#and they made adaptations of les mis and into the woods!!!

[zekedms]

Look, the biggest movie of the year doesn't really need my defense but fuck it this is a bigger issue with movie musicals.

Two parts makes sense. It's an adaptation to a different medium and the way people suspend disbelief isn't the same. God knows I'm one of 7 people who actually loves the Toby Hooper Les Mis but as with every stage musical to screen adaptations things got cut and people always get mad when that happens. Part of what made Cats such an awful movie was that it's got no business being a movie, it only works in a live theatrical setting by its nature of being 3 hours of cats talking to the audience in an alleyway.

The pacing of a movie is also different from a stage show simply by the fast it's not a stage. There's no intermission, there's more time between scenes because people expect actual sets and transitions, and that usually ends up with songs getting cut to keep the movie to 3 hours. Even then it feels rushed a lot of the time. The Hamilton pro shot gets away with it because the locations are bare bones and a scene to scene "we're in a different bar now" is a standard cut, it's not a show with spectacle. This is fucking Oz. This is a movie where "check this out you dustbowl fucks!" was the order of the day. That needs time to breathe on film.

Stage adaptations of movies change to fit the format, too - it's not like The Lion King isn't a full hour longer on Broadway than the movie.

Using the book material and creating a more natural pacing for film - which they fucking nailed btw because it does NOT feel like a nearly 3 hour movie - ensures that every song is included and the whole thing can stand on its own. And let's be real, the play is written with the intent of a space between acts 1 and 2 after Defying Gravity. Modern movie theaters aren't going to have an intermission like it's Dr Zhivago or 2001, and they're not going to even sell a ticket for a 4-5 hour movie at the normal price.

This isn't "why the fuck is The Hobbit two parts?", this is actually respecting the source material. This is preventing an Evita or an Into the Woods.

If you don't like it and want to see it all at once, cool, wait until next year. If you don't like that they didn't mention part 1 in any ads. me either and there were surprised people in my audience but nobody seemed to mind by the end.

But actually making it two parts is far from a cynical cash grab and that's evident when you watch it.

[jellicle-chants]

i’m so sorry if i have any wicked movie fans following me but i cannot for the LIFE of me figure out why the first half of this thing needs to be as long as the whole stage show

[thegettingbyp2]

A request for Aaron Tveit. Where the female reader is an extra on a film Aaron is working on. She develops a crush on him during their time on set but doesn't realise Aaron feels the same until Aaron decides to ask her out at the end of a day on set. I'll let you decide the film! Thanks.

In the Background

Every day when you were heading into work, you had to pinch yourself. Even though it had always been your dream, you had never thought that you would ever actually end up on a film set so, walking onto the set of the film adaption of Les Mis was something that you really made sure you never took for granted.

‘There she is!’ An arm landed heavily over your shoulder, causing your whole body to crumple slightly under its weight. You laughed as you turned your head to see Aaron grinning down at you. Over the time that you’d been filming, you and Aaron had seemed to gravitate towards each other; starting when Aaron came to find you on the first day on set to apologise after he had almost knocked you over when he ran into you filming a take. From then, you had always, without fail, waited for each other to walk onto set together and spending all of your breaks together, getting to know one another.

‘Hey,’ you replied, smiling up at him. The more time you had spent together, the more you had felt those butterflies growing in your stomach and this morning was no exception. The weight of his arm around your shoulders sent shivers down your spine and you had to fight to keep your eyes open as you breathed in the now-familiar scent of his aftershave.

‘So, I was thinking that after filming today, instead of going to the usual bar, we could go for dinner or something?’ Aaron asked, leaning in a little closer so you could feel his breath brushing against your cheek.

‘Yeah, that sounds nice,’ you agreed, smiling up at him, ‘it should be a shorter day today so we’ll all be able to get away earlier. I’ll let everyone know, that’s a really good idea!’ You gently gave Aaron’s arm a squeeze and dashed off to head to the make-up trailer to get ready and spread the word of the new plans for tonight. What you didn’t see was the look of realisation on Aaron’s face that he should have been clearer with what he meant.

---

‘So, what’s this I hear about the whole cast going on a date tonight, Tveit?’ Eddie said to Aaron between takes, the two of them sitting atop the barricade, waiting to continue filming. Aaron looked over at his friend and saw what looked like sympathy written in his face.

‘Yeah, I don’t think I explained myself properly,’ Aaron replied sheepishly.

‘What happened? We’d gone over this for weeks, you knew exactly what you were going to say.’

‘I know!’ Aaron exclaimed, jumping to a standing position and pulling at one of the pieces of wood that made up the barricade, ‘but then, every time I talk to her everything gets muddled up so I said about going for dinner instead of to the bar and she thought that I meant everyone and then she got excited and rushed off to tell everyone about the new plans!’

Eddie couldn’t help the chuckle that had escaped his throat at the thought of Aaron trying to get his words out around you. ‘So? Go and talk to her again, before we all have to gather round a candlelit table for two,’ he said, standing up and clapping Aaron on the back before jumping down from the barricade.

---

Aaron found you, slightly out of breath, after filming a take. The second you saw him, your face lit up and you headed over to him. ‘Hi! So, I’ve not managed to speak to everyone yet but everyone I have spoken, bar Eddie because apparently, he has plans tonight, are up for dinner instead of the bar tonight.’ You made to quickly head off but was stopped when you felt Aaron’s arm wrap around your waist, halting your movement. ‘What’s up?’ you asked, smiling up at him, an action that made Aaron’s heart beat even faster in his chest.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said and when he realised that you were waiting for him to continue, he carried on. ‘When I asked about going for dinner instead of to the bar, I didn’t mean everyone here, I meant just me and you. (Y/N), I really like you, okay? And I really want to take you on a date because I think you’re amazing. I find myself thinking about you all the time and every time I’m not around you, I want to find you, even if it’s just to have you smile at me. So, please can we ditch the rest of the guys tonight and let me take you on a date.’

You stood in a stunned silence for a while, Aarons arm burning through your clothes where it still laid across your waist. You felt tears spring to your eyes as you nodded your head, moving Aarons hand from your waist so you could interlock your fingers. ‘Yes.’ You whispered.

Aaron grinned back down at you and leaned his head down to press a kiss to your lips. However, before your lips could meet, you span your head to the side, causing Aarons lips to gently brush your cheek. Aaron pulled back, a confused frown on his face.

‘I’m not the type of girl to kiss before the first date,’ you said teasingly, turning around and walking away. ‘You can pick me up at 7,’ you called over your shoulder before quickly turning back around to hide to excited grin that was working its way onto your face.

[apolloandr]

An Exhaustive Review of BBC Les Mis (Part 2)

Part 1

I was warned online that the show gets much worse, and…yeah. There is some absolutely horrendous content in this series, and the bad does end up outweighing the good, whether it’s a teeny weeny continuity error or a gross misunderstanding of the source material. So here are all of the things I didn’t like:

The typography selection was bad. There, I said the thing, can we please shut up and move on instead of boiling the entire quality of a 6-hour miniseries down to what font it chose to use.

Having the show open on Waterloo and the drama with Marius’ family was a misinformed decision. None of it pertains to Valjean at all and Marius doesn’t come into the plot until halfway through, so just felt confused. Waterloo ends up being pretty inconsequential to Les Mis as a whole, and the only good point that can be made from it doesn’t get addressed here (at least not with any substance,) so it was just a strange adaptational choice that didn’t land. 

I didn’t think Fantine was very good, but in general I’m not fond of Lily Collins as an actor so that wasn’t much of a surprise.

The score is so bland it sounds like stock music, the color grading is poorly done, and the editing is VERY bad, there are so many dissonant scenes and odd cuts. Especially in the beginning, the first episode’s editing is horrendous.

Thénardier really did not do it for me. I was excited for a more malicious Thénardier, especially since Davies had talked about them being villains in interviews, but this interpretation was neither funny enough nor frightening enough, and he was never given enough time to properly unpack his past or the reasoning behind his wickedness. I couldn’t take him seriously at all.

Poor David Oyelowo. He seems like a great actor and he is given NOTHING to work with. Javert is terrible in this adaptation. His obsession with Valjean doesn’t come out of any kind of personal stake, it comes from the need to prove himself right about his own world view. Valjean challenges Javert’s psyche, which leads him to perceive Valjean as a threat. That is what drives their conflict, that is the thematic point of the whole book. Instead they made him a eugenicist (which what the FUCK, did ANYONE on set stop and go “hey it’s kinda weird that this Black man has an interest in phrenology, you know, that thing which was used to justify white supremacy? Nobody thought that was off?)

