#broadway evolved

[derekklenadaily]

broadwayevolved: TONIGHT!!!! 8PM ET! 2025 SUMMER LAUNCH PARTY!

Join Betsy Wolfe in our private zoom room as we share all the exciting details about summer 2025! SURPRISE SPECIAL GUEST and BE favorite Derek Klena will be jumping into the party too!

See you tonight!

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

Headcanon that the Curtis house has a small covered porch in the front and it’s got a couple old chairs on it. Also headcanon that Ponyboy loves rain/thunderstorms and would always go and sit on the porch when one was happening because he loved watching and listening to them roll over Tulsa. Sometimes, he’d be sitting there and writing or doodling in his notebook quietly when he heard the door swing open and suddenly Soda was yelling and laughing while running out into the pouring rain with Ace on his back, Two Bit and Steve close behind him with Dallas trailing behind and yelling that Soda would need to be faster if he wanted to get away, all of them laughing just as much as he was.

Then, Pony would feel a gentle and quiet presence beside him and he’d look over and see that Johnny had slid into the chair beside him and had his arm gently brushing Pony’s. Pony smiled as he looked at his best friend and then he glanced at the doorway and saw that Darrel was leaning against it with a gentle smile as he watched the gang mess around with each other and get to truly be kids again.

[rattiwolf]

shameless school of rock fanart that I made during my spanish class

[a-little-revolution]

It seems like you're a big fan of Warwick Davis, I was wondering if there are any other little people actors you really like, especially women and trans/nb actors?

Hello! Yes I do enjoy Warwick Davis! Willow (1988) remains one of my favourite LP films, and I've really enjoyed his career of fantastical characters.

Like a lot of industries, white men make up a lot of the most famous Little actors (Warwick Davis, Peter Dinklage, Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Verne Troyer), so I'm happy to mention some of my favourites outside that group!

Linda Hunt is a favourite of mine - she's a Hollywood veteran best known for her role in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) where she was the first actor to win an academy award for playing someone of the opposite sex!! She's been on Broadway, done tv, film, and voice acting! You may know her as Lady Proxima in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

If you think you don't know Deep Roy, chances are you do! He's been a scale actor in countless award winning films including Star Wars (1980), Star Trek (2009-2016), The Never Ending Story (1984), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and so many more! We owe so many beloved characters to scale actors and people hardly know it - Deep Roy has been responsible for dozens of them, I adore him.

Despite Patty Maloney's vast career in acting, I know her as Lois Addams from The Addams Family (1991)! Before my time she was in a variety of tv shows and films including Star Trek Voyager (1996), Little House on the Prairie (1982), and The Lord of the Rings (1978).

Cara Mailey is a young actress, author, presenter and activist! She's known for her role in Derry Girls (2018) and Read all About It! (2021), as well as her ebook "I Got This" - which speaks on her experience living with Achondroplasia. I wanted to be sure to give her an honourable mention because at only fifteen she's already become an activist for the LP community! I'm excited to see how her career evolves!

Thank you for the ask! Be sure to check these folks out!

[emeraldcity1900]

the history of animation in a nutshell

Early 1900s: hey what if comic strips could like move?

Late 1910s early 1920s hey what if we mashed this up with live action people?

late 1920s: hey what if this thing had sound?

Early to mid 1930s: hey what if this had people actually talking and also color?

late 1930s: hey you know that super cool movie that one lady animated with paper cut out silhouettes? What if we did that with painted cells? Would people even pay to see that? Never mind it turns out the answer is yes.

1940s: ah shit most of our animators got drafted and/or hate us now cause we weren’t paying them. IT’S PROPAGANDA TIME BABY. Also haha hitler got hit with a mallet and also the most racist depictions of Japanese people ever.

1950s to 1960s : oh what’s this newfangled thing? Television? What if you could air cartoons on it? Oh fuck no I ain’t paying that much to get the charecters to have different backgrounds and for the charecters to like, move fluidly. Also manga and anime are steadily growing more popular.

1970s: (Ralph Bakshi walks into a comics store and finds a furry comic) X rated animated movie? *cue the screams of mothers and their unsuspecting children now being introduced to the revolutionary idea that cartoons don’t equal kids stuff? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?

1980s to 1990s: we can have full on animated Broadway musicals? Wait, what do you mean animated movies can count for the Oscar’s? What do you mean now they get their own catagory because the academy still thinks their for babies? Anime and manga are taking off in the west. SWEET JESUS WHAT DRUGS ARE THE JAPANESE ON SHOWING THIS SHIT TO KIDS. But also why is it so fucking good. Maybe some of these aren’t even meant for kids? Wait We can sell toys to kids with cartoons? Wait we can actually put effort into these cartoons on television? The fuck to you mean we can animate in 3D now? What do you mean we can have well animated, well written sitcom shows like the simpsons? What do you mean you can make cartoon charecters say fuck? What drugs are creators at Nickelodeon on? Do I even want to know?

2000s: oh my god, there is this one show that I really like cause it’s really well written and genuinely funny but I can’t talk about it because it’s animated and we all know cartoons are for babies right? Oh look it’s the transformers movie, look how far CGI has evolved so we can make the transformers in a movie.

2010s: holy shit I know these shows are for kids but they’re just well written and have so much meaningful things to say about the world. Wait, it’s cool to like cartoons now? They they have fandoms for this? Fuck yeah I’m in. (Enters one of the most notoriously toxic fandoms of all time) THEY HAVE GAY PEOPLE IN THESE SHOWS NOW? AND COMPLEX EMOTIONAL STORYTELLING? AND ADULT ANIMATED SHOWS CAN BE MORE THAN JUST SITCOMS WITH THE SAME JOKES AND STYLE? WHY IS IT THAT EVERY DISNEY CARTOON SINCE GRAVITY FALLS INCLUDE THINGS THAT GET MORE AND MORE FUCKED UP? WHY DO I FUCKING LOVE IT? WHY THE FUCK DID DISNEY DO THE OWL HOUSE DIRTY LIKE THAT?

2020s: I got this show I wanna pitch but it dosen’t fit into any box that the networks want and also I’m afraid that they’ll just randomly cancel it before I can finish the story I want to tell. Wait, I can just post the pilot on my YouTube channel, see if anybody actually likes this thing I made and just make the show independently? FUCK THE NETWORK! I AM THE NETWORK

[missholloween]

I love how casually queer Tin Can Bros productions are.

Spies are Forever might be the obvious example, as queerness is at the core of the show's conflict with Curt and Owen's relationship. But then you have productions like Solve It Squad or This Could Be on Broadway that have queer characters and they're not a big deal!

Esther is non binary, but that' doesn't eclipse the rest of their character's just one of their character traits: they're also a drug-addict outstanding investigator. On a similar note, Cole is also a trans character, this time played by a trans actress, but her queerness is not on the focus of the character! She's also one of the romantic leads, having a sweet, heartfelt highschool romance with Bethanne. It's very rare to see trans characters as leads in mainstream media, TCB not only has one in their main cast, but she's in a sapphic relationship with another one of the leads!

And it's not something recent, either: one of their first productions, Ex-vloggers, was explicitely queer in 2015! They've always given voice to queer creatives (as one of them is), and I'm glad to see their productions keep growing and evolving, always learning and getting better. I'm excited to see what the future stores for them (oh Intelligent Life I'm so ready for you)

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan on How ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘A Different Man’ Tackle Comfort, Curiosity, and Confronting Our Fears

By Brandon Lewis

It’s an embarrassment of riches to have two transformative, awards-worthy roles in one career. But what does it mean when you have two in the same season?

