#hedwig and the angry inch off broadway

[put-a-banana-inyourear]

Plucked straight from my Instagram story.

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss embraces technology and his mixed heritage in his Broadway premiere

Late last month, I spoke with Darren Criss for his upcoming Broadway premiere, Maybe Happy Ending, in which he plays a robot (a Helperbot to be specific) named Oliver who’s been deemed obsolete by technological standards. Another Helperbot, Claire, asks to borrow his charger, and thus begins a unique friendship between the two.

Maybe Happy Ending was written and produced in both Korean and English and has had performances all over the world. This production features Asian American creatives both on stage and behind the scenes. Criss himself identifies as half-Filipino on his mother’s side, and has said his feelings on his identity have evolved over the years. In 2018, he was quoted in Vulture saying that he did not identify as Asian American. In 2020, he would later shift his perspective after playing a half-Filipino character in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, telling People: 

“It’s a tricky cocktail in America ... Anyone who is biracial can attest to this: No matter how much or how little they look like their respective mix, it’s a constant work in progress … I’ve always been proud of my heritage, of being Filipino. Just because people don’t see it, doesn’t make it any less real to me.”

I got the chance to speak with Criss not just about identity, but about his career at large, how he relates to the character of Oliver, and what audiences will take from Maybe Happy Ending.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Bri Ng Schwartz: As a biracial person with Asian identity, how does it feel to be working on a show that’s been produced and written in both Korean and American? Darren Criss: This show isn’t categorically an Asian show. It is very much a universal human’s show, but it happens to celebrate and represent a large degree of Asian-ness. Anytime you can show up for your cultural identity, that’s always a very exciting thing. It’s very exciting that the vast majority of people working on the show, on stage and off, are of Asian American mix and descent. The Asian experience is not a singular experience. It’s a very large breadth of backgrounds, so it’s been fun for all of us to bring our own experiences and stories to the table. 

BNS: I saw you about 10 years ago at the Belasco when you were starring as Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. DC: Oh boy. This will be a little different. 

BNS: Yeah, definitely different. As you return to the Belasco for Maybe Happy Ending, how do you think you’ve evolved as a performer in the last 10 years? DC: I hopefully have evolved as a person. If I’m the same person that was 10 years ago, then we have a serious problem. I’m just still trying to learn, still trying to connect as many dots as I can. Hopefully I never know the answer to that.

BNS: We are forever learning as humans. DC: Exactly. 

BNS: I spoke to your former on-screen father, Jon Jon Briones, a couple of months ago. DC: He’s the best, and he was part of this production! This show has been around in many iterations for a long time, and he actually was part of a reading several years ago. We find ourselves connected yet again, me and Jon Jon. He’s awesome. He’s the best.

BNS: Do you take any advice or inspiration from people like Jon Jon or other seasoned Broadway vets in your work? DC: There are these goalposts that artists may think are the be-all and end-all of what makes a successful career. Jon Jon’s consistency and longevity are the goalposts. He’s one of these guys, if I mention his name, half of the room knows him or has worked with him. There are a lot of guys like Jon Jon who just are constantly a part of things. And that’s the goal. Success in devoting yourself long form to the craft, which he has done in spades.

BNS: In Maybe Happy Ending you play Oliver, a Helperbot 3. Do you think there are any parallels between you and how Oliver perceives the world? DC: I am endlessly curious and endlessly trying to download and learn as much as I can from the world around me, whether consciously or unconsciously. I happen to be a human being, and Oliver is not. 

I’m still getting under the skin of this guy, of this robot. I’m finding a lot of parallels as far as the desire to please. I always say I’m in the service industry. I service ideas and emotions and people. That is my vocation. My programming.

BNS: Do you think that audiences are going to walk away from this show feeling differently about their technology? DC: Technology becomes more human in the way we treat it. When people put away their phones, they get sad. They’re like an appendage. We’ve already started to ascribe emotional connectivity to our non-human components. People will walk away with perhaps a more emotional experience with the human components they have in their life.

