#broadway evolved

[derekklenadaily]

Broadway Evolved's Instagram Story (February 26, 2024)

[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)

[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.

[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

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan describes the 'big reactions' from New Yorkers over his A Different Man transformation: 'I was terrified'

The actor and makeup artist extraordinaire Mike Marino unpack Stan's dramatic prosthetics turn.

By Nick Romano

Sebastian Stan was so determined to work with Oscar-nominated makeup artist Mike Marino on his film A Different Man that the actor was willing to undergo a social and professional experiment.

As Edward, the 42-year-old Marvel star would play an aspiring actor with neurofibromatosis, or NF1 for short, who undergoes an experimental procedure that radically changes his face, only to then emotionally spiral out of control when he loses the part he was born to play to Oswald (Adam Pearson), someone with NF1 who lives a much fuller life than Edward ever led, pre- or post-procedure. Stan needed the man who made Colin Farrell unrecognizable as Oz Cobb for The Batman and HBO’s The Penguin to pull off such a feat.

Since Marino was already busy on Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Stan walked the few blocks from his apartment in New York City’s SoHo district to Marino’s home every morning around 4 or 5 a.m. “Then you just wait till they're ready for you on set,” Marino remembers saying to him. On some of those days, Stan would kill time by wandering Manhattan in full makeup until his call time. “I walked up and down Broadway, basically,” Stan, sitting in the New York offices of studio A24, tells Entertainment Weekly. “It was a busy street. I was terrified, but I would just go get a coffee or sit.”

Sebastian Stan is unrecognizable as an actor with facial deformity in trailer for A Different Man

Stan doesn’t consider himself to be a physical actor, and yet his body of work might suggest differently. Even when the costume shoulders the bulk of the transformation, such as playing Tommy Lee in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, his body language molds to match the look. That skill is especially prominent in A Different Man (playing now in limited release). “Even alone, being able to only look out of one eye and then having one ear more covered immediately changes a lot,” he says of Marino's makeup effects. “It changes how you stand. It changes how far away you are from people, how you look at people. I felt oddly on my back foot more. It's a defensive reaction because you want to be prepared in case something's coming, that you have enough time to react.”

“What we get is such an incredibly passionate, skilled actor that can hide within a true character,” Marino tells EW in a separate conversation on Zoom from his SoHo apartment, part of which serves as the mini studio where Stan’s makeup application occurred. “He would actually now have a chance to live with people's reactions and how they were treating him.”

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

That experience informed Stan’s entire performance, and it became important for him to do so, even outside of the mornings' wait time. He would often stroll away from set on the Upper West Side in between breaks or setups. “New York is pretty evolved in a lot of ways, but I still got some big reactions from people,” he recalls. “Like, ‘Oh s---!’ ‘Oh f---!’ ‘Look at that!’ It was scary to experience. It was hard to experience. I felt powerless in those situations in some way. And, I guess, a lot of that is how Edward feels in the film.”

Sebastian Stan transforms in the discomforting drama A Different Man

Other reactions were less intense, but equally informative. While standing at a stoplight, for instance, Stan noticed the difference between those pedestrians avoiding eye contact completely, compared to those trying to discreetly steal a look or offer him a forced smile — all bystander reactions that director Aaron Schimberg incorporates into the movie. "I don't think it always comes from a bad place," he says. "Sometimes people just want to connect or feel okay. It's actually about their own experience. It's not even about you. It's like they're in that moment feeling something that's funny to them and they're trying to deal with it. They don't know how."

Marino wanted to be involved with A Different Man thanks to his love of the 1980 film The Elephant Man, loosely based on the life of Joseph Merrick, who lived with a facial disfigurement. As a 5-year-old, the movie scared Marino. But as he fell in love with the art of makeup transformations on screen, he came to see it for what it was: "a beautiful" and "touching story," he describes. "That really made an indelible mark on my life."

He would need that motivation for the obstacles that Stan's look on A Different Man prompted. "There were many technical challenges," he recalls. "It is very difficult to do makeup that thick where they have very thick areas. So I had to really balance what was too big, what was too small. I still need the movement of Sebastian to come through. I still need his own face to drive the makeup and not have it look purely like a mask. I studied Adam's photos. I really analyzed him and tried to balance how I can make it work for Sebastian."

Sebastian Stan calls out journalist who refers to his new character with disfigurement as a 'beast'

Stan has another transformative part coming out soon, the buzzed-about and already-controversial performance of young Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Because he's now promoting both that film and A Different Man simultaneously, it's been interesting for him to think about the ways in which he approached both jobs.