Sebastian Stan finds himself this year in rarified company, including the likes of Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, and Jamie Foxx, with two acclaimed lead performances in The Apprentice and A Different Man. Both films have been received warmly so far: Stan just received Best Actor nominations for both films at the Golden Globes, winning for A Different Man, while The Apprentice landed on the BAFTAs longlist in six categories, including Best Film. The industry reception is remarkable, given both films’ uphill climb with their production and distribution. A Different Man was shot in 24 days in New York at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and was delayed because of last year’s Hollywood strikes. Meanwhile, the Apprentice struggled to secure U.S. distribution after its buzzy Cannes premiere due to legal threats from Donald Trump and general hesitancy about how it tackled his early days. With all the hurdles, it would stand to reason that there is some vindication in seeing the fruits of labor pay off.

“It’s surreal,” Stan told me about winning the Golden Globe and his films’ positive overall reception. “You never really know the outcomes of any film when you go and make it. You’re always just hoping it’s going to turn out well. When you get into this wild time, that is the fall, when you’ve got so many films coming out and major studios contending, you just don’t know if your movie will even cut through. So, getting to the Globes, you can’t help but feel grateful because this is the win. It’s an amazing moment getting both of them seen.”

The Apprentice and A Different Man aren’t just linked by their complex but rewarding awards season journeys. Stan found key similarities between the 45th president of the United States and Edward Lemuel, a fledgling actor with neurofibromatosis who undergoes an experimental treatment to reverse his condition, only to find himself playing a fictionalized version of himself in an off-Broadway play.

Stan explained, “[Donald and Edward] are two different forms of narcissism, of extreme narcissism. When I think of narcissism, I think of denying and suppressing who we really are and inventing another person. When the distance between your true self and this other invented version grows because you’re suppressing and lying about yourself, you have to create a bigger and bigger lie. It starts to have consequences that affect you and everyone around you. I always saw both films as a denial of reality and a loss of humanity.”

In The Apprentice, Stan plays a younger version of Trump, reared by infamous lawyer Roy Cohn (played by Golden Globe and SAG nominee Jeremy Strong) to become one of the dominant cultural forces of 1970s and 1980s New York. The film, directed by Ali Abbassi, showcases Trump at his most timid and insecure, a far cry from the bloviating tabloid fixture who would upend domestic and global politics thirty years later. Under Cohn’s tutelage, Trump would evolve into an overwhelming force that no one, not Cohn, his wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova), or the financial and political realities of the 80s, could contain, let alone control.

Stan describes the story of Donald Trump as an abandonment of empathy and morals in pursuit of transactional goals and the proliferation of the lie at the center of one’s narcissism. But what is Trump’s lie? “What I see in Trump is a very broken, pained, paranoid, insecure little boy,” Stan answered. “And I don’t say that to simply go, ‘He’s human, and you should feel bad for him.’ I say that to highlight the flaws that might get in the way of this person having power or moral authority. I don’t know if that’s a person I would necessarily trust.”

When it came to playing Trump, Stan drew inspiration from multiple sources, including scores of footage that helped him understand the mannerisms and visual markers that have shaped people’s perception of Trump as a businessman and a politician. He also drew inspiration from his childhood, split between Eastern Europe and the United States. He was born in Constanța, Romania, in 1982, back when the country was a socialist state, part of the Eastern Bloc. Following the Revolutions of 1989, when most communist and socialist governments fell to a wave of liberal democracy, he and his mother, Georgeta Orlovschi, moved to Vienna, where she worked as a pianist. They moved to New York when he was 12 to pursue the American Dream.

For Stan, playing Trump allowed him to unpack what pursuing the American Dream meant. “When I came to America, my mom said to me, ‘We’re here now, and I’ve sacrificed my life, and you’ve got to make something of yourself because you have this opportunity that so many kids are not going to have.’ I hear that, and it drives me, but I also feel this burden of responsibility and pressure of ‘What if I fail?’ I find with many people…you see them accumulating more things, and it’s never enough. There’s always something else. To me, The Apprentice is part of this ideology and the American Dream. When is it enough, and what does it do to a person? I think my journey through Vienna and coming here and trying to understand what it means to be an American influenced me 100% with that part and probably what drove me to do it.”

The key challenge of playing Donald Trump, of course, is playing a man who has subsumed every section of culture, especially in the last decade. He has been caricatured, parodied, and defied countless times, not to mention the nonfictional portrayals of him that are a constant presence on cable news, broadcast networks, and social media platforms. It should be an insurmountable task, but Stan succeeds in bringing this titanic figure back to Earth, teasing out subtle nuances and traits that break through the overwhelming idea of Trump and focusing on the man himself, warts and all.

“I really wanted to try and find out who this person was,” Stan said. “Going back in time and looking at some of the early footage, I saw a vulnerability and insecurity there that I didn’t know existed, that seemed buried deep underneath this bravado. I wanted to know more about that and how he became what he became. What scared me the most was, knowing that he’s so well known and in our faces everywhere, that it would be near-impossible to get anyone to even spend two hours trying to figure out who this guy was.”

Knowing that his performance would be measured against caricatures and impressions, Stan lasered in on elevating the earliest elements of the Trump persona. “What helped was that, in his earlier years, he was less,” Stan explained. “There was a lot less of what you see now, these things that have built over time. His voice didn’t sound like it does now; his mannerisms weren’t as specific. The challenge and the fear was knowing that if I did a little too much too soon, I would lose everybody, and I would just be thrown in there as another kind of impression.”

Stan’s embrace of Trump’s vulnerability and insecurity is most acutely realized in one of the film’s standout scenes: Trump grieving the loss of his brother, Fred Jr., in his bathroom. In a prior interview with Maria Bakalova, she revealed that the scene was shorter on the page. However, Abbassi kept the camera on them and let Stan and Bakalova continue in the bedroom, improvising the rest of the scene.

“In the script, the moment was him alone in the bathroom and breaking down, and then Maria walks in and finds him, and he quickly cleans himself up and says, ‘Nothing happened.’,” Stan explained. “We shot it a couple of times, and there was this take where, in the moment, I froze, and that was the truth of the scene. She walked in, and I knew we were not shooting the scene we were supposed to. But we stayed in it and explored what happened and, fortunately, Abbassi kept rolling, and it carried us into the bedroom, and we got in bed, and she put her hand on my hand, and [all that emotion] started to happen in the moment.”

Stan continued, “That was an experience that’s so reflective of my process. You can go home at night and do all this preparation and envision things going a certain way, but nine times out of ten, they don’t go that way. You surrender to the director, the other actors, and the moment. The beauty of acting and what I love about it is that, if you stay open, there’s a way it can go where you didn’t see it that ends up being closer to the truth, and want it always to be as close to the truth as possible.”

Seeking the truth is equally central to A Different Man, which premiered at Sundance last January and has steadily built acclaim throughout the year, including the Silver Bear for Stan for Best Leading Performance at the Berlin Film Festival. The first half sees Stan as Edward, wearing prosthetic makeup designed by Mike Marino to approximate neurofibromatosis. As Edward, Stan assumes a physicality that appears to be in constant apology for taking up space in the world and making others around him uncomfortable. The psychological block behind that physicality keeps him isolated, even as he forms a friendship with Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), his next-door neighbor and budding playwright. While Edward is cured of the neurofibromatosis and assumes the identity of Guy, Stan retains subtle, detailed whispers of that ungainly, apologetic physicality, cluing audiences into what Edward hasn’t gained from his transformation: self-esteem and self-acceptance.

“Our muscles hold memory,” Stan explained. “There are certain things, like trauma, that will always be there. Edward changes his physical appearance, but he’s never confronted any of the things about himself that he feels most in pain about on an internal level.” Stan accessed the emotions to conceive and convey that pain by wearing the prosthetic makeup out in New York City during breaks in shooting. “When I was walking around, I noticed that everything in me was so self-conscious. I felt people walk by me, and some would look, some would ignore me, but everything in my body was telling me to go into myself and just get through the street and to my destination as quickly as possible. So, as a result, I was walking a certain way, and I felt powerlessness, and I realized that was not going away for Edward. When he’s not conscious of it, he’s falling back right back into who he was because there was no growth there for him. I think, as Guy, he ends up going down this path that he thinks will supply him with all these things that he’s watched other people have for years, but it’s actually made his life quite boring.”