The battery life that our devices have are a microcosm metaphor for our own battery life, our own shelf life, and our own energy. The finite amount of time that we have, and really coming to peace with the idea that we are a transient technology ourselves, considering that, and hopefully, making sure that your battery life is spent on the right things, I think is the thing I hope people walk away with this show.

On top of hopefully singing the songs, because they’re beautiful. 

BNS: They really are. Thank you so much for taking the time today. On behalf of mixed theater kids everywhere, thank you. I don’t think I would be who I am without having you to look up to. DC: Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

[shmaroace]

As a fellow aroace, queer films without romance are *fucking hard to find*, but also some of my favourite (for obvious reasons), so here you have the two or three I can think of off the top of my head!

"Te estoy amando locamente": a very recent -as in from last month- Spanish movie about a gay boy discovering the drag scene and getting arrested via the Spanish dictatorship's "social danger" laws. No romance whatsoever, mostly trans characters, centered around his mom's journey into accepting him, and his friends' fight to get the Social Danger laws revoked.

"Pride": a British feel-good comedy about a group of LGBT+ activists who start raising money for a community of Welsh striking miners. There is a very cute established older gay couple, but their relationship is as much the center of the movie as Dai and his wife: it's just there as part of the tapestry of the movie. The main character has a nameless hookup as part of his coming to terms with his sexuality storyline, but there's way more emphasis given to his friendship with his lesbian best friend. A lot of found family, a lot of activism, laughs and tears. Based on a real story (for real, not Hollywood based on a real story).

"United in Anger": a documentary about the history of ACT UP, the famous activist group who fought for the rights of people with AIDS in the 80s. Made by some people who were there, based entirely on interviews to people who were there, it's entirely made available on youtube by the filmmakers. A must-see.

"Aos Nossos Filhos": I guess whether this qualifies as a queer movie is up to you: it's technically a story about motherhood and trauma. A middle aged Brazilian lady who was a political prisoner during the Brazilian dictatorship and now runs a charity for favelas children with AIDS gets told by her lesbian daughter that her and her girlfriend are trying for a baby via assisted reproductive technology; while at the same time a reporter starts interviewing her about his mother, who was the lady's jailmate. Extremely interesting and heartbreaking. The lesbian relationship features relatively heavily though as they try for a baby (also, trigger warning for aces, the very first scene is a very explicit sex scene between the two girls).

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch": an early 2000s off-Broadway musical turned movie about an East German gay boy who gets a gender change operation in order to marry a US soldier and move out of East Germany, and ends up touring the US with a shitty band trailing after a rockstar who stole her (?) songs. Impossible to explain, I'm not doing it justice. It's a very interesting exploration of gender as an identity and a performance, and of romantic love and the myth of the "other half" (in a good way).

"Kinky Boots": I know there's a movie, but I only know the musical. Silly feel-good comedy about a struggling shoe factory owner who gets tangled making heels for drag queens. There's a romance story, but it's between the shoe maker and one of the employees. It's been a long time, so I don't put my hand on the fire for the quality of the musical. It has some nice drag queen dances, though (there's a proshoot).

"Luciérnagas": a gay Iranian fleeing his country ends up stuck in a coastal city in Mexico. While he battles homesickness and the urge to go back to Turkey to his boyfriend (even if it's dangerous), he makes friends with his landlady, a young woman who teaches him Spanish, and a Salvadorian ex-gang member trying to cross the border to the US. I saw it a long time ago so I can't promise there will be no romance whatsoever, but it's clearly not the central conflict.

Well, I ended up with more than two, so I'm going to stop now. Hope you and anon like them!!

odd; it says this ask was sent sept 4 but i didn't see it until now. thanks for the recs! i'm assuming it was in response to this post

[melliotwrites]

what would everyone’s favorite musicals be nowadays

Fun question!