"I've been finding strange parallels that I never really thought about," he remarks. "There's some similar themes being explored in terms of truth, self abandonment, denial of reality to some extent. I think these last couple of roles have required a different degree of physicality. One, obviously, is specific, a real person. But I think about that, of course. You have to, because everyone walks differently and everyone carries things in their body differently. Sometimes you gain access in a different way to things by simply changing a physical aspect of yourself."

The greatest compliment he received for that kind of work on A Different Man, even more than the glowing praise he's seen from the critics, came from Pearson's mother. "After she saw the film, she was like, 'All I ever wanted was for someone to walk in his shoes for one day, to know what it's like, and you were able to do that,'" Stan remembers of their exchange. "I came close to that, I guess, in a way, to feel that kind of invasiveness that he probably felt at some point in his life, walking around."

[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

[derekklenadaily]

Broadway Evolved's Instagram Story (June 19, 2024)

[jgroffdaily]

As the last of the families finished smiling and posing for photos with Jonathan Groff and Miss Amie Vanité (drag performer Christopher Paolini) after the second of two story hours at the Lancaster Convention Center Saturday afternoon — in support of Lancaster Pride and the Lancaster Public Library — the two had a few minutes to talk about the day, and Groff, a bit about his Tony Award experience and his career.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Jonathan, you’re here doing an event raising money for the Lancaster Public Library, as well as Lancaster Pride. Is there a book you’re reading, or have read recently, that you can recommend?

Miss Amie Vanité: He recommended I read Barbra’s book.

Jonathan Groff: That’s the one. Thank you! I am now over halfway through the audio book of “My Name is Barbra,” the Barbra Streisand memoir. I’ve gotten up to her directing “Yentl.” I was just listening to it yesterday while I was making dinner.

Which library did you go to as a child?

Groff: Lancaster Library and Strasburg Library. And the libraries in my elementary school, Smoketown [Elementary], and middle school. My library teacher was here today! Did you have a school library you went to, Miss Amie?

Miss Amie: I had a school library that I was in all the time. I went to the Reading Public Library and the Wyomissing Public Library.

Groff to Miss Amie: What was your favorite book that you read today [at the story hour]?

Miss Amie: That’s a toss-up between “If You Plant a Seed” [by Kadir Nelson] and “One Equals Many” [by Sonny Dean]. They’re so short, but they’re so poignant and so important.

Jonathan, you have been involved in Pride events in bigger cities. You were the grand marshal of the New York City Pride Parade (in 2014). This is your first event for Lancaster Pride ... .

Groff: This means more to me than anything I’ve ever done, at any Pride event. To be back in Lancaster, to be sitting next to Miss Amie. This combination of celebrating Pride and being in my hometown is unparalleled. It’s incredible.

Miss Amie: I was so blown away and excited that you wanted to come and do this and be a part of us here. It means the world.

Groff: To me, too.

Jonathan, a lot of the interviews you did with national media, leading up to the Tony Awards, seemed very introspective. You talked a lot about the 20 years since you moved to New York, and how your career has evolved since then. What did you learn from that?

Groff: It’s part of why I’m here right now. That opportunity of “Merrily [We Roll Along],” for the actors and the characters and also for the audience, was to really become introspective and look back on your life — things that worked out, things that didn’t work out, regrets, mistakes you’ve made, and when I read about what had happened in March with Miss Amie [the cancellation of the library story time and threats received], I was in the middle of the “Merrily” run. And I can’t believe I’ve done all of these gay events and I’ve never gone to my hometown. I’ve gone home to celebrate the theater, and the theaters I’ve worked at, but I’ve never gone purely for Pride. So, when this happened, and I was receiving these articles that my friends from home were sending me, it felt like such an obvious invitation to pick up the phone and call Lancaster Pride and Miss Amie, and make good on what happened in March.

Can you talk at all about what’s next for you, professionally? It was reported in Deadline and elsewhere that you were performing in an industry reading last month, of a musical about [1960s pop star and activist] Bobby Darin, called “Just In Time” [with the possibility of it being developed for Broadway. Groff had performed a Bobby Darin concert at New York’s 92nd Street Y in 2018].

Groff: Yes. We did that, and it went great. And it was really fun, and we’ll see what happens.

Has the type or volume of the [job] offers that you get changed since winning the Tony Award?

Groff: Yes. It’s more emails, more texts. It’s amazing.

