an all-white high school about to choose the spring musical

[rainbow-femme]

If you like the idea of a black Little Mermaid but aren’t interested in the new movie, please check out Once On This Island

Aside from the actual mermaid part, it has many of the story beats of the original Little Mermaid but set in semi modern day on a Caribbean island

The fact that the characters are black matters as the story deals with struggles of colorism, there’s a Voodoo inspired pantheon of gods, and in general the music is really good and in parts both funny and moving

[oof-i-did-it-agaaiiin]

Thinking about how many musical tragedies feature the narrative almost as a character of its own. Like a force within the story, divided from the characters. Out of their control at times.

Orpheus had to turn around, that’s just how it goes. That’s the way the story is told.

Tony had to go and get himself killed. Of course he did. He’s Romeo. The story wills it so.

Jesus must die. No matter how much he wanted to live, no matter how much the people around him wanted him to live. It’s his role to die.

Alison can’t go back and change the events of that last car ride with her father. It’s set in stone, there in the past where it will always remain.

And then there are musicals like Once On This Island and Ride The Cyclone that embrace the role of inevitability in their stories and find joy anyway.

And then on the exact opposite side of the spectrum there’s the radical freedom from the narrative that’s seen in Into The Woods. The narrator is dead and now the story is no one’s but the characters. And there’s the lack of protection that comes with that, the chaos and confusion. But it’s theirs and it’s tragic but they make the best with it.

Those themes of Inevitability vs. Freedom and the meta understanding of story within a story. I can’t seem to get enough.

[black-is-beautiful18]

The theater community needs to have a serious conversation about whitewashing. Black and brown performers and those that enjoy theatre already have these conversations, but white thespians are light years behind for some unknown reason. I literally almost got into it with some white lady about the Urchins in Little Shop purposely being Black cuz according to her Black characters are only important enough to remain Black if they’re there to teach lessons about racism. Then had the nerve to call me close minded and racist. This was in the comment of an article uncle addressing this very thing mind you🧍🏾‍♀️.

[owlpuddle]

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 1A, MATCH 2 OUT OF 8!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Ariel:

It’s Disneys Little Mermaid, but on stage. With new songs and so fun!

she’s cute :)

Ti Moune:

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND MY BELOVED SUCH A GOOD MUSICAL please listen to it. It’s just over an hour long and it’s a sung through show so you can experience it just through the album. But if you’ve seen it, it’s even better. Ti Moune my beloved, she deserved so much better than what she got <3

sings some of the best songs in the musical theatre canon also she's cute as hell <3

[doyouknowthismusical]

[fireworkss-exe]

MUSICAL BEATDOWN 2023 LINEUP

Newsies vs. Ride the Cyclone

Chicago vs. Once On this Island

Hadestown vs. Les Mis

Little Shop vs. Great Comet

Heathers vs. Falsettos

Carrie vs. JCS

Hamilton vs. Six

Phantom vs. Book of Mormon

[barbossas-wench]

For people who love The Little Mermaid remake that's comes out today,

I recommend go listen to the musical called Once on This Island, and a book called My Love, My Love; or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, it's a retelling of the original story of The Little Mermaid that the musical is adapted from

[starchildrenofdustand-ashes]

My girl Ti Moune was on extra strength delulu pills prescribed by the gods themselves jfc

[sisigull]

If you ever wonder what a C sharp sounds like and you’re a theatre kid + loves LotF, you can hear it in “Waiting for Life” from Once on this Island. It’s in A Major, which has 3 sharps, F#, C#, and G#.

The part where she sings “We’ll drive~~~~~!” (around 2:01 in cast recording), the note to belt drive is a C sharp and I can belt that 🤪🐚☝️🤓

Yes I am a fucking nerd

[glimeres]

2002, Rosie O'Donnell Show - LaChanze performs Waiting For Life from the musical Once On This Island

[oof-i-did-it-agaaiiin]

Finale: Children Will Listen - Into the Woods // Road to Hell (Reprise) - Hadestown // Why We Tell the Story - Once on This Island

[black-is-beautiful18]

I'm a white theatre person in a mostly white theatre community and you are spot on with them being lightyears behind - pretty much every theatre company I know of locally will have on their website and also on the audition postings that they 'accept anyone etc' but will continue to cast white/able bodied/skinny near exclusively.

No cuz everyone must be everyone.

Take Wicked for example. The West End is the first to have both a Black Glinda and Elphaba. Broadway has only had a Black woman play Elphaba as a swing, which is just as important, but they have yet to cast a Black performer in any prominent role outside of Brittney Johnson as Glinda a few years ago and Taye Diggs as Fieryo in their early years of being on Broadway despite said character literally being a POC in the books! Nessa Rose is always played by an able bodied performer as if there aren’t disabled performers who are very talented and very capable of playing the character. It makes no sense. It’s ok for a Black man to play the Phantom but it takes literal YEARS for a Black woman, or any woman of color for that matter, to play Christine only for Broadway to end its 20+ year run a freaking year later. Then they say “Well we should be able to play whoever we want” but when you get a Black Juliet, a Black Macbeth, a Desi man playing the Green Knight, a Black woman playing King Edward, etc we get called every slur they can think of because that statement is truly only meant for them. It is an excuse for them to disregard the importance of Black and Brown performers and everyone who works in theatre including the fans. Cuz why do you think you have the right to play TiMoune when we can’t even play a freaking fairy in a Shakespeare play without someone saying it’s unrealistic for us to have the role due to the color of our skin???? We can’t even get proper representation in freaking Hadestown which is a show that prides itself on being “diverse”. The audiences are just as much at fault too. Their racial bias is the exact reason why ticket sales plummet as soon as a Black or Brown performer is casted in a lead role. I can’t even find videos of Yola and Phillip Boykin as Hades and Persephone for god’s sake! Two dark skin and plus size performers! Grammy and Tony award winners! We have to prove ourselves to everyone including directors despite our credentials and it’s sickening.