Quincy: He'd be into Sondheims and music-forward shows but doesn't know the niche stuff. A Little Night Music, Passion, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, etc

Vincent: Hedwig and the Angry Inch and other rock musicals

Ambrose: I just can't imagine him listening to musical theater. But I think if you asked him he'd say Les Mis or The Sound of Music or a classic show he saw with his family as a kid

Beatrix: I think it's not her main interest, but she'd actually be into off-broadways and niche shows exclusively. Ghost Quartet, 35 MM, The Wild Party, etc.

Portia: The only one of them who would be genuinely, earnestly into musical theater, I think- she keeps up with modern musicals and maybe doesn't know the oldies as much. She'd be playing Six and Waitress and Ride the Cyclone in the dorms.

[broadwaydivastournament]

Broadway Divas Tournament: Round 2B

Lillias White (1951) “LILLIAS WHITE is the quadruple-crown winner of the 1997 Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Award, and the People’s Choice Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Sonja in The Life. Ms. White received unqualified acclaim for her triumphant portrayal of Jonsey in the recent revival of How to Succeed in Business… Her previous Broadway appearances include Cats (Grisabella), Once On this Island (Asaka), Dreamgirls (Effie), Rock ‘n’ Roll The First 5000 Years (Aretha Franklin) and Barnun (Joyce Heth). Off-Broadway she starred in Waiting for Godot, The Pincess & The Black-Eyed Pea, Antigone Africanus and Romance in Hard Times for which she won an Obie Award. Her national and internation tours include: Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Wiz, Tintypes and Dreamgirls (Drama Logue Award). She won an Emmy Award for her work on “Sesame Street” after which she made several guest appearances on “Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue.” She has appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and as a guest soloist at The White House. She is featured int eh current Disney animated film Hercules in which she plays Calliope.” – Playbill bio from Sweet Charity: The Concert, June 17, 1998.

Andrea Martin (1947) “ANDREA MARTIN (Aunt Kate, Frieda Fishbein, Beatrice Kaufman). LTC: My Favorite Year (Tony, Drama Desk, Theatre World awards). Broadway: Pippin (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Ellen Norton awards; Astaire nomination), Exit the King (DD, OCC, noms.), Young Frankenstein (Tony, DD noms.), Oklahoma! (Tony, DD noms.) Candide (Tony, DD noms.) Regional: The Matchmaker, The Royal Family (Williamstown), Betty’s Summer Vacation (Elliot Norton, IRNE awards), The Rose Tattoo (Huntington). Tour: Final Days: Everything Must Go. Film: The Producers, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, All Over the Gay, My Big Fat Green Wedding, Breaking Upwards. TV: “SCTV” (Two Emmy Awards), “Sesame Street” (Special Emmy Award), “The Simpsons,” “30 Rock,” “Nurse Jackie.” Upcoming: Night at the Museum 3, “Working the Engels” (NBC series) Andrea Martin’s Lady Parts (Harper Collins/ fall 2014). For Nicky.” – Playbill bio from Act One, May 2014.

NEW PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

"I think about that Actors' Fund Dreamgirls concert and specifically Lillias White's Effie on a weekly basis."

"Andrea Martin, you are the only hope we have of advancing a stalwart, brilliant, laughriot character actress to the next round. Come on, people, comedy actresses are the backbone of Broadway. If we can't scream, holler, and jump for joy at comedy, we may as well pack it in."

[wizardiest-wizard-of-oz]

if anyone wants I have a musicals playlist that's over 200 hours that has I think around 205 musicals here's an alphabetized list let me know if I'm missing any I should add (I don't like Andrew lloyd Webber musicals and I'm also not a huge fan of jukebox musicals more specifically mamma Mia) and if anyone wants a link please ask me

13

21 Chump Street

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

35MM

36 Questions

42nd Street

The Addams Family

Aida

Aladdin

Alice by Heart

Allegro

Amelie

Anastasia

Ani

Annie Get Your Gun

Annie

Anything Goes

Avenue Q

Back to the Future

Bat Boy

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Be More Chill

The Big One-Oh

Billy Elliot

Black Friday

Bombshell

Bonnie and Clyde

Book of Mormon

Brigadoon

Bring it On

Once More With Feeling (Buffy musical)