I put Lancaster in the first sentence of my [Tony acceptance] speech because I love this city so much and I love this county so much, and I really prepared what I said in that moment, because I thought, if I get the chance to speak, I want to make sure I’m very intentional about every word that I’m saying. Because I’ve officiated five weddings now, and I started to, at the second and third wedding, comprehend the value of what you say when people are listening. And that goes from that moment, that opportunity I had to speak at the Tonys, all the way to this moment today with Miss Amie. It matters. It matters what we say and what we do, and it’s important to be intentional about those things. I learned that from that experience. And I’m feeling the ripple effects of that even months later

What was going through your mind between the time you heard your name called [as the Tony winner] and the time you got to the stage to make your speech?

Groff: I was really conscious of the people I was embracing. So I remember seeing my mom, my dad, my brother, our director, Maria [Friedman], who had just lost in her category ... and I lifted her up [off her feet]. Saw Dan [Radcliffe, his “Merrily” co-star], and then I remember thinking I have to get this out as fast as possible, because I have, I think, 45 seconds, and I wanted to say what’s in my heart. So that was the big goal.

Anything else you’re working on that you can talk about?

Groff: Unfortunately, I can’t. But when I can, I’ll let you know.

Is there any category of entertainment job — writing, directing, Shakespeare, a superhero film — that you’re especially anxious to explore?

Groff: I’m open to everything. Today it’s story time with Miss Amie.

[themousefromfantasyland]

A Fairy Tale Rabbit Hole

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the movie that it started it all for Disney Animation and it's the most influential fairy tale movie ever. Its tropes and its tone still inspires fairy tale media to this day, either as parodies, or homages.

But what less people know is that Walt Disney was inspired to make this movie because of a peculiar silent movie that he watched when he was a teenager.

That movie was Snow White from 1916. Its writer, Winthrop Ames, adapted it from his own Broadway play. An example of American fairy tale theater.

This kept me thinking.

The Wizard of Oz is one of the most iconic fantasy films of all time, and it was made in direct response to Snow White. What people don't know is that the scene where Glinda saves the gang from the deadly poppies with a snowstorm came straight from a fairy tale musical from 1902. It came from The Wizard of Oz, a fairy tale musical "extravaganza", with direct input from L. Frank Baum, only two years after the original novel.

Actually, stage musicals seem to take a slight part in the creation of Oz. The Marvellous Land of Oz, the sequel, seems to be inspired by this stage culture. General Jinjur and her army dresses like chorus girls, Ozma/Tip may be inspired by the crossdressing in children roles, and this was the book's dedication:

"To those excellent good fellows and comedians David C. Montgomery and Frank A. Stone whose clever personations of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow have delighted thousands of children throughout the land, this book is gratefully dedicated by THE AUTHOR"

These were actors of the 1902 stage show.

Two years later, on 1904 Peter and Wendy premiered. This play is also one of the most famous children stories ever. Walt Disney himself acted as Peter in a local production of it and Tinkerbell quickly became a mascot for the studio.

This all led me to think more about fairy tale theater specifically.

Since the ending of the 18th century and through the 19th century, a genre of stage show developed through Europe. It was mostly comedic and light-hearted, mainly inspired by fairy tales, and it was geared towards children and families. It involved lavish fantasy spectacles told through operas, ballets, and what we today would call "musical theater".

It had many different names and variations depending on the country.

On England, it evolved through the pantomimes and it became a Christmas tradition.

In Russian, it was mainly through ballet, called the ballet-féerie, often considered a lower-class, more commercialized entertainment than traditional ballet. Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are among some of them. Sleeping Beauty would later inspire Disney's telling of the story.

In France they were called Féerie, and it was a mix of music, dancing, pantomime, acrobatics, and stage effects. It influenced the development of burlesque, musical comedy and film.

From Wikipedia:

With his 1899 film version of Cinderella, Georges Méliès brought the féerie into the newly developing world of motion pictures. The féerie quickly became one of film's most popular and lavishly mounted genres in the early years of the twentieth century, with such pioneers as Edwin S. Porter, Cecil Hepworth, Ferdinand Zecca, and Albert Capellani contributing fairy-tale adaptations in the féerie style or filming versions of popular stage féeries like Le Pied de mouton, Les Sept Châteaux du diable, and La Biche au bois. The leader in the genre, however, remained Méliès,[37] who designed many of his major films as féeries and whose work as a whole is intensely suffused with the genre's influence.[38]

Once you realize a huge chunk of fairy tale media has roots in family friendly stage shows from 19th century, a lot of it started making sense.

The focus on romance, the focus on damsels in distress, prevalence of lighter tones, the everlasting connection to music and dance.

They may be the main reason why some fairy tales are more famous than others. Some became source material for a continuous stream of operas, operettas, musical extravaganzas, ballets, plays, and others simply not.