A Different Man confronts that dissonance head-on with the arrival of Adam Pearson’s Oswald. Oswald similarly has neurofibromatosis but lacks Edward’s (now Guy’s) self-hatred. He has a dazzling personality that is more than enough to capture everyone’s attention, including Ingrid (Edward’s lover and director). One day, they go to a karaoke bar, and after casually flirting with a server, Oswald gets on stage to perform. Edward watches in a potent mixture of shock, fascination, and rank devastation as the audience is enraptured, not by Oswald’s condition but by his warmth and confidence. Stan doesn’t say a word but conveys a lifetime of crippling heartbreak and self-disgust that sets Edward on the path of self-destruction that defines the gonzo final act. It is one of the year’s most affecting scenes.

Recalling the karaoke scene, Stan shared insight into Edward’s headspace in that gripping moment. “I think it’s the first time that Edward is confronted with this reality and denial of self in a very real way. I think he’s fascinated, curious, and looking for validation. He’s hoping that other people will judge Osward the way he’s judging Oswald in that moment because, by judging Oswald, it helps keep his lie alive. I think it’s fear and fascination and that he’s no longer able to run from what he’s been denying, which is that, ‘Oh, this could’ve been me. I could’ve owned myself, and I would’ve been fine.’ He’s dealing with that, and from that point on, it starts to grow until the end of the movie.”

Stan’s partnership with Pearson was key to realizing Edward’s journey. “I felt that whatever I was going to do was always going to be, or would have to be in lockstep with Adam. I was really in service to him and Aaron.” The two quickly got on the same page about what they hoped to accomplish with the film, with Pearson as a ���lighthouse” to understand what it’s like living with a disability. “There was a lot of conversation around how he grew up, his childhood, his experiences, even what he encounters daily online. [There’s been such a] loss of humanity, sensitivity, and empathy online, how we attack other people and do it anonymously. The fact that Adam can go out there every day and outwit these people and has had to do that for so much of his life is inspiring and brave. I wanted to understand how someone gets to that.”

Edward and Donald Trump are the latest additions to a collection of roles that Stan has curated in his career that explore the darkness that resides in people, ranging from TJ Hammond in the TV series Political Animals to Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Stan, it’s been by design. “I think I’ve been curious about gravitating to things that feel complex or I don’t understand right away. I think sometimes, when we have discomfort with certain films, that can translate into ignoring something altogether. And one of those things, to me, is that we are not perfect people. We’re all susceptible to going in very different ways. We all walk around with some version of an angel and devil on each shoulder. Every day is a decision we make to go out in the world and either hurt somebody or help somebody.”

Stan continued, “I think what I’m supposed to do as an actor is keep exploring humanity and how diverse it is. So I love when there are roles that feel closer to the truth that it’s not always just black and white, or a good guy and a bad guy. It’s complex. What’s interesting to me is just how big that scope is in terms of being a human.”

In that vein, The Apprentice and A Different Man collectively serve as the thesis statement of Stan’s career thus far, shining a bright light on the messy complexities of man, told through wildly opposite but uniquely linked perspectives. What ultimately links them is what audiences are willing and unwilling to confront about their interactions with the world around them, whether political ideology or social stigmas. Stan hopes that people watching either or both films come to understand their limitations, whatever they are, and embrace curiosity and empathy.

“I still feel like there is a discomfort around these subject matters that I think confront us on a level that we’re afraid to go to,” Stan said. “I think that sometimes people are curious but are afraid of being curious, and, as a result, they’d rather look the other way and not confront anything. I was lucky enough to be in two complicated films that are confronting people in certain ways. Some people got it, and others are not ready for that yet, but I’d rather be on that side than on the safe side. I hope that, with these two films, people don’t turn the other way.”

A Different Man and The Apprentice are both available VOD on Amazon and other platforms.

[theseerasures]

A Theory on the Periodization of Wicked: Part Two

FEB 2007 (LA Opening) - OCT 2013 (10th Anniversary): WICKED IS DEAD (LONG LIVE WICKED)

*rubs hands together* hooooo boy now we're getting into it

setting aside that there wouldn't be a Wicked without the previous era, this is probably the most formative period in the show's production history, and certainly my personal favorite. the most obvious reason for this is just the sheer amount of Wicked happening during this time. from 2007 to 2010 there were no fewer than four contemporaneous versions of the show running; after the last sitdown in San Francisco closed in 2010 this got pared down to three, but still: that's a lot of Wicked.

and EVERY one of these productions was doing something different. a lot of this can be attributed to changes made by higher-ups: as alluded to in the previous section, 2007 brought about sizable script and staging changes, which include but are not limited to:

adding a scene before Dancing Through Life where Fiyero almost runs Elphaba over and banter ensues

altering Fiyero and Galinda's dialogue at the Ozdust when Elphaba arrives to accommodate for him already knowing her

adding the dramatic moment where Elphaba stands up with her cloak during Defying Gravity

adding "to Fiyero," at the end of "announcing Glinda is engaged" in Boq's lines in Wicked Witch of the East

changing Elphaba's stated motivation for returning to the Emerald City from "i have unfinished business" to "i have to set the monkeys free," and having Nessa in turn accuse her of actually going back for Fiyero

altering the conclusion of Wonderful so that Elphaba interrupts the Wizard's attempt to woo her

shortening Elphaba's lines after she discovers Dillamond's fate so she immediately starts threatening the Wizard

i occasionally miss a few things from Wicked 1.0, but Wicked 2.0 is overall a much stronger show, with tighter character relationship and motivations. (it's especially astounding to me how Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzmann decided on a Fiyeraba endgame but didn't realize until years down the line that Fiyero should probably meet Elphaba FIRST.) so some of the unique flavors of Wicked we got during this time came from the actors literally saying different lines and adjusting their performances. the script changes also had the side benefit of releasing incoming casts of their obligation to be faithful to the original, because they were now doing some things the original cast (with some exceptions) had never done.

attributing this period's innovation just to script changes giving the show a much needed jolt, however, obscures how much the casts--and particularly the Gelphies--were here for it. the ambition to give unique portrayals was such that in one evening (and an especially fast jet) you could be getting four radically different interpretations of the same character, each of them in conversation with their peers. it likely helped that the hierarchy among the different productions wasn't strictly asymmetrical during this time. the sitdown shows were often led by Broadway alums: Megan and Eden left Broadway to open (and then close) LA, Kendra left Broadway to open San Francisco, Annaleigh Ashford left Broadway to close Chicago, and so on. 1NT could have turned out to be the runt of the litter, but. uh

then some absolute unit put Carmen Cusack and Katie Rose Clarke onstage with each other, leaving Wicked to forever reckon with the consequences

between the two Carmen is the less volatile game changer, but like i discussed in the previous part Elphabas don't tend to evolve so dramatically anyway. she's definitely more of a shit-stirrer (see: teehee perhaps i shall end TWAI on the DG battle cry, perhaps i shall tuck mineself within Derrick Williams' bosom during ALAYM) than people give her credit for, but Carmen's most significant contribution, imo, was a) fostering innovative and unconventional acting choices in both herself and her castmates (something Katie and Donna Vivino have talked about in interviews), and b) absolutely mcfucking committing ONE HUNDRED PERCENT to those acting decisions, no matter how apeshit they are.