On that note, anyone else think it was weird that so many villain characters just happened to be played by BIPOC actors? It probably was not an articulated move, but implications were made.

The production design is INSANELY similar to the 2012 movie to the point that it becomes hypocritical. You could seriously be forgiven for thinking they’re the same thing, which is really rich coming from Davies after all the comments he made about how much he hated the movie. 

I loved the interactions Fantine experienced at the low point in her life, but her losing her hair and teeth at a carnival was bizarre and tonally kind of gross. Putting what happens to Fantine in a ghoulish circus-y setting doesn’t heighten the horror of it in any way—the opposite, in fact. What happens to Fantine is so tragic and frightening because it’s so mundane. People selling their hair and teeth to random people on the street was NORMAL. Davies turns it into a spooky scary anomaly for the audience to gawk at, rather than simply exposing the horror of the commodification of a human body as an average and inevitable part of life.

We never get to see Valjean escaping prison after his second arrest, which ends up being a wasted opportunity to depict an awesome scene in the book AND a massive continuity error. We have no idea how he escaped prison, how he ended up in Cosette’s town, or how he got so much money, instead Valjean just conveniently appears in the woods and leaves the audience in the dust. If you’re going to include the part of the story where Valjean returns to prison after his confession, you also have to include the part where he gets out.

Problems with the costumes: I do like a lot of what they did with the costumes, as outlined in Part 1, but for some reason the main characters’ hair was often a nightmare. Fantine wore her hair down all the time, which is something no woman would have done past the age of 13, and she wears it in very modern styles that have no basis in the period. Cosette also wears her hair down too late into her age, but at the VERY least she does wear it up towards the end. ALSO also, Marius’ side burns were atrocious. They weren’t set high enough to look like anything but prosthetics and they were a totally different color than his hair.

Full disclosure: back when I was a baby fan, I used to hate Cosette. Éponine was my “I’m not like other girls” icon and Cosette was stupid because she wore pretty dresses and fell in love at first sight. Thankfully I’ve grown out of that internalized misogyny and come to appreciate Cosette, but Davies doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo, because here she’s characterized in a very waifish, shallow way. Instead of allowing Cosette to be empowered by her femininity or appreciated for being so pure of heart, her goodness is interpreted as weakness. This isn’t Cosette. This is the kind of vague approximation of Cosette you get from a stranger off the street who saw the musical one time a few years back.

Éponine was…fine. I think Erin Kellyman did her best with the material she was given, but the show did the same thing to Éponine that it did with Cosette and Thénardier: it adapted the oversimplified, sort-of-but-not-really version of her character that exists in the collective consciousness, but not in the source material. And that really sucks, because I was especially excited to see that gritty, dubious side of Éponine that gets scrubbed from her so often.

Marius dream sequence. Need I say more.

I want to try to be understanding about this next point, because Marius and Cosette’s relationship is notoriously hard to adapt in a manner that is to be taken seriously. That said, they STILL managed to make it suck. Love at first sight doesn’t really hold up to a modern audience anymore, but it can work for Les Mis if you emphasize the romantic nature of the text and properly establish Cosette and Marius as good, kind people with similar hearts who feel seen in one another but uh…nah. Cosette faints the first time she and Marius are alone together? Seriously?? Also the dream sequence does NOTHING to endear us to this couple, if anything it makes Marius’ feelings for Cosette come off as just shallow lust

The Patron-Minette are glossed over, which makes perfect sense considering that they’re even more minor than the Amis, but my problem is that they’re not intimidating at all. They appear, but they’re not really presented as a legitimate threat, and that sucks the tension out of any scene in which they’re present. I feel like it wouldn’t have been hard to include some small indication that these people are not to be trifled with, but they’re just a couple of guys here. Just guys bein’ dudes.

I am one of the few who has no problems with Enjolras’ characterization (people thought he was too much of a dick and too eager to get his hands dirty, which…read the book), and I don’t think that a minor character having the wrong hair color is a dealbreaker unlike the rest of the fandom but yes, short brown hair Justin Timberlake-lookin-ass Enjolras is indeed a Thing I Don’t Like. What I really hated is that he doesn’t wear his vest. That vest is one of the most important costume choices in Les Mis. It’s Enjolras taking the imagery of the opposing side and re-appropriating it as a symbol of his cause. It’s a statement of rebellion in and of itself. And we NEVER see it!

Javert really out here with his It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia conspiracy board connecting EVERYTHING to Jean Valjean. Like…who was responsible for engineering this ridiculous notion that Javert infiltrated the rebellion in order to find Valjean? That’s NEVER been the reason in ANY version of the story, they easily just could have followed the canon “these men are challenging authority, which makes them criminals, which means I have to bring them to justice” thing but they ended up just making Javert look stupid! He’s like a cryptid hunter at this point.

I didn’t like Gavroche. The actor is ADORABLE, but he was set up so briefly that his death didn’t end up meaning anything, and I didn’t like how trivially he treated the rebellion. The way he was happily dancing around the gunfire fucked with the tone of the moment and didn’t resonate with the circumstances or what he would have been feeling. Like his sister has been killed, there are bodies littering the streets, Enjolras has told everyone in explicit terms that they WILL be dying today, I think he’s past the point of considering this “sport.”

Marius refers to Enjolras as “Enjorlas” several times. Nobody caught that in the editing room? No one on set was like “Hey, Nick Jonas Lite, it’s pronounced ‘Enjolras,’ we’ve said his name several times in the script already”?

VALJEAN DOESN’T TELL COSETTE FANTINE’S NAME BEFORE HE DIES??? That’s literally the only loose end he has left to tie up with her, it’s his final catharsis, and he doesn’t do it???? Valjean’s character arc ends when his life ends; once he finally tells Cosette the truth about her mother, he’s finally able to leave life secure in the knowledge that he’s a truly good man. And he just…dies before that can happen. This was the one time throughout the whole series where I thought that Jean Valjean was done a disservice. And it was a HUGE one.

The ending with the kids on the street begging for change and being passed by was extremely misplaced. I don’t know how many times I have to scream this from the rooftops: LES MIS IS NOT A DEPRESSING STORY. It deals in tragedy, but is ultimately a very hopeful tale about human goodness and the importance of personal rebellion. The whole point of it is to illustrate that every human being, ALL OF US, are capable of changing and being good no matter who we are or where we come from, and in fact you OWE it to yourself and everyone else around you to do those things. Rise up. Fight for what’s right. Be kind. Touch all those you can touch. It’s the 19th century version of The Good Place: “what matters isn’t if people are good or bad. What matters is if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday.” This ending proves that BBC Les Mis has no kind of moral to impart, and even if it did it would have gotten lost in the somberness of it all.

So that’s all the stuff I didn’t like! Join me next time for a definitive statement on the show’s quality as a whole and a reflection of how the fandom perceived it/whether or not the reaction was deserved.

[lorbanery]

You know, it also has to be said: The movie adaptations are often lacking.

Like, we all know what a disaster Cats was (which don't get me started on the damage that did to the musical's already shaky reputation just because of the concept, there are so many people who are never going to even give the actual musical a try just because even the music and dancing in the movie mostly ranged from bafflingly mediocre to infuriatingly bad, with very few standouts).

And folks have talked a lot about Les Mis and the miscasting of Russell Crowe.

But fewer people talk about the miscasting in Phantom of the Opera of pretty much everyone but Roaul. Or how the opening sequence of the theater restoring itself doesn't really get across the magic of that same sequence in the actual theater that a proshot would at least be better at.

Fewer people talk about the poor direction of Sweeney Todd, how Burton sucked out all of the humor that's written into the script.

How Into the Woods cut for time an entire musical scene that was a major character growth moment for the Baker, and, bafflingly, an actually really short song that existed purely to make a dick joke and a bean pun (and also to get a little levity after Jack had to sell Milky White).