Bugsy Malone

Bye Bye Birdie

Cabaret

Camelot

Carousel

Carrie

Catch Me if You Can

A Catered Affair

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Chess

Chicago

A Chorus Line

Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein)

The Colour Purple

Come From Away

Company

Crybaby

Curtains

Damn Yankees

Days of Wine and Roses

Dear Evan Hansen

Desperate Measures

Dog Man

Dreamgirls

Dreamland

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Drowsy Chaperone

Duolingo on Ice

Elegies

Epic (all released sagas)

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Falsettoland

Falsettos Revival

Firebringer

Flora the Red Menace

Follies

Fosse

Frankenstein

Frozen

Fun Home

Funny Girl

A Funny Thing Happened

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Grand Hotel

Grease

The Great American Trailer Park

Grey Gardens

Gutenberg

Guys and Dolls

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

G*psy

Hadestown (broadway)

Hadestown (off broadway)

Hairspray

Hair

Hamilton

Harmony

Heathers

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hello Dolly

Honk

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (this one is just for Patrick page)

How to Dance in Ohio

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Hunchback of Notre Dame

In the Green

In the Heights

Into the Woods

In Trousers

It Shoulda Been You

Jekyll and Hyde

Kimberly Akimo

The King and I

Kinky Boots

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Legally Blonde

Lempicka

Les Miserables (english and french)

The Lightning Thief

The Lion King

Little Do They Know

The Little Mermaid

A Little Night Music

Little Shop of Horrors (english and german)

Little Women

Lizard Boy

Love in Hate Nation

Love's Labours Lost

Mad Ones

Make Me a Song

Mame

A Man of No Importance

March of the Falsettos

Marguerite

Martin Guerre

Mary Poppins

Matilda

Mean Girls

Merrily We Roll Along

Miss Saigon

Monty Python's Spamalot

The Music Man

My Fair Lady

My Heart Says Go

My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (I only have one song because I'm waiting to watch it with my friend before adding more)

A New Brain

Newsies

New York, New York

Next to Normal

Nightmare Time

Nine

Octet

Oklahoma

Oliver

Once On This Island

Once Upon a Mattress

Only Murders in the Building (Death Rattle Dazzle)

The Pyjama Game

Parade

Pippin

The Prince of Egypt

Prodigal

The Producers

The Prom

Ragtime

Ride the Cyclone

The Rink

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Schmigadoon

Schmicago

Scottsburo Boys

Seussical

She Loves Me

Sherlock

Shrek

Shucked

Six

Smash

Some Like it Hot

Something Rotten

The Sound of Music

South Pacific

Spiderman Turn off the Dark

The Spitfire Grill

Spongebob

Spring Awakening

Starship

State Fair

Sunday in the Park with George

Superhero

Sweeney Todd

Sweet Charity

The Theory of Relativity

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Tick Tick Boom

The Time Traveller's Wife

The Trail to Oregon

Twisted

Urinetown

A VHS Christmas Carol

The Visit

Waitress

Wait Wait Don't Kill Me

West Side Story

Wicked

Water for Elephants

Wizard of Oz

The Wiz

Zombie Prom

Zorba

[antlerqueer]

I know they're SO MUCH to unpack but do we think the casting of Human Caligula was also an allusion? Because Hedwig has the whole two parts of one whole soul aspect to it, the social rejection of ones innate and unchangeable being, not to mention the gay of it all.

(for those unaware: human!Caligula was played by John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote and starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch off Broadway and in the subsequent film adaptation [a story about a fem gay man forced to be a woman escaping East Berlin and becoming a rock star])

[sillyname30]

Though the company celebrated last night, Maybe Happy Ending officially opens on Broadway today, November 12. Starring Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winner Darren Criss and Helen J Shen, the new romantic musical comedy is directed by Tony winner Michael Arden, with music by Will Aronson, lyrics by Hue Park and book by both Aronson and Park. 