Carmen is an Angry Elphaba, and so can be considered an inheritor to Eden and Julia; but while those two at least tried to mask their rage, or worked their way up towards it, Carmen's Elphaba is almost entirely just raw untempered emotion. she says "something just comes over me sometimes" when trying to explain what happened with Nessa's chair, and spends the rest of the show proving just how true that is. where other Elphabas try to make meaning out of how they feel, Carmen's Elphie just...lives in every feeling she experiences. the reason she's an Angry Elphie is because Elphaba is textually angry for much of the show, but Carmen is equally uncompromising when it comes to other emotions as well. when she's disdainful it oozes out of every pore of her body; when she's touched she has no reservations about showing it; when she has been pushed to the brink you are genuinely afraid of her--not because she means you harm, but because she has no control of what she will do in that moment, either.

and when she loves Glinda she'll KISS HER ON THE MOUTH okay that's probably just Carmen nvm

in terms of sheer feral rage no Elphaba has matched Carmen before or since. even Mamie's Elphie, who shows up arguably angrier in her first scene, presents her anger as a performative defense mechanism (in contrast to Carmen, who ends up scarier precisely because there's no pretense). yet Carmen did end up contributing to a reading of Elphaba which would increasingly gain traction, which is an Elphaba who either lacks self-awareness or is truly incapable of regulating her emotional response. earlier actresses developed their Elphabas from things that Idina still might plausibly do; Carmen ended up pushing this beyond the brink, demonstrating that an Elphaba without restraint could still be recognizable and compelling as Elphaba. this expansion of Elphaba-the-character paved the way for a slew of Elphies with unique acting vision AND those classic belts--including those who had never done the role before but made an impact anyway, like Nicole Parker and Lindsay Mendez.

and then there's Katie, who...

actually you know what? Katie makes talking about the development of Glinda during this time very straightforward! because she was there THE WHOLE TIME.

literally!!! literally this is true. Katie was a principal Glinda for at least a part of EVERY SINGLE YEAR from 2007 to 2013. this alone would put her in the running for most influential Glinda of this era (if not the next), but it goes deeper than that. Katie did not invent Weird Glinda; between Hilty's "dumb pubby" Glinda, Kendra's "hit hit hit hit hit hit hit" Glinda, and Annaleigh's "expressive prancing gazelle" Glinda the character was already pretty far removed from her alpha bitch origins. in this context Katie showing up and behaving as if each of her individual limbs were independently autonomous shouldn't have been so beyond the pale, except for how--just like Carmen--bloody-minded she was about playing that weirdness to the hilt, particularly in dramatic moments.

it can be tricky to navigate the transition from Mostly Comedic Glinda in Act 1 to Mostly Dramatic Glinda in Act 2. even the three luminaries of Weird Glinda mentioned above had trouble with it, because they still felt somewhat compelled to serve Glinda-the-Entertainer from the show's earliest days. their Glindas were weird because Glinda being Too Much is the cornerstone of getting laughs, and the oddness faded to the background as the show's overall tone darkened in Act 2. the strangeness of Katie's Glinda, by contrast, remains both consistent and pivotal throughout Wicked's dramatic shifts. she is still impulsive in Act 2; still sensitive, still emotional, still physically expressive. it's just that...those things really aren't funny anymore after the timeskip, and even prior there are moments where Glinda feels--and wants--so much and so deeply it's almost uncomfortable to watch her. the Glinda who is hysterical in Act 1 is the same, hysterical, Glinda in Act 2, but the world around her has changed so drastically it upends how we perceive her as a person. and because Glinda sets up the frame narrative of the show, an Act 2 Glinda who is distinctively recognizable as her earlier self tightens Wicked's overall tonal consistency.

it's difficult to say how much immediate impact Katie had on her peers during this time, since afaik the Midnight Bark Gelphies have with each other now hadn't been established yet. Glindas did begin trending towards dramatic seriousness as a whole in 2008--the most prominent example of this is probably Hilty, who in returning to close the LA sitdown chucked pretty much all her Glinda's previous ditziness in the bin. a lot of this undoubtedly has to do with the fact that Megan, Kendra, and Annaleigh were all coming to the end of their tenures, and all determined to finish at the top of their games; at the same time, i find it interesting that these previously very disparate Glindas were now overlapping quite a bit in when and how they chose to depict their character's tragic vulnerability.

in any case, the combination of all four of these performances meant Serious Glinda was here to stay. Katie, obviously, was the Glinda Who Would Not Leave, but it's not like she was singlehandedly maintaining this darker read of the character either. the interpretation struck a chord with a lot of Glinda Girlies, several of whom ended up in the bubble dress themselves. and by 2013 Playing Glinda for Drama had so become the norm that when Alli Mauzey (whose tenure perpetually circled Katie's, and vice versa) returned, it felt like a nostalgic rarety. her Glinda--Glinda the Entertainer, here to excite the audience with opt ups and make them lose their shit during Popular--which had once been the ONLY version of the character imaginable, was now being left behind.

[cometomecosette]

The History of Angry Éponine

Since I'm listening to as many Les Mis recordings as possible in chronological order, trying to notice changes in characterization trends, this is a subject I'm curious about.

Angry portrayals of Éponine don't seem to have appeared until the musical was at least a few years old. Based on every clip I've seen and heard of Frances Ruffelle, she was definitely a sad, melancholic Éponine – not without spunk or street smarts, of course, but predominantly melancholy. And most of the other earliest Éponines were very much in her mold, acting like her, sounding like her, and even looking like her.

Around 1988 and '89, we start to hear fewer Frances imitators in the role, and get a taste of different characterizations, which sometimes include more feistiness. But in my personal listen-through, not until Lea Salonga in the 10th Anniversary Concert have I heard an Éponine whose core "thesis statement" seems to be "My love is unrequited and I'm angry about it."

Once, a long time ago, I read some comments about Lea Salonga from an older fan. They wrote that her angry characterization the concert was probably because she had been directed on Broadway by Richard Jay-Alexander, who was also the original director of the first three US tours and the first Canadian productions. This fan claimed that his productions always had angry Éponines.

Based on what I've now seen and heard of those productions, I can see some truth in that. For example, Jay-Alexander seems to have changed the blocking of the line "Little you know! Little you care!" so that instead of sadly singing it alone after Marius ran off, Éponine angrily blurted it out directly to Marius's face. Susan Tilson does this in the 1991 1st National Tour proshot, Debbie Gibson does it in a clip from her Broadway run, and every American Éponine I ever saw in person did it all the way through 2007.

I can also believe that Jay-Alexander might have made Éponine fiercer during "Attack on Rue Plumet." In the 1st National Tour proshot, she knees Thénardier in the nether regions!

But at the same time, in that 1991 video, Susan Tilson doesn't sing "On My Own" angrily. The few video clips I've found of Debbie Gibson's "On My Own" don't seem angry either.

Might I be correct in guessing that Richard Jay-Alexander encouraged his Éponines to bring more fierceness and anger to the role in general, but Lea Salonga was one of the first to bring anger into "On My Own"?

Are there any older fans who could share their own experience of how Éponine's portrayals and how the emotions conveyed in "On My Own" have evolved?

[derekklenadaily]

Broadway Evolved's Instagram Story (December 29, 2024)

[melk917]

Sorry, not sorry, but this is my entire personality for the foreseeable future. Absolutely not over this, and cannot wait to see it on Broadway!!! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

Both utterly loved it and think it needs both a little tightening up and to be made bigger for a bigger stage. I can’t wait to see it evolve.

[camisoledadparis]

presents THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 31

HAPPY HOGMANAY! What's is Hogmanay you say? Why the roots of Hogmanay reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the Gaelic New Year's celebration of Samhain.

In Europe, winter solstice evolved into the ancient celebration of Saturnalia, a great Roman winter festival, where people celebrated completely free of restraint and inhibition. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" (really) as they were sometimes called in Scotland. The winter festival went underground with the Protestant Reformation and ensuing years, but re-emerged near the end of the 17th century. A very Scottish thing Hogmanay. Wear a kilt to this evening's festivities to set the mood right!

192 – The Roman emperor Commodus died on this date (b.161). It's New Year's Eve and, after a long year's journey, we are finally at the end of this year. To be on the safe side, why not stay home and watch old reruns of Guy Lombardo and spend a quiet evening in memory of the emperor Commodus, who called his exceptionally well-endowed cup-bearer "my donkey," and was strangled by an over- enthusiastic wrestler named Narcissus on this day.