And besides the Victorian Era storybooks that bowdlerized fairy tales for children, I think this whole genre of the theater was responsible to firmly establish fairy tales as a child friendly media, decades before Disney ever released Snow White to cash in that nostalgia.

If you have something to add or if I just got something wrong, feel free to correct me.

@ariel-seagull-wings @princesssarisa @adarkrainbow @the-blue-fairie @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @natache @tamisdava2 @thealmightyemprex

[make-friends-with-the-rats]

could we maybe see albert dasilva for the ask game? :]

ah yes, the ginger

How I feel about this character: Albert is my favorite ensemble newsie in livesies bar none. He is painfully relatable sometimes. I do have some conflicting feelings over the livesies/bway portrayal of his and Race's dynamic because I feel like they took 92sies Race's personality and split it into Race and Albert with Albert taking Race's more serious qualities in the stage adaptation, but I do enjoy Albert as a character and I hope someone gets the poor boy his leg of lamb.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: I believe in aroace Albert. So sorry.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Race and Albert but also Crutchie and Albert, specifically in UKsies. I don't know, I just think they're neat and Newsies UK is so special to me. Just look at them and imagine the chaos:

My unpopular opinion about this character: This is going to upset possibly everyone in the entire world, but livesies/bway Albert needs some sleeves. This goes for all of the newsies in the stage/Broadway musical that are missing sleeves. I don't care what the reasoning behind the sleeveless undershirts and vest combo was there is absolutely no way anyone in 1899 would dress like that. Undershirts had long sleeves for one thing, and why would you wear your vest on top but no shirt?? I need answers and those boys need sleeves. Second, Albert is actually not named Albert. Albert is actually his newsie nickname. (I know I was just complaining about historical dress, and the timeline I'm proposing doesn't directly match up but bear with me.) Imagine one of the newsies reads an article about Albert Einstein and his genius work in physics and what said newsie gets from the article is basically, "wow this guy is smart, I bet he's a real wise-mouth" and then Albert gets his nickname as Albert as in Albert Einstein because it evolves from "okay Albert Einstein" when Albert is being a smart-aleck to "okay Albert" and is the equivalent of "no shit Sherlock" in newsie vernacular.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I honestly don't know that I would change anything about Albert as a character. Actually, you know what? What if Albert scabbed? As a treat.

Thank you for asking!

ask game

characters answered: David Jacobs, Jack Kelly, Blink and Skittery, Bumlets and Swifty, Sarah Jacobs, Specs and Dutchy, Les Jacobs, Crutchie, Snitch and Itey, Mush Meyers, Spot Conlon, Racetrack Higgins, Katherine Plumber, Snoddy, Barney Peanuts and Romeo, Glasses

[meltthefrozenheart]

FROZEN 3 and FROZEN 4 are both in development, and I can't wait!

The news sounded odd to me initially, I didn't expect anything like this from Disney Animation, but it became immediatly appealing the moment I realized the GREAT potential a double feature could have for the franchise, most importantly when Bob Iger specified “Jenn Lee, who created Frozen, the original Frozen, and Frozen 2 is hard at work with her team at Disney Animation on not one but actually two stories.”, which would mean:

More time to enstablish new elements, new characters, time to explore new lore and new places without the risk to rush everything;

A bigger story that can help flesh out our protagonists in their new roles, their new wants and changes they might face, considering how the F2 ending brought many new possibilities;

A narrative context where the new crysis (whatever it might be) could be explored even better, also allowing to maintain things in a complex prespective just as the Frozen movies like to do, where the matter of "good and evil" not at the center, and things are first of all deeply personal for the characters

It seems to me that Jennifer Lee always wanted to delve deeper into things, this is why the Broadway Musical was a perfect opportunity for her and the Lopez to expand the characters and flesh out things in the story, also adding new elements that would've been useful for F2.

And when they worked on Frozen 2, they built it as the "second part" of the story, reconnecting almost all the aspects of the sequel to the 1st movie, and the story was clearly meant to be BIGGER and longer compared to what we ended up having because of numerous issues and rewrites. J. Lee and C. Buck didn't want to introduce something that would feel just as "a new adventure", and more about the actual characters evolving, see what they left unresolved, breaking the "Happy ending" scenario of F1, which also led them to NOT give the new human characters (Mattias and the Northuldra) the same relevance given to Spirits of Nature, in order to remain focused on Elsa, Anna and the rest of the gang.