How West Side Story made the bizarre decision to have Anita's moment in Tonight where she's fantasizing about all the hot nasty sex she's gonna have with Bernard when he comes home after the rumble ... take place in a church??? And the fact that the people around her were shushing her making it clear that she was doing so out loud????? Or moving I Feel Pretty from the first act when Tony and Maria are in their twittery honeymoon phase where they don't truly believe anything bad can happen just because a white guy and a Puerto Rican woman want to date in 1960's NYC, to ... right after Tony shoots Bernard?????? It didn't make it tragically ironic, which is what I assume Spielberg was going for, it just made for a wild, unexplained, and unnecessary tone shift. Or the very very very weird decision to take Somewhere away from Tony and Maria and turn it into a solo for Doc Valentina, just because she was being played by Rita Moreno, the first movie's Anita. Like, by all means! Give her a song or part of a song! Write her a verse in Tonight! Give her a reprise of When You're A Jet with the lyrics rewritten to be accusatory and calling them out for their shit while they're all hiding out in her shop! Just maybe not ... the most iconic song that the two leads sing as a hope for the future and plea to the audience to stop being so fucking racist, made all the more tragic by the fact that Tony dies in the end??????? Also inserting her unnecessarily into the final scene, completely distracting from the tableau of the funeral march with the surviving gang members coming together to carry Tony's dead body away with Maria mourning behind them ... by having Grandma Valentina in her robe and house slippers following along behind them to hand Chino over to the cops, like?????????? If you wanted to give her more screen-time you could've just had an extended sequence under the credits where they carry Tony's body down the street and show the devastated and ashamed reactions of the characters who weren't at that final confrontation aND WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS TO A MAN WITH SIXTY YEARS OF DIRECTING EXPERIENCE???????

We don't talk about how Rent turned so many musical moments into dialogue for no apparent reason (but it was probably because they were COWARDS), making all of those scenes SO uncomfortable to watch because you could HEAR the actors ACTIVELY TRYING REALLY HARD to not sing them. Or how heavily auto-tuned Rosario Dawson was. Which isn't! Generally! Something!! You have to worry about! With professional! Stage productions! Because those casting teams actually care about their actors being able to, y'know, sing the songs for the role they're being cast in!

And none of that is even getting into the new songs that are often shoe-horned into the movie adaptations for the sole purpose of making the movie eligible for at least ONE of the music Oscars, because the only two options are either "ORIGINAL score" or "ORIGINAL song", both of which disqualify an adaptation using the music composed for the original theatrical production and the Oscars don't give enough of a shit about musicals to even PRETEND to consider thinking about discussing possibly deliberating a theoretical rule change.

Infuriatingly, Phantom was one of the few who actually took the sensible route and MADE THE NEW SONG THEIR CLOSING CREDITS SONG.

Anyway yes, pro-shots make sense in every way imaginable!

Including keeping Tom "I hate musicals but keep directing them for some reason and also don't understand how music in general works" Hooper away from directing another adaptation, just in case someone was thinking about giving him another chance after Cats.

People who honestly think there shouldn’t be a proshot release of theater shows because then people wouldn’t go to the theater anymore are so fucking dumb holy shit how dumb do you have to be did people stop watching footbal games because it also airs on tv? did people stop going to concers because you could get the dvd? holy shit just let poor people have a taste of the thing too god damn it

[uppastthejelliclemoon]

☕️ movie stars headlining film adaptations of musicals.

i have really mixed feelings about this

Sometimes, they can be done right, and be done INCREDIBLY well:

The 2007 version of “Hairspray” continues to be one of my favorite musical-to-film adaptations. The cast was incredible, the way they played the characters was perfect, and Queen Latifa, Elijah Kelly, and James Marsden still have my favorite songs of the movie, as well as my favorite performances.

- Likewise, “Sweeney Todd”, the 2007 film, was incredibly well done. Johnny Depp was an INCREDIBLE Sweeney, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were amazing, and overall, and don’t even get me started on Alan Rickman. It's one of my favorite musical adaptations.

Then you have the in-betweens:

“Into the Woods”, for the most part, was semi-enjoyable. Emily Blunt was a beautiful Baker’s Wife, Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen were hilarious as the two princes, and Christine Baranski, as always, was wonderful. Additionally, though it was a brief scene, Johnny Depp was, again, incredible as the wolf. However, the other performances felt lackluster, and not as impressive, particularly Meryl Streep’s performance as the Witch, in my opinion.

I personally loved Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway in “Les Mis”. Hathaway’s version of “I Dreamed A Dream” made me cry in theaters, and Hugh playing Valjean is everything I could have ever wanted. However, in the same movie, Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried left a lot to be desired, especially Crowe’s performance as Javert. (i’m not mentioning any of the stage performers, such as Aaron Tveit or Samantha Banks, because i think their performances were utter perfection)(also, like in Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were amazing).

“The Prom” is difficult to judge. Ryan Murphy made it so much about the Broadway actors (DeeDee and Barry), that we never really got a chance to know Emma or Alyssa. While I’m not going to judge Jo Ellen Pellman, as I think she did the best with what Ryan Murphy changed, I do wish the movie had stayed true to the stage musical. Ariana DeBose and Jo Ellen Pellman could have done wonders with Alyssa and Emma’s story, but instead, James Corden took front and center once again, and really made Barry feel like the protagonist. 

I didn’t particularly enjoy his performance, and I do wish Brooks Ashmanskas could have reprised his role as Barry in the film.

One of the saving graces of the movie was, obviously, Andrew Rannels as Trent, but I won’t talk much about him as he is a Broadway actor.

This movie would have been the perfect opportunity to give unemployed Broadway actors a chance, or perhaps even have the OBC reprise their roles, but unfortunately, and quite ironically, the film went from being all about Emma and Alyssa (as it should have been), to making the focus the two Broadway Actors who were literally called narcissists at the beginning of the film.

i’m sorry i have strong feelings about “The Prom”

Then they can be just plain awful:

“Cats” is an obvious thumbs-down for the way it was done. That is a show where almost all the actors should have a strong Broadway background. While some of the major stars had entertaining performances (Jason Derulo, for one, was actually quite a wonderful Tugger in my opinion, and I did love Les Twins as Plato and Socrates), all the others fell flat when compared to Robbie, Steven, and Francesca.(Laurie is the exception. His Misto did end up becoming very endearing). Had they made most of the major cats Broadway actors, I think the movie could have been much more enjoyable, and much more respected, since they wouldn’t have particular cast members making fun of it.

So yes, musical-to-movie adaptations can be done correctly and still feature movie stars, but they can also be done horribly. 

I definitely think it depends on who the actors are, and who the directors are, because that will absolutely play into it.

in conclusion, Tom Hooper should never be allowed to touch another musical again and James Corden should stop being cast in musical-to-film adaptations

[enthusiasticmusicalquotes]

QUESTION OF THE DAY #13: a) What was the first musical you ever loved, and b) What was the musical that got you invested in internet theatre culture? It’s okay if they’re the same.

MY ANSWER: a) Dreamgirls followed closely by Hairspray thanks to their movie adaptations, but as far as stage productions go How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was the first one to really inspire me, b) probably Wicked

SUMMARY OF ANSWERS: so i realized that question a inspired a wide variety of answers, the most popular being Wicked, Hamilton, Les Mis, and Sound of Music. for question b, we had a lot of similar answers, the most popular being Hamilton (around 16/37). other popular ones for question b were Heathers, Les Mis and Wicked. that said, there was a wide variety of other shows too. read them all below the cut!

Anonymous said: Qotd: For the first question either wicked or be more chill (I was 13 and in a stem school with no theater program) and maybe heathers for internet culture.

Anonymous said: i think what got me into musicals would be matilda! my family went to west end while i was then completely clueless about what musicals were so watching matilda like. opened my eyes to musicals! though the first musical i really got into would probably be Hamilton? generic, i know but it was all people were talking about then and the fandom was considerably better back then so i got into it!

Anonymous said: Les mis. I saw the National tour and I fell in love with both the show and musical theatre in general. And Hamilton was what got me into the online community. I was bored and stumbled on it and got sucked in.

zoueriemandzijnopmars said: First musical I ever loved was the studio 100 Doornroosje (Sleeping Beauty in Dutch) musical, it was proshot and I had the dvd (the soundtrack is on Spotify btw). The musical that got me started to get me into internet musical culture was Hamilton.

Anonymous said: a) the first musical i loved was mama mia, and b) the musical that got me invested in internet theatre culture was les mis.

Anonymous said: I would say Wicked for both, but I think Hamilton also contributed significantly to getting me into internet theater culture!!