In 2000's neo-blood and sandals epic Gladiator, Commodus was portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in an Academy-Award-nominated performance. The historical character of Commodus is fictionalized in the movie as a deranged megalomaniac who murders Marcus Aurelius to usurp the throne. There is no historical evidence suggesting Marcus Aurelius was murdered, much less by his own son. However the movie removes some of the most bizarre eccentricities of Commodus. The film's protagonist, Maximus Decimus Meridius (played by Russell Crowe) is loosely inspired by Narcissus, and was named so in a previous draft of the screenplay, but as in The Fall of the Roman Empire Commodus is killed in hand-to-hand combat. Commodus's death marked the end of the Nervan-Antonian and of the Pax Romana.

Dressing Tony Curtis for "Some Like It Hot"

1897 – Orry-Kelly was the professional name of Orry George Kelly (d.1964), a prolific Hollywood costume designer.

He was born in Kiama, New South Wales, Australia, and was known as Jack Kelly. His father William Kelly, was born on the Isle of Man and was a gentleman tailor in Kiama. Orry was a name of an ancient King of Man. Jack Kelly studied art in Sydney, and worked as a tailor's apprentice and window dresser.

He journeyed to New York to pursue an acting career. He shared an apartment there with Charlie Spangles and Cary Grant. Director Gillian Armstrong writes of this time:

''The big secret is that when Orry first got to New York and was trying to get his start, painting murals on walls and selling hand-painted ties, he ended up rooming with a young British actor called Archie Leach. They definitely became lovers and were living together for about five years.''

The job painting murals in a nightclub led to his employment by Fox East Coast studios illustrating titles. He designed costumes and sets for Broadway's Shubert Revues and George White's Scandals. His lover, Archie Leach, went on to become Cary Grant.

Orry-Kelly went to Hollywood in 1932, working for all the major studios (Warner Brothers, Universal, RKO, 20th Century Fox, and MGM), and designed for all the great actresses of the day, including Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn, Dolores del Río, Ava Gardner, Ann Sheridan, Barbara Stanwyck, and Merle Oberon.

He worked on many films now deemed classics, including 42nd Street, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Arsenic and Old Lace, Harvey, Oklahoma!, Auntie Mame, and Some Like It Hot.He won three Academy Awards for Best Costume Design (for An American in Paris, Cole Porter's Les Girls, and Some Like It Hot) and was nominated for a fourth (for Gypsy). A longtime alcoholic, he died of liver cancer in Hollywood. His pallbearers included Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Billy Wilder and George Cukor and his eulogy was read by Jack Warner. His Academy Awards went to Jack Warner's wife, Ann.

1948 – Joe Dallesandro, is an American actor and Warhol superstar. Although he never became a mainstream film star, Dallesandro is generally considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century, as well as a sex symbol of gay subculture

Born into a dysfunctional family, Joe was placed in foster homes. Dallesandro began acting out and became aggressive. He repeatedly ran away from his foster home until his father finally relented and allowed him to live with him. At the age of 14, Dallesandro and his brother moved to Queens to live with their paternal grandparents and their father.

At 15, he was expelled from school for punching the principal, who had insulted his father. After his expulsion, Dallesandro began hanging out with gangs and started stealing cars. In once such instance, Dallesandro panicked and smashed the stolen car he was driving through the gate of the Holland Tunnel. He was stopped by a police roadblock and shot once in the leg by police who mistakenly thought he was armed. Dallesandro managed to escape being caught by police, but was later arrested when his father took him to the hospital for his gunshot wound. He was sentenced to Camp Cass Rehabilitation Center for Boys in the Catskills in 1964

The following year, Dallesandro ran away from Camp Cass. He supported himself by prostitution and later nude modeling, appearing most notably in short films and magazine photos for Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild.

Dallesandro met Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey in 1967 while they were shooting Four Stars, and they cast him in the film on the spot. Warhol would later comment "In my movies, everyone's in love with Joe Dallesandro."

Dallesandro played a hustler in his third Warhol film, Flesh (1968), where he had several nude scenes. Flesh became a crossover hit with mainstream audiences, and Dallesandro became the most popular of the Warhol stars.��New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote of him: "His physique is so magnificently shaped that men as well as women become disconnected at the sight of him."

A Warhol photograph of the crotch bulge of Dallesandro's tight blue jeans graces the famous cover of the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. Dallesandro explained to biographer Michael Ferguson, "It was just out of a collection of junk photos that Andy pulled from. He didn't pull it out for the design or anything, it was just the first one he got that he felt was the right shape to fit what he wanted to use for the fly."

As Dallesandro's underground fame began to cross over into the popular culture, he graced the cover of Rolling Stone in April 1971. He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity photographers of the time.

He continued to star in films made mainly in France and Italy for the rest of the decade, returning to America in the 1980s. He made several mainstream films during the 1980s and 1990s. One of his first notable roles was that of 1920s gangster Lucky Luciano in Francis Coppola's The Cotton Club. He also had roles in Critical Condition (1987), Sunset (1988) , Guncrazy (1992), Cry-Baby (1990), and The Limey.

In addition to films, Dallesandro has also worked in television. In 1986, he co-starred in the ABC drama series Fortune Dane. The series lasted only five episodes. Dallesandro has also made guest appearances on Wiseguy, Miami Vice, and Matlock.

In 2009, Dallesandro wrote and produced the documentary film Little Joe. The film chronicles Dallesandro's life and career.

Dallesandro, who identifies himself as bisexual, has been married three times and has two children. He is semi-retired from acting, and currently manages an apartment building in Los Angeles.

1948 – The American singer Donna Summer, was born on this date (d.2012). She was an American singer, songwriter and artist, best known for a string of disco hits in the late 1970s that earned her the title "Queen Of Disco" and as one of the few disco-based artists to have longevity on the charts through the late 1980s and beyond.

The question with Donna Summer is, "is she or isn't she?" Homophobic that is!

In the mid 1980s, rumors began circulating that Summer had allegedly made anti-gay comments regarding the AIDS epidemic as being a punishment from God for homosexuality. The fallout from the alleged quote had a significantly negative impact on Summer's career, which saw thousands of her records being returned to her record company by angered fans. However, Summer denied making any such remarks and many years later she filed a lawsuit against New York magazine when it reprinted the rumors as fact, just as Summer was about to release her latest album Mistaken Identity in 1991. According to an A&E Biography program in which Summer participated in 1995, the lawsuit was settled out of court with neither side discussing details of the settlement.

D.L. Groover of Houston's OutSmart magazine wrote that after a 1983 concert in Atlantic City, Summer was talking to the fans, as she liked to do at this first- comeback point in her career. A man with AIDS asked her to pray for him, because he knew of her born-again Christian beliefs, and she said she would be delighted. Someone else piped up that she was being hypocritical. At that point, all accounts get fuzzy and overblown, but every witness says that the heated situation deteriorated, with many outraged patrons shouting as they left the auditorium. In more than one account, Summer said that AIDS appeared in the gay community because of its reckless lifestyle... but did not say that AIDS was God's punishment. She and the gay fan prayed together, she asked him to turn his life to Christ, and she embraced him - a courageous act at a time when most people would have run screaming from the room to get away from someone with the deadly disease.

For her part Summer told The Advocate in 1989 that "A couple of the people I write with are gay, and they have been ever since I met them. What people want to do with their bodies is their personal preference. I'm not going to stand in judgment about what the Bible says about someone else's life. I've got things in my life I've got to clean up. What's in your life is your business." Make of that what you will.

Rick Sandford as Ben Barker

1950 – Rick Sandford (d.1995) was a documentary research assistant, editor and actor of gay erotic movies and author.

Rick Steven Sandford was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up in the Lake Tahoe area. His early difficulties learning to read led his parents to enroll him in a private school.

After his graduation in 1969, he first went to Los Angeles on vacation, to see the musical, Hair and the Russian motion picture version of War and Peace, and after 1972, Sandford remained in Los Angeles employed in various positions, from an usher at Grauman's Chinese Theatre to a television show stand-in.