Now, Lee will most likely not direct or write these two new movies, but she is still directly involved, because it's both part of her job as CCO of Walt Disney Animation Studio and because Frozen is her (and Chris Buck) baby. It will be curious to discover with what idea Marc Smith came out with, but the fact he worked on the 1st Frozen as a storyboard artist and the became Director of Story for Frozen 2 says a lot about him and why Lee trusts him so much, and I'm sure they will follow the approach used with the 2nd movie and carry it on with 3 and 4. Numerous sagas used the two-parter approach, like the books adaptations of Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games series, or more "original cases" like Pirates of the Carribeans or what we are getting now with the animated Spiderverse movies (Across and Beyond). But I think the best similarity (and probably what led to this ambitious choice) is with Avengers Infinity War/Endgame, where the BIG FINALE gets developed in two movies.

[justforbooks]

Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and his school friend Garfunkel, whom he met in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Simon & Garfunkel. Their blend of folk and rock, including hits such as "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", "America" and "The Boxer", served as a soundtrack to the counterculture movement. Their final album, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970), is among the bestselling of all time.

As a solo artist, Simon has explored genres including gospel, reggae and soul. His albums Paul Simon (1972), There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973), and Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) kept him in the public eye and drew acclaim, producing the hits "Mother and Child Reunion", "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard", and "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Simon reunited with Garfunkel for several tours and the 1981 Concert in Central Park.

In 1986, Simon released his most successful and acclaimed album, Graceland, incorporating South African influences. "You Can Call Me Al" became one of Simon's most successful singles. Graceland was followed by The Rhythm of the Saints (1990), and a second Concert in the Park in 1991, without Garfunkel, which was attended by half a million people. In 1998, Simon wrote a Broadway musical, The Capeman, which was poorly received. In the 21st century, Simon continued to record and tour. His later albums, such as You're the One (2000), So Beautiful or So What (2011) and Stranger to Stranger (2016), introduced him to new generations. Simon retired from touring in 2018, but continued to record music. An album, Seven Psalms, was released in May 2023.

Simon is among the world's best-selling music artists. He has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has been the recipient of sixteen Grammy Awards, including three for Album of the Year. Two of his works, Sounds of Silence and Graceland, were inducted into the National Recording Registry for their cultural significance, and in 2007, the Library of Congress voted him the inaugural winner of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. He is a co-founder of the Children's Health Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides medical care to children.

In 2012, in an interview reprinted in American Songwriter, Simon discussed the craft of songwriting with music journalist Tom Moon and talked about the basic themes in his songwriting: love, family and social commentary, as well as messages of religion, spirituality and God. Simon explained how he wrote his songs. "The music always precedes the words. The words often come from the sound of the music and eventually evolve into coherent thoughts. Or incoherent thoughts. Rhythm plays a crucial part in the lyric-making as well. It's like a puzzle to find the right words to express what the music is saying."

When Simon moved to England in 1964, he met Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Chitty at the first English folk club he played, the Railway Inn Folk Club in Brentwood, Essex, where Chitty worked part-time selling tickets. She was 16 and he was 22 when they began a relationship. Later that year they visited the U.S. together, mainly touring by bus. Kathy returned to England and Simon followed some weeks later. When he returned to the U.S. with the growing success of "The Sounds of Silence", Kathy, who was quite shy, wanted no part in success and fame and they ended their relationship. She is mentioned by name in at least two of Simon's songs: "Kathy's Song" and "America". She is also referred to in "Homeward Bound" and "The Late Great Johnny Ace". There is a photo of Simon and Kathy together on the cover of Simon's 1965 album The Paul Simon Songbook.

Simon has been married three times, first to Peggy Harper in 1969. They had a son, Harper Simon, in 1972, and divorced in 1975, inspiring the song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Simon wrote about this relationship in the song "Train in the Distance" from his 1983 album Hearts and Bones. In the late 1970s, Simon lived in New York City next door to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, who has been described as Simon's "best friend" during the period.

He and Shelley Duvall lived together as a couple for two years until she introduced him to her friend Carrie Fisher. Simon and Fisher became a couple, and his second marriage, from 1983 to 1984, was to Fisher. He proposed to her after a New York Yankees game. The song "Hearts and Bones" was written about their time together, and the song "Graceland" is believed to be about seeking solace from the ending of the relationship by taking a road trip. A year after they divorced, Simon and Fisher resumed their relationship, which lasted for several years.

Simon married singer Edie Brickell on May 30, 1992. Brickell and Simon have three children, Adrian, Lulu, and Gabriel. On April 26, 2014, Simon and Brickell were involved in a domestic dispute. Each was issued a summons to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges.

All four of his children are now adults and are musicians.

Simon and his younger brother, Eddie Simon, founded the Guitar Study Center sometime before 1973. The Guitar Study Center became part of The New School in New York City, sometime before 2002.

Simon is an avid fan of the New York Rangers ice hockey team, the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Yankees baseball team.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?