Anonymous said: first musical i loved was into the woods, but (surprise surprise) hamilton got me into internet theatre culture

vordemtodgefeit said: a) wicked was my gateway musical b) also wicked but I really only engage with a fraction of the fandom so, naturally, it’s les mis

thatbookshelf said: The first musical I was seriously obsessed with was a musical of a Dutch children's book series called 'Kleine Ezel' (Little Donkey) when I was about five years old. Exactly two years ago my friend got me into Hamilton which brought me into the musical theatre fandom.

swoopingsilver said: First Musical I loved: Jekyll and Hyde First musical that got me on the Internet: Dear Even Hansen

gaysnekchild said: The first musical I ever loved was Be More Chill, the musical that got me into musicals was Heather's

Anonymous said: If we're sticking to live theatre, the first musical I loved was Hamilton. If we're counting movie musicals, it was The Sound of Music by far. Hamilton was my gateway into internet theatre culture but Starkid, ITH and Hadestown are what got me stuck here.

galactic-greens said: Probably Mary Poppins, we had this dvd player that I'd take on road trips and just watch it over and over. But what really introduced me to broadway was Hamilton

a-terrible-pun said: question of the day: the sound of music was the first musical i loved, and les mis got me into the musical internet culture.

Anonymous said: Hamilton

Anonymous said: im not ashamed to say that hamilton was the first musical that i actually got into and got me interested in musical theatre, but there are some other ones like musical movies or something that i watched as a kid that i liked too

a-walking-meme said: I don't remember if the first musical I loved was Grease or Mamma Mia bc I used to watch those with my mom but the one that got me involved was Book Of Mormon ✨

Anonymous said: a) Grease b) Hamilton

Anonymous said: Hairspray was the first musical i’ve loved and wicked got me into internet Stan culture

elicardashyanpetermaximoff said: A) Heathers B) Rent

Anonymous said: I grew up watching Jacob and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and other movie musicals. However, I wasn't really aware of musical theatre until I was fourteen, and that was because of Les Mis. Les Mis made me fall in love with musical theatre, and I really began to understand and appreciate the art form. The musical that got me invested in fandom was Anastasia. I've loved this show since 2017, and I've met some of my dearest friends because of it.

Anonymous said: 1. Wizard of Oz 2. Be More Chill

sixthstringserenade said: The first musical I ever loved was Les Miserables. And the show that got me invested in theatre culture was either Avenue Q or POTO. Let’s just say Ramin Karimloo was my gateway-drug to theatre.

Anonymous said: a) Hamilton, b) Newsies

Anonymous said: The first musical I loved was les mis (it was my high school's musical my freshman year) but the first musical that really got me into musical theater culture was next to normal, which is still one of my favorites

sheepskinjacketclan said: i guess technically the first musical i loved was singin in the rain, since it was probably one of the first films i ever saw and its a classic in my family, but the first stage musical i ever loved and the thing that got me into musical theatre was Wicked when i was like 10. It sort of got me into internet theatre culture, if you count finding friends by commenting your obnoxious pre pubescent opinions on every wicked related youtube video in 2010 as internet culture.

Anonymous said: Wicked for both!

bwaycpunk said: To answer the Q: I ADORED 1776 when I was 10, but the prom musical is literally the reason I'm on Tumblr.

Anonymous said: The Wizard of Oz and the Sound of Music have always been my favorite movies/musicals since I was a little kid, but I think Hamilton or Heathers first got me involved in the online fandom...

pinkwelshdragon said: a) The Lion King in London was my first Broadway show, I saw it when I was very young so I don't remember much. b) I'd heard about Hamilton when it first came about, though I didn't listen to it since it wasn't interesting to me at the time. My friends convinced me to listen to it in 2018 and I fell in love with theatre. It was around the same time as when I was performing in my school's production of Beauty and the Beast, so that helped too.

broadwaybabe1000 said: Ok this is embarrassing but first show I loved is Elf because it was the first 1 I performed in and my first show that got me invested in internet theatre culture is Hamilton.

queenlmno said: So this first show was probably the Sound of Music movie, but first theater show was Newsies. Internet culture was either Newsies or Matilda.

squeak-and-pip said: Hamilton It’s a really basic answer I know

impastomuse said: A) Sunset Boulevard in 1996, and B) Hamilton

nightofheart said: Does the Sound of Music movie count as first musical loved? If not, Hamilton, and Hadestown for the second question :)

[bbclesmis]

Can the BBC’s Les Misérables do justice to Victor Hugo’s epic novel?

Few who love Les Mis the musical have read its source: a 1,500-page Victor Hugo novel. As the BBC tackles the book, David Bellos explains why it’s such a popular text to adapt.

The Sunday Times, December 16 2018, 12:01am

At dawn on June 19, 1815, in a muddy Belgian field where Napoleon has just lost his last battle, a scavenger filches the watch and purse of a dying soldier; a few weeks later, a long-term inmate of Toulon jail is released with a yellow passport and 109 francs. That’s where interlocking stories of Les Misérables begin, with Thénardier robbing the father of Marius, and Valjean setting off towards Digne.

If you think the magic of Les Mis comes mainly from the operatic version by Boublil and Schönberg, wait until you see the new adaptation by Andrew Davies, drawn from the book and not, like Tom Hooper’s 2012 film, from the musical, which leaves out most of Hugo’s novel’s story and doesn’t even mention the Battle of Waterloo. Davies’s script begins at the beginning, and the director, Tom Shankland, makes a truly memorable opener out of it.

Any adaptation of Les Misérables stands in a global tradition of spin-offs in every medium. In the cinema alone, there are about 70 full-length Misérables, in languages as varied as Russian, Farsi and Arabic. In Japan, there has been an independent strain of Mis-mania, expressed in manga and animé, for 100 years.

It’s not hard to see why Les Misérables is so much more attractive to dramatists than any other novel of the 19th century. Despite long passages of historical and philosophical discussion, Hugo’s saga of the poor has a simple narrative arc. It tells the redemptive life story of the former convict Valjean, from his release at Toulon to his death in Paris 20 years later. And, despite the sufferings that fill its pages, it is an optimistic story of how a man from the bottom of the pile may aspire to goodness and achieve it through persistence and sacrifice (plus the kind of luck that novels can invent). That’s dramatic enough.

Hugo was also a dramatist of genius. He created grand scenes ready for staging. The candlestick episode at Digne; the courtroom in Arras, where Valjean gives himself up to save an innocent man; the hold-up in Boulevard de l’Hôpital and Valjean’s escape from it; and the opening vision of a vulture-like thief robbing a dead man the morning after the greatest battle ever fought. Nearly all these great scenes feature a hero, part Hercules, part Christ, who defines himself through actions, not through thoughts and words. In fact, Valjean hardly says a word to himself, and not many to other people, either.

This leaves adapters and directors free to create their own image of this mythical figure. We’ve had a Valjean who looks like a tramp (the rough-hewn Harry Baur in Raymond Bernard’s 1934 film) and one who looks like a banker (in the Japanese TV serial), alongside handsome young men (Fredric March, Liam Neeson) and an action-movie star (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who had trouble pretending to be the right age. What we’ve not had is a Valjean who looks like Hugo: a short, broad-shouldered man in late middle age, in remarkably good physical shape. Despite being too tall, Dominic West, in this new TV version, comes closer than most. Les Misérables is not autobiographical (Hugo never went to prison, got buried alive or went down the sewers), but the writer’s moral self-identification with the suffering hero is one of the fundamental strengths of his book.

It was destined for the stage from the start. Even before the last volumes went on sale in July 1862, Charles Hugo, the writer’s son, began drafting a stage spectacular. A script doctor was hired to get it into shape for its premiere in Brussels in January 1863. It still flopped. But, published as a book, it influenced adaptations as to what to cut and keep.

The addition of music also has roots older than the West End musical version. Almost as soon as the first American translation of the novel appeared, a dramatist called Albert Cassedy dashed off Fantine, or The Fate of a Grisette, a popular opera with a score by Charles Koppitz. Music also plays an overlooked role in the novel: the tune Cosette practises on her piano- organ and the songs sung by schoolgirls in the Champs-Elysées, by convicts on tumbrils, by students in restaurants, hummed by a hunter in the woods and shouted out by an urchin on his way to the barricade, make up a concert programme of popular music in 19th-century France. It’s time to dust these off and perform them as the music Hugo had in his head.