In 1977 he met Josh Becker, American writer and director, of films and television, who would become his long-time friend, according to Becker, Sandford only heterosexual friend.

Initially living in a bungalow behind a house in West Hollywood, Sandford was evicted and with his best friend, Stacey, with whom he had grown up in Reno, he moved into a one-bedroom apartment at 666 N. Van Ness.

Sandford received credit as research assistant on 50 Golden Years of Oscar: the Official History of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and Ronald Haver's David O. Selznick's Hollywood. Sandford served as assistant on the 1990 documentary Hollywood Mavericks.

Sandford appeared on television shows and in motion pictures as an extra and in a few bit parts: in episodes of Police Woman in 1974 and Step by Step in 1991. During the late 1970s and early 1980s he worked as an editor on 3 gay erotic films and appeared as Benjamin Barker or Ben Barker in 13 gay erotic motion pictures including Kip Noll and the Westside Boys, Rear Deliveries, Skin Deep, The Class of '84 Part 2 Jocks, Gold Rush Boys, The Boys of San Francisco, A Night at Halsted's, and Games.In the mid 1980s, Don Bachardy sketched Sandford for his book, Drawing of the Male Nude; both Bachardy and his partner Christopher Isherwood were friends with Sandford. During this time, Sandford introduced Bachardy and Isherwood to Yale-trained actor Peter Evans and his then lover Craig Lucas. Sandford and Lucas had a fling, and Lucas remembered

"He came to New York with a strip show. To [the song] 'Another Hundred People' from 'Company', he arrived onstage with a suitcase, and met invisible New Yorkers, stripping for them, looking for love. Afterward, we had to wait while older men went into his dressing room to make appointments. Or something."

In 1991, his short story Forster & Rosenthal Reevaluated: An Investigative Report was published. In 1994, another of his short stories, Purim was published. Two more of Sandford's short stories were published posthumously, The Gospel Of Bartholemew Legate: Three Fragments and Manifest White. In 2000, his novel, Boys Across the Street was published, also posthumously.

Boys Across the Street is a candidly hilarious look at the gay life of Rick, an exporn star, who lives near a boy's Hasidic school, as he becomes obsessed with building relationships with the boys, leading to a fascination with Hasidism, which reviles his sexual orientation.

Sandford died of AIDS during the evening of September 28, 1995.

1958 – David Pevsner is an American actor, singer, dancer, porn star, and writer. Pevsner appeared in the 1990 revival of Fiddler on the Roof, 1991 revival of Rags, and some other theatrical productions. He also wrote three songs for the 1999 musical Naked Boys Singing!, including "Perky Little Porn Star." He wrote and produced two one-person shows, To Bitter and Back (2003) and Musical Comedy Whore (2013). Pevsner portrayed mostly minor roles in films and television. His major screen roles are Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge & Marley, the 2012 film adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and Ross Stein in a 2011 web series Old Dogs & New Tricks. He recorded the 2016 album Most Versatile, whose album cover pays homage to Bruce Springsteen's album Born in the U.S.A.

David Pevsner was raised in Skokie, Illinois. He attended Niles East High School in the same Chicago suburb and participated in its theater program. He graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

He appeared in the 1991 revival of the 1986 musical Rags, set in 1910, portraying the dual roles of Saul and Nathan. He appeared in the 1995 theatrical play Party, portraying the role of Kevin. In the play, Kevin, a college teacher who lives with his partner, hosts a party at his apartment, where the males characters play the naked truth-or-dare game. Pevsner appeared in the two-act gay revue musical When Pigs Fly from 1996 to 1998. Pevsner appeared in F*cking Men, the 2009 explicit play written by Joe DiPietro about the lives of gay urban men, portraying Jack, who commits adultery with another man, while his husband does the same.

Pevsner co-wrote the 1999 musical Naked Boys Singing! with the writing team. He wrote three songs for the musical, including "Perky Little Porn Star" and "The Naked Maid."

Pevsner appeared in films, mostly portraying minor roles in such films as The Fluffer (2001) and Adam & Steve (2006). He also portrayed a major role of Ebenezer Scrooge in Scrooge & Marley, the 2012 film adaptation that tells the gay interpretation of the 19th-century novel A Christmas Carol.

Pevsner also portrayed minor roles in television series, particularly a bartender of a gay bar in an episode of NYPD Blue.

Pevsner recorded the 2016 album Most Versatile, whose title was inspired by his being voted "Most Versatile" in a survey back in high school. The album's working title was Shameless, named after his Tumblr blog and "for [being] something with a little skin." The songs of the album explores "a whirlwind of one man's gay experiences" and feature Jim J. Bullock, Maxwell Caulfield, and some others as guest artists. He wrote the lyrics of all thirteen songs.

In his 60s Pevsner is today earning money doing erotic performances on OnlyFans.

Pevsner is Jewish. He is also openly gay.

1969 – The first performance of The Cockettes took place on New Years Eve 1969, at the Palace Theatre in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood and soon became a "must-see" for San Francisco's hip gay community, combining LSD-influenced dancing, set design, costumes and their own versions of show tunes (or original tunes in the same vein). Initially, shows were performed every six weeks, performing on stage prior to the Saturday midnight "Nocturnal Dream Show" of underground films at the Palace Theatre. Show titles included Gone With the Showboat to Oklahoma, Tinsel Tarts In A Hot Coma, Journey to the Center of Uranus, Smacky & Our Gang, Hollywood Babylon and Pearls Over Shanghai.

Word quickly got out that nothing like these shows had ever been seen before, and within a few months the Cockettes were getting enormous attention from the media. Not only hippie magazines, such as Earth and Rolling Stone, wanted stories on the Cockettes, but also mainstream magazines such as Look, Life and Esquire were anxious to do features as well. The Cockettes were the subject of a documentary called, of course, The Cockettes. If you haven't seen it, do. Torrent users can find it on isoHunt.com

1993 – Transman Brandon Teena is murdered by the same young men who raped him a week earlier after discovering he’d been born female. His story is captured in the film Boys Don’t Cry. The headstone on his grave is inscribed with his birth name and uses female descriptors. Teena’s murder, along with that of Matthew Shepard, led to increased lobbying for hate crime laws in the United States.

2014 – Russian large gay club called Central Station was forced to close after countless attacks of sprays of bullets and being gassed. It later reopened with the use of bulletproof glass.

[d-criss-news]

See an exclusive first look at Darren Criss’ return to Broadway in Maybe Happy Ending

The "Glee" actor stars as a Helperbot named Oliver, opposite Helen J. Shen making their Broadway debut as Claire.

There’s nothing new about an awkward meet-cute turning into a love story… But what if that love story is between two robots?

That’s the question posed by Maybe Happy Ending, a new musical coming to Broadway this fall, starring Emmy-winning Glee and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story actor Darren Criss. The show also marks the Broadway debut of Helen J. Shen (The Lonely Few) and Dez Duron (The Voice). Featuring a book by Will Aronson and Hue Park, with music by Aronson and lyrics by Park, Maybe Happy Ending is helmed by Tony Award winner Michael Arden (Parade, Once on This Island), with scenic design by Dane Laffrey (A Christmas Carol).

Ahead of its debut, Entertainment Weekly has your exclusive first listen to the show, with a music video of Criss and Chen’s emotional duet, "When You’re in Love.”

Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen in "Maybe Happy Ending". MAYBE HAPPY ENDING THE MUSICAL/YOUTUBE

The musical — a big hit in its native South Korea, winning six 2016 Korean Musical Awards and the Richard Rodgers Production Award for the English-language version — made its American debut at Atlanta’s Alliance theater in 2019. Now the show is coming to the Great White Way with Criss and Shen as Oliver and Claire, two outcast HelperBots whose initial awkward encounter evolves into an unexpected relationship.