Inside a one-room apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, Oliver lives a happily quiet life listening to jazz records and caring for his favorite plant. But what else is there to do when you’re a HelperBot 3, a robot that has long been retired and considered obsolete? When his fellow HelperBot neighbor Claire asks to borrow his charger, what starts as an awkward encounter leads to a unique friendship, a surprising adventure, and maybe even...love? Winner of the Richard Rodgers Award, Maybe Happy Ending is the offbeat and captivating story of two outcasts near the end of their warranty who discover that even robots can be swept off their feet.

Check out what the critics are saying about the new musical below!

Jesse Green, New York Times: What “Maybe Happy Ending” asks, even in its ambivalent title, is whether that’s a good thing, for them and for us, their mirror images. When Oliver fully realizes that Claire’s “shelf life” will end before his, he asks in real pain, “How can people do this?” — meaning survive the death of others. If the start of love is the start of loss, is it perhaps better to erase one’s memories (which these Helperbots can do because they have their own passwords) or even to avoid the journey altogether? A good question for robots and, as posed by this astonishing musical, maybe the most deeply human one of all.

Adam Feldman, TimeOut: Can a show as strange and special as Maybe Happy Ending find a place for itself on Broadway today? I like to think that maybe it can. But as the show reminds us, everything is ephemeral: “We have a shelf life, you know that,” says Claire. “It’s the way that it has to be.” The fact that this show is casting its firefly glow on Broadway at all feels like a gift. In its gentle robot way, it helps us see ourselves through freshly brushed eyes.

Shania Russell, Entertainment Weekly: Alas, charm goes a long way. Criss is often his most compelling when given a character with edge (his stint as the titular East German rocker in Hedwig and the Angry Inch or his Emmy-winning turn in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story) but here he is charming, spirited and wonderfully funny. Meanwhile, the show around him is grasping at many bubbling themes and carrying only a select few over the finish line. But Maybe Happy Ending dazzles with its love story and astounds with its visual accomplishments. There’s nothing robotic about this production: it wears its heart on its sleeve and on charm alone, succeeds.

Christian Lewis, Variety: “Maybe Happy Ending” is an undeniably moving, well-made, adorable musical, and it is a pleasant surprise to see an audience weep at a show about two robots in love. The musical makes the bold claim that maybe we are not that different from robots after all, or that they are not that different from us. Just as robots have much to learn from humans, we in turn can learn from them, especially how to care for each other and for ourselves. It’s crucial to know when you need to charge your battery, but likewise it’s important to be willing to share that charger with someone in need.

Greg Evans, Deadline: After the amazing firefly scene, and even more spectacularly, a scene in which our lovers’ inner circuits reveals themselves in a heart-stopping, full-stage display of light and sound that explodes from the set’s early, more constricted (if still lovely) aperture approach, Maybe Happy Ending could happily end, and if Arden and his team can’t quite restrain themselves from stretching things a bit, well, it’s hard to blame them: There still a delight or two, not to mention a lump in the throat, that demand to be experienced. Maybe Happy Ending deserves no less.

Tim Teeman, Daily Beast: There is no “maybe” about it when it comes to the brilliance and winning charm of Maybe Happy Ending (Belasco Theatre, booking to May 25, 2025). Visually, theatrically, and musically, Maybe Happy Ending, directed by Michael Arden with a nuanced delicacy and lightness of touch, is the most original and innovative show on New York’s main theatrical drag this autumn—and it dazzles with subtlety rather than bombast.

Patrick Ryan, USA Today: “Maybe Happy Ending” is undoubtedly the most original musical to grace Broadway since 2022’s “Kimberly Akimbo,” another small story with big ideas and even bigger emotions. With gentle humor and pathos, Park and Aronson manage to tap into the most human of questions: Is it still worthwhile to love, knowing that pain and loss are inevitable?

Robert Hofler, The Wrap: “Maybe Happy Ending” opens Tuesday at the Belasco Theatre, and it is downright peaceful, as well as charming and beautiful and poignant. The irony of over-amplification is that while one can be swept away by the sheer sound, if not bludgeoned, that loudness makes it often impossible to decipher lyrics. The lyrics by Hue Park and Will Aronson for “Maybe Happy Ending” are both simple and very smart, and adding to their allure is that they’re written for two characters that are not people.

Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: Lately there’s been audience complaint – if chat boards can be believed – how some recent Broadway musicals blast out hellishly loud, banging music. Maybe Happy Ending is surely the balm for any such feelings, since its sometimes jazz-inflected score is orchestrated gently for mostly strings, keyboard and woodwinds with exceptional grace by the composer.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review: Maybe the musical takes a few too many tries to reach its (maybe) happy ending. But this is a 100-minute future-set show about robots, bursting with genuine feeling. If you need something to lift you out of your post-election depression, Maybe Happy Ending is your emotional upper.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Theatre Guide: Director Michael Arden’s gorgeous staging makes the most of Dane Laffrey’s multilevel sets behind sliding panels and George Reeve’s floor-to-ceiling videos. As Oliver and Claire fall, it’s easy to do the same for the show. No maybe about it — Maybe Happy Ending has theatrical magic.

[batbeato]

why i hate six the musical

tldr: milquetoast pop feminism that ends up perpetuating misogyny

...I know this blog is mostly umineko but this musical is so bad I need to share it with everyone. More beneath the cut.

Six is about the six wives of Henry VIII. They have decided to put on a pop concert/competition where they sing about how much their lives sucked in order to determine who had it the worst and should lead their band.

I want to preface this by saying that while I don't think its runtime (about 70 minutes, as it's a one-act musical) warrants Broadway trips / ticket prices, the format of Six is not my issue with it. I love Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which is also a musical in concert(s) format.

I also acknowledge that the creators of Six were university students at the time of first creating this musical and I am not sure that this musical went through much, if any, revisions since then. This does explain some of the issues with this musical, but doesn't excuse them.

I did enjoy a few aspects of the 70 minutes of my life I spent on this musical.

Basing each queen on different pop stars.

Most of the music sounds good and being in a theater getting hyped up over the numbers / audience interaction is probably a blast.

All You Wanna Do is a great musical number and, unlike a single song from Mean Girls, has found a place on my musical theater playlist.

The zany concept. I love that.

I watched a 2022 Broadway production of the musical, and will be basing this post off of that.

Songs

This will be brief because I don't have too many issues with the music. It's a very pop-style musical, but that's a fine choice to make. Some of the lyrics are aggressively modern, which is a bit irksome, but it's mostly tolerable, and some of the too-modern jokes/lingos are a bit funny.

I have two main gripes with the music: one is that Heart of Stone is just... boring. It's very different from the rest of the musical and it falls very flat. It's also a song about abuse apologism that downplays Henry's abusive/shitty tendencies in favor of romanticizing him. The singer also precedes the song by blaming Henry's abuse on the other wives... "raging and storming right back". So the song fails for me on an emotional level while it's at it.

The other is that for whatever reason, in the middle of the show, they decide to have a mini-rave with this song called Haus of Holbein to introduce the next queen being from Germany. It adds nothing to any of the characters. This kind of song (a bop / fun to witness but filler) is already bad enough in a normal musical, but in a musical with this short a runtime, you need to make every minute (and every song) count.

Historical Inaccuracy

Musicals are no stranger to historical inaccuracy. I am also no stranger to historically inaccurate musicals. However, the historical inaccuracy of Six undermines its core message, which is that the stories of these women matter and that they should be defined beyond their marriages to Henry VIII.

If the musical itself cannot be bothered to properly relate these women as they were, why should the audience care about these women?

These inaccuracies, combined with the very sexual nature of many of the songs, sometimes even painting these women as shallow and/or catty, completely destroys the musical's intent. Rather than honoring these women, it creates shallow, misogynistic caricatures of them.

I am not a history buff and do not have the energy to go through how each song/portrayal may have butchered each queen. I do think that, for example, portraying Anne Boleyn as a selfie-taking rumor-spreading "I wanna dance and sing / Politics / Not my thing" when a quick google search shows that she did engage with politics, quite a bit... is misogyny. Which, let's get into that.