Britain has had an unhappy relationship with Hugo’s epic tale because its authorised translation, by a retired military gentleman with his own views about what happened at Waterloo, was a complete disaster. For legal reasons, no new version could be brought out for decades thereafter. It didn’t help that the translation was available only in a costly hardback format.

Les Misérables reached its real audience in Britain through stage plays, and it’s amazing to see just how many there were: Charity, by CH Hazlewood, “founded on Victor Hugo’s story of Les Misérables”, was performed in London in November 1862; then came Jean Valjean, by Harry Seymour, Clarance Holt’s Out of Evil Cometh Good, in 1867, and many more. They concentrated heavily on Part I of Hugo’s five-part novel. The battle scene at Waterloo in Part II and the “revolutionary” stories of Parts IV and V seem to have been ignored most of the time.

In Russia, too, Tolstoy’s retelling of Les Misérables in simple language focused on Bishop Myriel’s charitable gift of silver to a rough customer. It was this fable-like episode, transposed into English by Norman McKinnel as The Bishop’s Candlesticks in 1908, that was turned into a silent short film by Herbert Brenon in 1913, which was then remade with a soundtrack in 1929. It never stopped, leaving Andrew Davies with a rich inheritance to renew — and to overturn. But he keeps one of the glitches that early translators made and that all Hollywood movie versions retain: he has Valjean steal the bishop’s silver cutlery, whereas in the novel he steals his silver plates (the French word “couvert” having changed its meaning).

One reason why Les Misérables has been remade in so many languages and periods is sex, or, more precisely, its total absence. It wasn’t prudery that kept Hugo off the topic. (He had plenty of experience, to put it politely.) But Les Misérables is about justice, social morality, crime, punishment, the meaning of history and the full potential of human life.

It’s true that old Gillenormand boasts of his past as a rake, but at 90 years of age, he’s long past acting out. It’s also true that Fantine becomes a prostitute — but Hugo deals with the episode in just seven words. Adaptations that put sex into the story express not what Hugo wrote about, but what some audiences are expected to find alluring.

On the other hand, a belief in the existence of a god is integral to the book’s meaning. Deeply sceptical of the Catholic church, Hugo omits Christian artefacts and rituals (including midnight Mass at Montfermeil and the church wedding of Cosette and Marius) to a degree that is almost comical in a panorama of 19th-century life, but he insisted that Les Misérables was a religious work. The prismatic glint of sunlight through foliage that Shankland deploys in the new BBC version, to show the start of Valjean’s conversion after robbing Petit-Gervais, seems to me an intelligent and respectful way of hinting at what Hugo meant.

One of the more puzzling aspects of Les Misérables and its flourishing international afterlife is its exclusive focus on France. There’s not a single foreigner among the 120 named characters in the novel; barring occasional remarks about London, Poland and the United States, Les Misérables talks exclusively about the history, politics, social structure and social ills of the country that Hugo considered to be top nation for all time, namely his own.

Though largely written in Guernsey and initially published in Belgium, the book was written for the French by a man whose long exile had no foreseeable end. Its first translator into Italian requested permission to cut historical passages because “there are some Italians, rather a lot in fact, who say: ‘This book, Les Misérables, is a French book. It is not about us. Let the French read it as history, let us read it as a novel.’”

Permission was refused. The intensity and completeness of this exposition of the social ills in 19th-century France effectively turned that now mythical place into a stand-in for the whole world. You can’t blame Hugo for not being in tune with 21st-century ideas of the politically correct, but you have to admire him for standing outside the conventions of his day.

His response to the translator has a prophetic sense, and answers in advance the question of why his French-focused masterpiece continues to attract readers, fans and adapters all over the world: “I do not know whether [my book] will be read by all, but I wrote it for everyone... Social problems go beyond borders. The sores of the human race, these running sores that cover the globe, don’t stop at red or blue lines drawn on the map. Wherever men are ignorant and desperate, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children suffer for want of instruction or a warm hearth, Les Misérables knocks on the door and says, ‘Open up, I have come for you.’”

David Bellos is the author of The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables (Penguin £10.99). Les Misérables starts on BBC1 on Dec 30 at 9pm; Dominic West is interviewed in the Magazine next Sunday

‘The Glums’: a potted history

● The full text of Les Misérables in the right order of reading was not available to British readers until 2008, in a version by the Australian writer Julie Rose.

● In 1897, the Lumière brothers shot a one-minute reel of a quick-change artist masquerading as Hugo, Valjean, Thénardier, Marius and Javert. This was the first time fiction had ever appeared on celluloid film.

● Victor Hugo’s wife, Adèle, operated as publicity manager for the novel’s launch. She created a poster campaign featuring illustrations of the main characters, making the novel’s imminent appearance known long before its publication. Nothing like that had been done before. She also had announcements prepared for newspapers and requested that they were held back from publication until she gave the signal, making Les Misérables probably the first work launched under embargo.

● When Hugo was ready to publish Les Misérables in 1862, he secured the publishing deal of all time: in today’s terms, he was paid about £3m as an advance on a contract allowing the publisher Albert Lacroix to print the book for just eight years. Lacroix had to get a huge bank loan to finance the book.

● Charles Dickens met Hugo in Paris in 1847, visiting his splendid apartment on Place Royale. There is not a trace of the event in Hugo’s records, which suggests the British author didn’t make a strong impression on the literary star of his day. In Dickens’s eyes, though, Hugo looked “like the Genius he was”.

● Hugo’s contemporaries weren’t all taken with his novel: “This book is written for catholico-socialist shitheads and for the philosophico-evangelical ratpack,” Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend.

● When Hugo fled France in 1851, both his sons were in prison and Louis-Napoléon — Napoléon III — was his sworn enemy. “Because we had Napoléon le Grand, do we have to have Napoléon le Petit?” he quipped.

● Les Misérables has been adapted for radio and cinema more times than any other novel.

● Classical literary French had a restricted vocabulary. Racine got by with about 2,000 words. Hugo uses about 20,000 different words in the 630,000 words of the text of Les Misérables — maybe as many as in all of Shakespeare working in English, which has a much larger vocabulary in the first place.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/culture/can-the-bbcs-les-miserables-do-justice-to-victor-hugos-epic-novel-50wtqgvdj?t=ie

[theliterarywolf]

Providing you've seen that 'stages of fandom chart', are there any good media that have a presence on tumblr but haven't gotten toxic yet? seems like its happening faster and faster these days...

The Hunie franchise (both Pop and Cam) - Outside of someone on here hating the game so much that they were talking about ‘wanting to kill everyone who was involved with it’ (and even they were only exposed to the game through a Markiplier LP), the fandom on here is microscopic because ‘ew, icky porn game obviously made for the male gaze (even though half of the development team for Pop were lesbians, but okay)’.

The Ancient Magus’s Bride - As far as I’ve seen, this anime has been lucky enough to have a corner of shade under the ‘Don’t bring your bullshit in here’ barrier of tumblr’s teratophile community. So that one’s safe

Gankutsuou - The Count of Monte Cristo - You know, despite bearing quite a few LGBT characters (Albert, Franz, Eugenie, Peppo, and even the Count himself), this anime hasn’t had any exposure to the bullshit meter. Maybe tumblr children don’t have the time for any adaptation of classic French literature that isn’t Les Mis, who knows?

Full Service - The game has yet to come out (the devs are shooting for September) but, really, with this game I am ironically A-OK with it having, what, 3% presence on tumblr? Because, fuck it, I don’t need any discourse about the massage parlor hunks, okay?

Night in the Woods - Yeah, the game that everyone was saying was going to be ‘the next Undertale when it comes to fandom cringe, ohmahgawd’ has pretty much been under the radar when it comes to tumblr. I mean, the worst thing I remember seeing when NitW hit its peak on this site was people getting upset that people were shipping Greg and Mae (which, I mean, I can understand a little; you actually have a gay couple in the form of Angus and Greg and yet you still want to ship Greg and Mae, who are sooooo bad for each other, oh my God) – 

Okay, bit of a tangent: the more I think about NitW, the more I just feel so damn sorry for Angus and Bea for having to deal with Greg and Mae, just… my God 

–

But, other that, haven’t seen discourse. Maybe because people don’t want to go for a media where the main character, despite being pansexual and representation being awesome, is such a fucking trainwreck.