“There's a real pathos that kind of snuck up on me with these two,” Criss told EW of the HelperBot romance. “You think, 'Oh, cute, like androids falling in love, that sounds sweet.' But there's a lot more to that when you start to examine what it is to not only love something or someone, but the inexorable, unavoidable back end of love, which is loss.” Oliver is living the simple life of an outdated HelperBot when the story begins, tending to plants and listening to jazz in his one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Seoul. Then Claire comes by to borrow a charger, and changes everything. The video finds the HelperBots united by emotion, yet far apart as they process the swirling feelings of being in love for the first time. “When you’re in love, you’re never satisfied,” they lament. “The thing you want is always out of reach.”

By the end, they’re piecing together both the joys and painful realities of their newfound feelings. They sing, “Now I’m hoping that you feel all the things I feel / Wishing that you want me to sit beside you /Wanting now to learn all the things you are / Waiting for a chance to invite you in my heart.” If the prospect of seeing two bots find love isn’t enticing enough, Criss jokes that empathizing with the characters will at least give audiences a leg up in the AI apocalypse. “If there's any incentive to come see the show — other than a wonderful theatrical experience with a lot of beautiful universal themes and all that great stuff and fantastic music, and hopefully good performances — if not that, it's at least to soften the punishment and wrath of the AI takeover,” he laughed. Maybe Happy Ending begins previews at the Belasco Theatre on Wednesday, September 18. Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning on Thursday, June 6 at 10AM.

Watch the "When You're In Love" music video above and read more of Criss' thoughts on the HelperBot romance below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Can you start by telling me a little bit about Oliver and what's at the core of this character for you? Well, I'll tell you what, this is the first time I'm ever really doing any kind of talking about a show that I haven't had much familiarity with yet. And I'm not saying that to avoid talking about it so much as to highlight the unique nature of my involvement in this show because, at least if we're talking about the theater, specifically Broadway Theater, every show that I've ever done came with something of a legacy and was a show that I would have been very familiar with, and I think audiences at large, for the most part would've had a history with it.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was my Broadway debut, massively popular, classic Broadway show, people knew it. Second one was, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I grew up as a teenager loving that show. And then the revival of American Buffalo, that's now a standard contemporary American classic and studied that in drama school and yada yada yada. So when talking about the show, I had a really good handle because the show had lived with me for most of my life. [Maybe Happy Ending] is a brand new show, which is wildly exciting. But I have yet to figure out that answer. I can tell you what his core is on paper, which is that Oliver is a Helperbot, something like a hundred years in the future where our technology helpers — in the way that we have our Alexas, and our Siris, and our digital systems, and our smart assistants — have evolved into more humanoid representations. He is a Model 3 in the world of Model 5's and is very much outdated, and kind of running the last of his powered up life in the world that we're watching him and coming to grips with the things that left him behind.

We got a little taste of it in the music video, but what do you think it is about the Oliver and Claire relationship that people will respond to? Or what did you respond to? There's nothing like being able to look at ourselves by looking through the eyes of things that aren't us. I find the most I'm ever moved about the human experience comes from animated films where you have non-human characters trying to figure out human emotions. It's a really great way for audiences to subconsciously look at their own experience objectively. It's funny that it takes inhuman characters to examine humanity in a way that feels somehow accessible. If you see yourself up there, it maybe hits too close to home. But you might think about it a little differently if you're suddenly looking at things through the objective lens of a true outsider — be it a cartoon fox or a mermaid wanting to be human.

So having said that, this is a story about two HelperBots, two robots “falling in love." Of course, they're not human, so they can't physically, literally intimately actually fall in love, but they have to sort of figure out what that means by way of how they've experienced human beings themselves, by cues they've gotten from their own owners and from the world around them. And when you start examining things like love, things like loss through the eyes of non-humanoid things that are trying to computationally analyze and synthesize those things, you sort of start to look at them in a different way. There are many things about the show — the premise was very interesting, and I think the design is exquisite, it's a wonderful theatrical experience. Getting to work with a longtime friend, Michael Arden is such a joy, and there's so many things about that that make this appealing to me. And of course the music is fun, and it's cute, and funny, and charming. But there's a real pathos that kind of snuck up on me with these two. You think, 'Oh, cute, like androids falling in love, that sounds sweet.' But there's a lot more to that when you start to examine what it is to not only love something or someone, but the inexorable, unavoidable back end of love, which is loss. And how do we deal with that? How and why do human beings willingly enter this contract if we know that on the other side of it, there is something that will hurt and that can hurt because love does come with loss, whether it's loss of self, loss of wholeness.

And this show really shows a really beautiful balance of these beings trying to suss out thousands of years of human meditation — of all the hundred thousand songs and poems and stories that have tried to help us understand this balance of love and loss, and the highs and the lows of it are pretty profound. er. In “When You’re In Love” there's the sentiment that being in love is the loneliest you can be. Is that something that you immediately connected with, or was that surprising?

I think that song's very interesting because it's them putting the pieces together. Many lines in the song that talk about how being loved does just constantly leave you with a sense of longing. Which I think goes back into the main thesis, which is love in many ways is loss. They kind of coexist in this yin-yang. It's just one's much more fun and more accessible to talk about, but they kind of come hand in hand. Again, the systematic exploration of all of the ones and zeros of what love is — it's a lot of ones, but it is also a lot of zeros, and one of those things is being lonely and the feeling of not being whole without a certain thing. Which I think is a really good connector to what this show talks about, which is the function of the things in our life that we lose. It is funny that we are getting closer and closer to the realities of what this show presents and suggests. The idea that Siri could be a person in a hundred years isn't absurd, it's not a crazy idea. Even talking about things like robots or artificial intelligence, it's an immediate thing that is part of the cultural fabric and a continual discussion about how and where and why it's going to be part of our life.

But even without talking about those sort of more sci-fi leaning things, technology is in many ways, like people in our life. I mean, people treat their phones like babies. We have attachments to our phones and the way that we need them in our lives and the way we care for them and the reliance we have on them. And the idea of shelf life and things being outdated, we're pretty comfortable with. It's more comprehensible with tech and objects. But it's funny that we have this cognitive dissonance between that and the idea of things being outdated and out of its prime is harder to grasp and a harder pill to swallow with people, and it's a harder journey to go on with people. But what happens when our objects become closer in likeness and experience to people? How are we going to wrap our brains around that and how will they wrap their brains or their programming around that? And how will they feel? Will they feel at all? How will they feel about their impermanence as it relates to ours and vice versa? So there's a lot of really, really nice questions being asked in this show.

Are you finding that it's changing your relationship to Siri and Alexa and your technology? As of now, absolutely not. Well, maybe in the future. Maybe. I'll bite my tongue… In a few years, who knows? She's listening. I'll be nice to you Siri, I promise. As long as you're nice to me when you decide to take over the planet. Well, after you've played a Helperbot, you've got an in. Hopefully that'll soften the AI takeover, they'll let us loose. If there's any incentive to come see the show — other than a wonderful theatrical experience with a lot of beautiful universal themes and all that great stuff and fantastic music, and hopefully good performances — if not that, it's at least to soften the punishment and wrath of the AI takeover. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

[azaharinflames]

I’m loving your theories on the whole BuckTommy (sorry Lou ilu but the name BuckTommy has stuck with me) arc. So I have to ask… why do you think people (read: fandom people) are convinced this is the last season? I really don’t see ABC/Disney undertaking this big of a show (money and following wise) and being like “yeah we’ll put time and effort into this production, but only for one season”

Thank you! Glad you love them, I feel slightly less of a clown when people understand how I think lol. Also - I was rooting for Tevan hard, and even Firefly, but I've accepted Bucktommy and now it has a special place in my heart.

As for your question... I think it all comes to change.

Let me explain. For shows to have a long life, they have to change. They have to evolve. We cannot feel as if we are tuning in to the same thing every week, especially when the same thing has long become boring. I will put Modern Family (my ultimate comfort show) as an example: the whole eleven seasons are of constant change. We are growing with the characters, we are happy, frustrated, sad, whatever, with their actions and choices. And because they are changing, we want to tune in next week to see what will be next.