The Misogyny

So, the premise of this show is that these queens are in a competition. That means that for the entirety of the show, they act very 'catty', they downplay each other's trauma, and they use each other's trauma as a way to insult each other. This is to the point that they start comparing their numbers of miscarriages.

At that point, Catherine Perr tells them they've gone too far, she sings a song about how she had a life beyond Henry (mostly devoted to men with a single verse about her actual life) and then it's revealed that the competition was fake and staged to show the misogyny of such a competition and how defining these women by their husband rather than their actual lives is misogynistic/shitty.

Unfortunately these woman have still spent the past hour tearing each other down and defining themselves solely by their relationships to Henry VIII. The audience has also spent the past hour eating it up and laughing/cheering.

When Samantha Pauly, as Katherine Howard, performs All You Wanna Do, she has a progressive breakdown on stage about the sexual abuse and objectification she experienced over the course of her life. It's an incredibly powerful performance, with a lot of in-character acting/singing as the concert gives way to theater. For a moment, after this very intense song, I felt a lot of emotion about how this historical woman may have been treated. And then the show returned to wisecracking and women being catty.

If SIx had a second act after this twist, where the women support each other and sing about their actual lives, maybe this twist could work. It does not, and so despite this 'message', Six primarily perpetuates what it is trying to deconstruct: erasing the history of women and their many accomplishments in favor of defining them solely by their relationships to men.

The End

This one gets its own section because it pisses me off that badly. You see, after all these historically inaccurate numbers, all of this misogynistic catty banter, all of this sexualization of these dead women for the sake of crowd-pleasing, they have an ending number that amounts to a fix-it fanfiction.

This song is about all of them never getting with Henry (or surviving childbirth) and finding musical careers and forming their band together. They sing the line "Too many years lost in his story" but what is their story. This musical has not shared it with me.

Writing fix-it fanfiction about Henry's wives starting a band together is not how you fight how women have been erased from history. It is not how you recognize the achievements of these women and respect their memories.

What is Six about? It's a musical about how women have been erased from history that erases them further, even as it claims to be about these women speaking their truth and doing themselves justice. That's not feminism. That's fucking misogyny getting a standing ovation from people who don't want to actually unpack the systemic erasure of women from history.

[pliablehead]

Ask Game: 1, 5, 9, and 12

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are? - okay 1. A traumatic experience from my junior year of high school that I don't really care to elaborate on rn but that really messed me up like, socially, and kind of altered the course of the Shit I Was Doing at the time; 2. the 2014 Broadway revival production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and all the associated experiences I had!!; 3. the online community I joined in the back half of 2019 that kind of carried me through the bleakest stretch of the pandemic/lockdown. I think I'm a very different person now than I would have been if even 1 of these 3 things hadn't been a piece of my life

5. what made you start your blog? - being involved in the EARLIEST days of Team StarKid fandom! there wasn't really a presence on livejournal, my previous fandom space, except for like. me and my one friend nicole. but a lot more people were active and popping off over here (like around 2009/2010, literally before they'd even released a second show on their channel beyond AVPM) and so I got way more active, and then never left, lol

9. tell a story about your childhood - when i was in seventh grade i was runner-up in my school for the spelling bee, but the kid who won was unable to attend the district-wide one due to a scheduling conflict, so I got to go in his place, and I was also the runner-up in the district. i lost out to a home-schooled girl after going like 10 rounds back and forth just the two of us, and the word that took me out was 'tercentenary' (I got lost as to where I was in the process of spelling the word and just said 'tercenary'). my photo was in the newspaper!