And… yeah, those are the only things fandom-wise that I can think of that are Discourse-Free on this hellsite. Because even things like The Shape of Water (a movie that should have that ‘Don’t Bring Your Bullshit in Here’ protection from the teratophile community is still being hit with ‘ugh, who cares if it’s an unconventional romance between a mute protagonist who uses sign language and a monster – it’s still Het and she’s still white, myeh~’ posts in the tag and even obscure ships that have been left alone for years are now having little worms come into the tag to post the typical anti messages (’oh, the age-gaps make me uncomfortable’, ‘oh, you’re skirting on pedophilia~’

[ragsandmuffins]

Musical Theatre Themed Ask

Okay, I’m gonna answer... all of these! (Because I have a paper to write and zero motivation. And also: musicals.)

Oh, and by the way, I’m going to assume that every “Broadway” is a “Broadway/West End” because Tumblr is a free platform.

1. What was the first musical you saw?

Mary Poppins, West End, 2006 (not 100% sure about the year)

2. What musical got you really  into theatre?

Les Misérables - saw the film, started stalking the actors, you know how it goes.

3. Who was your first Broadway crush?

Aaron Tveit (he’s the main one) and Samantha Barks - like I said, stalking the Les Mis actors...

4. Name three of your current Broadway crushes.

Um... still Aaron Tveit? Plus Rob Houchen (Les Mis London) and Cleve September (In the Heights London and soon Hamilton London) - Also, I get “talent crushes” not physical attraction crushes.

5. Name four of your dream roles.

Only 4? Natalie Goodman, Enjolras, Maureen Johnson, and HERCULES MULLIGAN!!

(I can’t sing, act, or dance, nor am I a man, so...)

6. Favourite off-broadway show:

Heathers and The Last Five Years

7. Favourite cast recording.

Gotta be Hamilton, it’s just such a well-produced album. Bonus points for including nearly the entire show.

8. 2013 Tony opening number or 2016 Tony opening number?

2012? The Book of Mormon thing is just pure gold!

9. Favourite show currently on Broadway.

Broadway: I guess Hamilton - There are way too few that I actually know.

West End: Les Misérables forever!

10. A musical that closed and you’re still bitter about. Rant a bit.

In the Heights London! Though I can’t really complain, they extended their initially run several times and now they’ve cast my amazing Sonny as Laurens/Philip, so... But it was just so good!!

11. Best stage to screen adaptation?

Les Misérables. Controversial, I know, but I usually kind of hate movie musicals. With this one they did something new and different and I think it works. The Last Five Years is pretty good too, though it lost a lot in the adaptation (couldn’t be avoided).

12. Worst  stage to screen adaptation?

Rent. I’m sorry, I love the show, I love the cast, but it all feels so staged and wrong and meh. Also, they cut Goodbye Love and left in fucking Santa Fé which adds exactly nothing to the plot!!

13. Favourite #ham4ham?

Gotta be the Schuyler Georges, but there have been so many great ones...

14. A musical you would love to see produced by Deaf West?

Oh, tricky... Maybe Next to Normal? That has a lot to do with people holding things in and failing to see each others’ struggles.

15. If you could revive any musical, which one would it be and who would you cast in it?

Not exactly a revival, but bring Next to Normal to the West End already! That show’s got a sodding Pulitzer. And London’s only a 2 hour flight away from where I live, not a transatlantic one, so I might actually be able to go see it.

Oh, and give Spring Awakening another chance, West End. Maybe adapt some American Sign Language into British Sign Language and...?

Also, maybe revive Rent, Broadway? (And cast Aaron Tveit as Roger... please?)

16. If you could go to a concert at the 54 below, who’s would it be?

That list would be waaaaaayyy too long...

17. Do you watch broadway.com vlogs? Which one is your favourite?

I’ve seen a few, but I don’t really watch them on a regular basis, so no favourites...

18. Make a Broadway related confession.

I really, really hate South Pacific. It was part of our American drama syllabus, as an example of a musical. Quite apart from the fact that I think it’s a godawful, sort of racist and sexist show (it’s from the 40s, go figure), it displays LITERALLY EVERY cliché about musicals!

19. What do musicals mean to you?

Hard to say... Apart from hours and hours of ALL the emotions, some awesome internet buddies (looking at you, @frei-und-schwerelos), I’ve got generally more interested in and knowledgable about theatre, which is a great asset when you study English. Musicals have also introduced me to a wide range of music I wouldn’t normally listen to and so many talented people I wouldn’t have known about otherwise...

20. Express some love for understudies and swings!

Okay here goes: I went to see the West End production of Memphis because of Killian Donnelly and then he unexpectedly wasn’t on that night - bummer. But then Jon Robyns just knocked it out of the part (and I only ever listened to Avenue Q and Spamalot because I watched clips of him when he was in those shows).

My first Thénardier was Adam Pearce and his version of “It was me wot told you so...” is the funniest one I’ve ever heard (he kind of went “No? Sorry, fair enough.”).

The second time I saw the show Adam Bayjou was Valjean and his Bring Him Home was one of the best I’ve ever heard (effortless high notes).

Also, Charlotte Kennedy was Cosette that time (she’s principal Cosette now) and her performance was so incredibly sweet! (She also brought some brunette power into the sea of blond that were Marius and Éponine.)

And Jordan Lee Davies was Bamatabois both times and he was great!

Oh, and my Christine from Phantom was the wonderful Lisa-Anne Wood.

21. Best Disney musical:

Mary Poppins - My first ever musical, fond memories, I still wear the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious shirt my dad bought me (11 years ago... didn’t fit then, fits now).

22. Which Disney movie should be made into a musical?

Uh, I don’t know. Tangled’s funny...

23. Which musical fandom has the funniest memes?

Hamilton and Les Mis. I mean, the Les Mis/Mean Girls crossovers alone...

24. Name a character from a musical you would sort into your Hogwarts house.

Well, the test sorted me into Hufflepuff (great house), but I know that I am a Ravenclaw (and, as we know, the hat listens to you). Okay, Ravenclaw... maybe Melchior from Spring Awakening?

25. Name a Broadway star you would sort into your Hogwarts house.

Ugh, that’s even harder! Sorry, no clue.

26. Best on stage chemistry?

Hmm from what I’ve seen live, Rob Houchen and Carrie Hope Fletcher were pretty darn amazing together.

From what I haven’t seen live, Jennifer Damiano and Adam Chanler-Berat, and Justin Johnston and Michael McElroy seemed fantastic.

27. A Broadway duo you love.

I’m gonna say Jonathan Groff and Lin-Manuel Miranda, but I’m not sure I understand the question...

28. What book, tv show, movie, biography, video game, etc. should be turned into a musical?

Umm... I don’t know. Supernatural sort of is a musical... A Lord of the Rings musical in the style of A Very Potter Musical might be fun. The Fellowship of the Sing? I’ll show myself out.

29. If you could make a jukebox musical, what artist or genre would you pick?

I doubt many people know her but: Vienna Teng. For three reasons (aside from me liking her songs): 1. Her songs tell stories. 2. She often writes from the perspective of “characters.” 3. Her songs are actual poetry!

30. Favourite role played by _________________?

I don’t get it. What am I supposed to put here?

31. What musical has made you cry the most?

I don’t actually cry often at musicals (internally I do), but It’s Quiet Uptown from Hamilton got me bad the first time. And I once listened to Next to Normal when I was already feeling like shit - bad idea! (Don’t listen to There’s a World when you kind of want there to not be a world, kids...)

32. What musical has made you laugh the most?

Probably Avenue Q and Something Rotten

33. Current showtune stuck in you head:

Well, you just put Hard to Be the Bard in my head!

34. A musical that has left you thinking about life for a long time or deeply inspired you.

Les Misérables... I haven’t spent a single week without thinking about that show (or, indeed, the book) since early 2013.

Next to Normal also gave me a lot to think about.

I keep discovering new little bits of genius in Hamilton lyrics. Also, I’m writing a paper on the early US for the second time in under a year and characters from Hamilton (otherwise know as historical figures) keep popping up. Seriously, I’m writing about the Whiskey Rebellion and every time I read Hamilton’s name my brain goes PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES!

I’ve also thought quite a bit about Heathers and The Last Five Years, because both of them have had productions where they genderbended (genderbent?) a main character, which made me think about how it changes the story and why.

35. If you could perform any ensemble number , which one would you pick?

“If you could...” Are you implying that I don’t?! Come on, any theatre geek who claims never to have done a solo rendition of One Day More is definitely lying! Oh, and I rapped myself all the way through One Shot the other day and made only one mistake - one that Lin’s made before, so I’m proud!