911 has a severe issue of lack of change. The characters go through these cycles constantly; we said Buck was in a hamster wheel, but the truth is that every single character is in there, too. The writers are somehow unable to find new storylines or conflicts, that aren't what we have seen already, only this time with a new context.

This is partly the reason why so many people, and why a big part of the GA, latched onto Tommy and BuckTommy so quickly - because they were a breath of fresh air, and they felt like the much-needed novelty we were all expecting. If we don't have them, we go to the same repetitive stories - with Buck, but with everyone else, too, to be honest.

And if there is no change... people get bored. There are just so many times you can see Henren on the brink of losing their kids, or Buck trying to find the one (it's stopped being cute, especially when he just had the perfect partner for him walk away), Eddie being unable to move on or forget Shannon (because as much as he's 'better' - has he actually dealt with it?), Madney having either a kid storyline or a Dough-influenced storyline, Bathena having issues with communicating... eight seasons is a long time of this. And unless they change it up, just how much longer can they go? We joke about Grey's sometimes, but the fact is that they are constantly changing.

So. That's partly it.

But (without wanting to make this a whole novel), there were also rumors that some cast was hesitant to continue. Take this with a grain of salt, please, but rumor has it that Peter was kind of ready to walk away a while ago. He even has said in interviews he cannot do this for much longer, as 911 is a very exigent show to shoot. He even wanted Bobby to be killed off at the S7 opening emergency. Angela has also expressed a desire to be on Broadway, so that could also be conflicting. Again, take it with a grain of salt.

And as for ABC - you're right, they bought 911. But with the upcoming spin-off, one can't help but wonder if it is not complimentary but, rather, a substitute. Perhaps they are planning on moving someone from the OG there, who knows. The fact is that they managed to catch the audience's attention with the OG, enough that if they lose it but immediately have a variation of it, they might tune in. And this new show would be cheaper than OG is right now because let me tell you - it ain't cheap, as far as I am aware.

If you want my personal opinion on this - I am 50-50. I think it would be a very weird final season if this was the last, but I wouldn't be that surprised if we find out it is. I can see them going for a ninth season, but I cannot see them going further than a tenth, and that is being really generous. If they prove me wrong and are willing to adapt to change, I will happily eat my words.

PS: I do think if this is the last season, or even if we have it in the next couple of years, they could bring Tommy back (if they haven't yet), as a sort of rushed HEA. Kind of playing with the whole 'right person, wrong time', just bringing it to the right time finally.

Thanks for the ask <3

[judeiscactus]

i did something a little silly

for those of you who have absolutely no clue what falsettos is (because im noticing that in the comments/reposts:

“Falsettos is a sung-through musical with a book by William Finn and James Lapine, and music and lyrics by Finn. The musical consists of March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990), the last two installments in a trio of one-act musicals that premiered off-Broadway (the first was In Trousers). The story centers on Marvin, who has left his wife to be with a male lover, Whizzer, and struggles to keep his family together. Much of the first act explores the impact his relationship with Whizzer has had on his family. The second act explores family dynamics that evolve as he and his ex-wife plan his son's bar mitzvah, which is complicated as Whizzer comes down with an early case of AIDS. Central to the musical are the themes of Jewish identity, gender roles, and gay life in the late 1970s and early 1980s.” -Wikipedia

i created an AU where marvin would be aziraphale; crowley would be whizzer; gabriel would be trina; beelzebub would be mendel; muriel would be jason (i keep on teetering between them or adam); and the lesbians are the lesbians (because they’re literally the same people/hj)

this is the playbill for falsettos which is where i got the inspiration from

[jgroffdaily]

In the late 1950s, a wave of handsome, heavily Brylcreemed white men named Bobby became teen idols: Bobby Denton, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton. The most talented, by far, was Bobby Darin. Darin first burst onto the scene with “Splish Splash,” a teen-pop ode to bathtime, but soon, with his wryly smooth crooning style, he was rivaling Sinatra as the swingingest of swingin’ lovers. Later he reinvented himself as a folk singer, renaming himself Bob Darin in homage to Dylan.

It was a career marked by an overwhelming creative restlessness and success in diverse fields. He "could move with magical agility, he could do great impressions, he could rock, he was a swift and brilliant comedian, he could play seven instruments, he could write songs—167 of them," wrote biographer David Evanier. “He wanted to be a songwriter, actor, singer, and musician, and he became all of these.”

Tony winner Jonathan Groff first fell for Darin’s artistry while preparing to play him in the Lyrics & Lyricists series at the 92nd Street Y in 2018. “[Those performances were] so thrilling and so exciting,” he told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek. An obsession was sparked. “I'm so grateful for YouTube. I started watching clips of him, and it's a hole I just keep going deeper and deeper into.”

Groff was speaking in a well-appointed ninth-floor room in the Brill Building—Darin’s former office—during a break from rehearsals for Just in Time, the Bobby Darin Broadway biomusical that evolved from the Lyrics & Lyricists show. From March 31 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, Groff will be channeling Darin in a show that’s part concert, part theater, setting out to capture Darin’s genre-spanning, shape-shifting brilliance

“I really connected with his ambition—pushing himself into different genres and styles, finding a connection to all of them musically,” Groff continued. “But most of all, I connect with his passion, his love for the audience, and his need to perform.”

Determined to push himself in his preparations for the role, Groff is taking drum and piano lessons and being put through his paces for what he says will be the most dance-heavy role of his career. All this less than a year after winning a Tony Award for his lead performance in Merrily We Roll Along: the very definition of not resting on laurels. "To feel those pathways in the brain grow and to feel that kind of expansion is so thrilling."

In fact, Groff will be in tech rehearsals for Just in Time during the week of his 40th birthday. “I'm such a specific person in that, if I could have anything for my 40th birthday, it would be teching a Broadway musical," he said. "I remember during Merrily, when we were doing the holiday Thanksgiving schedule—multiple shows, the whole schedule packed—I remember coming off stage, getting water from Hayley, who was dressing me, and saying, ‘I would so much rather be in the theater all day today than sitting on the couch.’ And she was like, ‘You're f**king crazy.’ But that's just who I am. I think I connect with Bobby Darin in that way. There’s a real, primal need to perform.”

Darin’s own momentum was fueled by a sense of urgency that likely stemmed from a weak heart, the result of a childhood illness. After a bout of rheumatic fever at eight, he overheard a doctor telling his mother he wouldn’t live past 16. “He was living on borrowed time,” Groff said. “And so he had this ambition to make it as fast as he possibly could and do as much as he possibly could before the clock ran out. It was constantly at the front of his brain.”

The show will cover the major beats of Darin’s life—his marriage to Sandra Dee, his relationship with Connie Francis, and a major family revelation (which won’t be spoiled here) that triggered a nervous breakdown and, later, what Groff calls a “truly spiritual awakening.”

That arc is reflected in the show’s musical journey—including Darin’s electrifying rendition of the Brecht-Weill classic “Mack the Knife”—all performed with a live band on stage. “It feels kind of like the Copacabana, but another essential purpose for having the band there is you feel the thrust of his life expressed through his musical journey. You really get the breadth of who he was as a person and an artist. Even just from listening to the music alone, that arc and that story are there.”

During the conversation, Groff also opened up about the late Gavin Creel, who passed away in 2024. “He changed my life,” said Groff. It was Creel, Groff shared, who inspired him to come out publicly. “We were dating, and he was so out. It was 2009. Coming out… it was sort of an unspoken or sometimes spoken thing that you were sacrificing something in your career if you did it. And I remember looking at him and thinking, I would rather feel this feeling than ever be on a TV show or in a movie. This is so much more meaningful to me. And so I owe him that.”

Ultimately, Groff said, there’s inspiration to be found in a life like Darin’s—or Creel’s—fully lived. “We're all here on borrowed time. This body is ours while we're here. And then it's not when we're gone. And so what I hope, and what I feel when I am inside of the material, is this deep, profound passion for life,” he said. “It makes me feel alive and makes me feel grateful to be alive.”