36. Name a musical you didn’t like at first but ended up loving.

I don’t think that’s really happened... There have been shows where I thought “What in the holy hell is this?!” and ended up loving it. I mean, what in the holy hell is Avenue Q?!

37. What are some costumes you’d love to try on?

Give me that red vest! Also, let me play Enjolras! Yes, I know I’m a woman and can only hit that low “foooorm” when I’ve got a really bad cold, but fuck all that!

I’d also really like to try on Elphaba’s Act II dress, because it’s epic!

38. Favourite dance break.

Hmmm... I don’t really have one? The one in Cool and the ballet in Somewhere where they sort of replay what’s happened are pretty amazing (both West Side Story).

39. Favourite Starkid musical:

A Very Potter Musical is the only one I know... Sorry...

40. What’s a musical more people should know about?

Well, where I live, most people have heard of Cats, Phantom, and Mamma Mia and that’s about it.

But in general, I’ve never met anyone who’s even heard of Assassins (although many people who have met me have now heard everything about Assassins - I’m that kind of person).

41. What are some lines from musicals you really like?

Okay, this is gonna take a while...

"Can you remind me of what it was like at the top of the world?” (In the Heights)

“Oh, my friends, my friends, don’t ask me what your sacrifice was for.” (Les Misérables - internal Niagara Falls!)

“Here, put some hail into the chief.” (Assassins)

“But the sky’s gonna hurt when it falls. So you’d better start building some walls.” (Heathers)

“I’m not mad that you got mad when I got mad when you said I should go drop dead!” (Tick, Tick... Boom!)

“My God, in God we trust, but we never really know what God discussed.” (Hamilton)

“What doesn’t kill me doesn’t kill me.” (Next to Normal)

And just for fun: “Honest living, honest living, honest living, honest living,...” (Rent)

42. Name a Tony performance you rewatch and rewatch.

In the Heights, Next to Normal, Hamilton, and Spring Awakening (both versions).

[ellieinflowers]

30 Day Musical Theatre Challenge

Day 14: A number from the musical you haven’t listened to (or seen) in a while.

“Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from Phantom of the Opera. When I first discovered the magic of musical theatre, of course everyone in my high school drama club was telling me to listen things like Les Mis, RENT, Into the Woods, the essentials. Those essentials also included Phantom of the Opera, which I really had no particular interest in until my band class watched the first few minutes of the 2004 movie version. Then after going home to illegally watch it on some website, I was hooked. In fact, I was obsessed. I read the novel, listened to the original broadway cast (although didn’t enjoy it because I’m not a fan of Sarah Brightman) and watched whatever bootleg I could, and then I proceeded to look for literally any sort of movie adaptation of PotO because...well just because I was a teen with nothing to do on a Friday night. The tale captivated me and the music made my heart swell with the drama and heartbreak of it all. I haven’t listened to PotO in a very long time, and I haven't seen the movie or the 25th anniversary in quite some time (and unfortunately, I’ve also never seen it live). But one song I always gets me right in the feels is when Christine sings about missing her father. She’s just so vulnerable and doesn’t know where to turn, and the tune of melancholy is so powerful in this one aria. I’m also a sucker for a huge orchestra with a lot of violins.

[facebetrayedanxiety]

multiples of 5 for the theatre ask~

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

I would make a production of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory with a real set. (Okay so that isn’t my favorite musical at all but I needed to throw the shade) 

Really though, I would made a production of Into the Woods with a multilevel set and make Cinderella gay okay goodnight. 

10.Best musical theatre breakup song?

We Do Not Belong Together from Sunday In The Park With George 

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

I would probably ask to meet Bernadette Peters dog tbh 

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

Oooh I would love a musical based on Stardust by Neil Gaiman! 

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

Frozen because I’m excited to see what changes they make! 

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

I guess Les Mis counts as musical theatre fandom uh idk if i have any favorites off the top of my head tho 

35. Favorite musical theatre trope?

WHEN SOMEONE STOPS MIDSENTENCE AND BURSTS INTO SONG 

[eddiesasspbrak]

I’ve loved musicals and broadway and plays since I was very little. At four years old my mom took me and my sister’s to see Les Mis and my first love, born from that experience, was Jean ValJean. I pursued drama in school to the extent of nearly becoming a drama teacher. Do you know how many shows I’ve seen in my life? Five. Les Miss that time. Into the Woods twice, once in middle school drama on a field trip, the other when my exstep sister was in college and did the set design and invited us. Midsummer Night Dream when that same sister was apart of a small production in the attic of a bar and then Wicked a little more than a year ago when my mom splurged so I could see a show I’ve been singing along to for more than ten years. I’ve listened to the soundtracks, tracked down bootlegs across the internet, the songs that get stuck in my head aren’t every day music. 98% of the time it’s musicals but I don’t have the luxury of going to see shows on Broadway. flight to NY, hotel room, food, and price of ticket (not even including buying merch which of course I’d want) would be THOUSANDS. So, Hamilton being on Disney+ was exciting for me, not because it was Hamilton but because I could FINALLY see another musical I adore without having to wait for a poorly made movie with bad casting and plot changes. I always watch those movies and I always wish I could see the real thing, even if it’s a recording of the stage production. I’d rather watch poorly shot bootlegs (bless those who film them) than the movie adaptations because my love is for the stage, not for Anna Kendrick doing a subpar Cathy (I love her, I just did not love her in that role). The point of this post is that I’m begging for more shows to be released this way! I will buy them! The one time price of a recording is far superior! Beetlejuice made it’s tickets affordable so the young, lower class fans could see it only because the older rich people who could afford to go didn’t like/couldn’t appreciate how amazing it was (because it was amazing and yes I’ve seen a bootleg) but it should have been an eye opener that making these shows available to a wider population will MAKE MONEY not lose it! Those of us who still can will of course see it on stage because the stage will always be more alluring and ticket sales will not go down. It makes no sense to me that recordings of these shows are not available to the general population. I’ve said my peace, sorry for the long post, I’m just very passionate about this. I’m not the first to make these points and I won’t be the last and I’m just hoping the hype over Hamilton on Disney+ will start something for those of us who can’t go to NY for a one night show

[connorrenwick]

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from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/gingko-le-cord-deliver-new-home-office-essentials/

[wagihyoussef]

Architecture and the Desire for New Form and Expression

Abstract

In some historical periods, individual architects concentrate on the human figure, others on objects connected with utility and consumption, others on nature. They find that under certain conditions form is influenced by concern with, or neglect of, detail.  The dependence of form factors such as size, proportion, location, shape, shading, direction, is being studied. Visual form is also considered to articulate the environment.  Visual order as a tool of insight has been stressed in the formal aspect of architecture.  Beauty can be defined as the correspondence of meaning and perceptual symbolism.  Things that belong together are shown together, and what is great and high appears in large size and in high location.  Beauty is lost when meaning and form are split.  This results in compositions which carry no message.

Keywords: cubism, mannerism, Romanesque, gothic revival, modern style

Introduction

Art cannot be a physical fact because physical facts have no reality.  This means that art exists only as a psychological experience, and the forces which generate such experience are the proper object of our attention.  In architectural design if one should put something haphazardly, one should be compelled to redo the whole design over again, starting from that place. The psychological forces that determine architecture form operate essentially in the perceptual process of vision and in the area of motivation and personality. Also, a more complete presentation would require consideration of future psychological levels, notably thinking and memory. Vision cannot be explained merely by the properties of the object but is dependent on what goes on in the brain.  If we scrutinize the observer's experience and consider at the same time what is going on in the neural mechanism of vision, we realize first of all that we are dealing with a highly dynamic process.

One must realize that all visual form is constantly endowed with striving and yielding, contraction and expansion, contrast and adaptation, attack and retreat. One can understand the elementary impact of a building and its capacity to symbolize the action of life by means of physically motionless objects. The sensations of push and pull are the conscious counterpart of the psychological processes which organize percept in the neural field of the optical sector, that is, the cerebral cortex, the optic nerve, and the retinae of the eyes. Accordingly, visual dynamics is not a secondary attachment of the stimulus, due to accidental, subjective associations, but rather precedes the geometric pattern of shape and color in that this pattern is the result of the organizing forces of whose activity the observer is partially aware.

The Colonial Style

Around the 17th C. the architecture in America was Colonial and dependent on England, Spain, Portuguese and sometimes France. But their dependence was not complete, and the aesthetic values were not provincial.  Some of the motifs were due to Spain and Portuguese whose precedent were the Indian workers to whom was related the Decoration of the Aztec and the Temples of the Inca.  Afterwards the client and the builder were from the West and the differences which were reflected upon architecture were due to the environment.  The Colonial style in North America was Georgian English and was executed with wood which made the columns thin and helped the use of painting.  The hot climate admitted the introduction of terraces, porches, loggias and the ample spaces.

Classic Styles

The National style in America was the Greek revival. Thomas Jefferson was enthusiastic to the Roman ruins which he had seen in 1780 and the result was a style ranging from the imitation of Palladianism and the Roman details as seen in the University of Virginia. From 1850 the American Architecture was not Colonial.  Instead there was Greek revival, some of Gothic, Egyptian, and a revival of old English Cottage.  Some of the buildings which had original motifs are the State Capitol and other two buildings which were conceived as the combination of the forms of the Greek Temples with central domes (Davis and others).  Davis invented a truss for wooden bridges.

In France and Germany, they evolved the Romanesque style.  In the Ile de France the master masons created the Gothic style, but the English builders, the Spanish, the Germans, the Italians have made some changes to that style to conform with their national consciousness.  Afterwards Italy switched to the Early Renaissance, the High Renaissance and the Mannerism. All this happened before any building with a Western character was built in America.  But if we take the whole of the United States we might find some echoes here or there like the ribbed Vault in some of the Friars Churches in Mexico which is Western Gothic. Apart from this Mannerism was the first European style which was reflected in America.

Modern Style

America introduced the Balloon frame in 1825 which was an elementary system for wooden buildings which has prefabricated parts to be gathered without profession in the site, the evolution of the iron structure for domestic buildings and the warehouses.

Henry Hobson Richardson. Henry Hobson Richardson 1838-86 believed in the French Romanesque, but his work was exceptional.  He used it with new qualities when he brought it out by the use of elementary forms.  He had a feeling of texture and surface. He made rich patterns to underline the massive compactness of his buildings. His work influenced many architects of his time such as Sullivan and Adler. By Sullivan America reached the top in architecture creativity. Chicago became the International Center of modern architecture and an original idiom worked out by Sullivan and his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright.  No European country had such buildings as those of Wright to compare them with.

After the First World War, there was a style made by great imaginative and decisive men. These men preached and ventured the unexplored. What they have done was according to the needs of the new society and the individual condition of the architecture.  The new style refused to accept craftsmanship and whim in design.  It is characterized by sheer surfaces and the least ornament so that the parts could be produced industrially.

Mies van der Rohe. The steel, glass and the reinforced concrete did not dictate the new style, but they belonged to it. Mies van der Rohe designed a memorial for the Communists in a cubist expressionist manner.  The sweeping lines of Mendelsohn’s architecture was extensively imitated.  Even the glass wall of Mies's skyscrapers had a fantasy which was not found in the early work. His concern about the skyscrapers was the reflection of a general fascination in America expressing the daring of the Country.  In those years it was seen as a sign of Romanticism more than a rational frame of mind.

The interaction between the interior space and the exterior was discovered by Frank Lloyd Wright in America.  The belief in exposing steel members instead of concrete massive blocks characterized the best works completed after 1930.  The best of these is the Barcelona Pavilion in 1929 by Mies Van der Rohe who was born in 1886.  Its walls were constructed of glass and dark green marble and a white straight ceiling.  The interiors were wholly opened with steel brilliant columns and divided by screen walls. It had monumentality because of its splendid materials and noble spatial rhythm.

Le Corbusier. Some of the Pioneers have made some remarkable works out of them. Le Corbusier; he was a painter and was influenced by Cubism though he did not accept it completely. In the pavilion of L'Esprit Nouveau in Paris exhibition of 1920 he admitted a tree to stand in the middle of the house and to extend through the roof. He built also in the University City of Paris a Swiss Students' Hotel 1930 with random rubble which appears side by side with glass and concrete and plaster.

Walter Gropius. Walter Gropius made the Bauhaus in Dessau and some blocks of flats. The Bauhaus was built in 1925.  It consisted of a middle part combined by differences of height.  The total form was like two "L"s overlapping.  The middle part consisted of two stories for offices over supports. Attached to the left were the four stories of the craft school.  In the South a wing contained the Auditorium and the canteen.  From this end was a tower of six floors for the dormitory with small balconies.  The all-glass workshop extended from the other end.

The Religious buildings remained far from this movement, but in Switzerland modern churches appeared such as St. Antony's Basil by Karl Moser. The problem was less complex for the reformed churches of Switzerland than others. Asplundh made the Crematorium for Stockholm 1935 and succeeded in achieving comfort.  The advance to the portico with its verticals and horizontals, the free Cross standing isolated from the building and the Chapel in the interior and the waiting room are intricate and soothing. It was surrounded with lawn on rising land, trees and a pool. The architecture of the 20th Century was not so artfully combined with the landscape.

Cubism

Cubism was criticized as being the style of cigar boxes, lacking the grace and lacking the fullness and in short inhuman.  But no one denied its functional merits.  It was said that, that style is good for factories and nothing else.  The religious building did not follow that style for those reasons.  But Nervi's Hall, Morwit's Raleigh Arena were not cigar boxes nor hardly had any mechanical appearance, not lacking fullness or grace. It could be looked at as industrial more than individual. But they looked organic not crystalline, and personal and anonymous. These forms have been made by men who wanted to span spaces and a desire for new form. The desire for new expression created new forms and found new technical means to express it.  But the roofs of the later years which curve up or down were not due to functional consideration and costs, but they were as Nervi called them ‘structural acrobating’ and the motif was difficult to calculate or construct.

Revolt against Reason

In Brazil they advocated the most fabulous construction.  The church of Niemeyer in Pampulla 1943 which had a parabolic section in the Nave and the small transept is in the form of parabolas, and the square tower which begins thin and increases in height, and the plan which contracts and expands in free curves do not depend on function. Brazil was not revolting alone against reason, but Le Corbusier was influenced by what was in Brazil, for he changed the style of his designs after visiting it. His Ronchamps in Paris 1955 explains this. The roof was shaped in the form of a hat or a mushroom and lighted by many small windows which were shaped randomly and laid so. The church is small, with a capacity for only 200 persons and was built in concrete.  When I visited it in the 20th Century 1962, I felt it seemed moving. 

The revolt against reason was not only by Le Corbusier but also appeared in many countries.  In England the architects used geometrical shapes for walls, and balconies.  A façade which has a homogeneous balcony for the flat was arranged such that the supports were put in a way to appear as a checkerboard.  Or the balconies may interchange between massive concrete and iron grids to give this impression. In Italy too, Luigi Moretti (1909) made the narrow end of the upper eight or ten floors cantilevered to the front over the ground floor.  This is so because in the matter of aesthetics the eye is the judge.  This is why Ronchamps had to come.  Examples of these tendencies are the United Nations in New York and the Lever building by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill.  It has a contrast between the 24 stories of glass-slabs and the two stories buildings underneath with its closed piazza in the interior.

[living-and-awaken]

My favorite movie is Finding Nemo, I've seen it an outrageous amount of times and know all or almost all of the lines. I really enjoy musicals so like Broadway shows made into movies, especially Les Mis and Into the Woods. Interesting that you said The Lovely Bones. I was an avid reader when I was younger so I read the book when I was in middle school and a year later the movie came out. I have my own thoughts on it but I rather not talk down on one of your favorite movies

I love Finding Nemo! That's probably one of my favorites of all time. I can almost recite all the lines too so it's kind of funny you said that. What's your favorite part in that movie? Mine has to be the FA (fish anonymous) shark scene. Tbh I actually cried at the beginning, I'm such a softie lol. I haven't watches to man Broadway shows or plays but I have always been interested. I think I'll check those out. That reminds me of Mouline Rouge for some reason and I love the films. I'm ignorant on where it originated from but you just reminded me of that. I've never read the Lovely Bones book. I heard it was quite different and a lot of people were upset with the film adaptation. I know if I read the book I would be upset because I'm more about the books than films with any film adaptation of books. Feel free to say what you want. I adore intellectual conversation and I'm always up for learning about things I'm ignorant on. I'm sure had I read the book I would feel the same way you do. I know a lot of times films don't do the book justice and I am not surprised if that's the case here.