12. oh god I don't have more advice. my advice is to try to remember to bring a sharpie to a concert or event where you want people's autographs because inevitably they will either a) not have any of their own or b) only have like, 1 between 4 or 5 guys and it will be beneficial to be able to share yours with other people who also want them to sign stuff. and then you can make friends :)

[d-criss-news]

From Hedwig to Helperbot: Darren Criss Looks Back on His Stage Journey

It’s nap time for Darren Criss’s newborn son, Brother, when the Glee star hops on our video chat. The camera’s off, but he quickly turns it on to say hello face-to-face dressed in workout clothes — a green sleeveless top and a ball cap — as he tries to do some chores at the same time.

Criss has a limited window at home as he prepares to star in the new musical Maybe Happy Ending, now playing at Broadway’s Belasco Theatre. The story, with book, music, and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, takes place 100 years in the future in Seoul, South Korea. Criss plays Oliver, an obsolete Belperbot along the lines of Siri or Google, “except more human-like, who is definitely past his prime and has been just waiting [in a Helperbot retirement facility] for his owner to pick him up,” Criss describes to Broadway Direct of the role. He stars opposite rising star Helen J Shen, who plays Oliver’s retired Helperbot neighbor. “It almost feels like two people in an old-folks’ home trying to connect with a family member.”

The plot sounds dramatic, but “make no mistake: This is a musical. It’s a musical comedy,” says Criss. “It has a lot of heart and a lot of joy and a lot of humor and amazing music, and it’s a hell of a spectacle.”

His friend Michael Arden, who won a Tony Award for his direction of Parade, was a big reason for Criss to sign on to the project — and serve as an executive producer as well. Arden brought the show to Criss’s attention many years ago, and again recently when Criss was starring in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway.

“This had been kind of percolating for a while, and between the pandemic and strikes and just a lot of other things, that really comes down to timing. So the stars just kind of aligned,” Criss says.

Criss, a figure on Broadway for well over a decade, started to gather a following while at University of Michigan as a founding member of Team StarKid, the student-run theater company behind the viral Harry Potter musical parody A Very Potter Musical. His big break came on the hit Fox TV show Glee back in 2010. The show had already aired for a full season before he was cast as Warbler Blaine Anderson and future love interest to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel. If not for Glee, he believes his career would not have had the same trajectory.

“I felt like this was my master’s in performance of music on camera,” Criss says, admitting that, until Glee, he didn’t consider himself a singer — rather, a musician who acted. “I have that show to thank for giving me any headway in the musical-theater space.”

In the middle of filming Glee in 2012, his Broadway debut called. Criss was asked to succeed Daniel Radcliffe in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for three weeks during a winter break from filming Glee. “I left on, like, a Friday night from my last day of shooting. I started rehearsal on a Saturday. Within 10 days, I was on a Broadway stage. I left my Sunday matinee, got on the plane, and went to work [at Glee] Monday morning as if nothing had happened. So it was a bit of a fever dream. It goes by as quickly as it came, like all other moments in life.”

Three years later, Criss stepped into his next Broadway role. This time, he played Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch for about two and half months, succeeding John Cameron Mitchell. “People always ask me, ‘What’s your dream role?’ I’m like, ‘I kind of did it,’” he says of the opportunity. “Hedwig was a role I always loved so much when I was a teenager, and getting to jump into it was so special to me and my wife. We both love Hedwig so much. It’s a big part of our relationship.”

More recently on Broadway, Criss starred in the play American Buffalo with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Rockwell in 2022 for a three-month limited run. “I completely idolized them,” he says of his scene partners. “I mean, if you see a pattern here, I recommend this to everybody, to just chase their heroes. I’ve just been chasing my heroes my whole life, and I’m not being bashful about it at all.”

Getting Rachel Evan Wood to play Audrey opposite Criss’s Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre earlier this year was something that he says was his idea.

“I pitched her pretty hard,” he said of getting casting directors to choose the Westworld actress as his costar. “When they heard her sing, I think it was very clear that this wasn’t like a favor to anybody. She was doing us a favor. The fact that she said yes just blew my mind.” The role of the nerdy floral shop worker wasn’t something Criss thought he’d get the opportunity to add to his résumé “because it just was never something that I thought anybody would let me do. … I wasn’t sprinting to that in the way that I was the other things in my life.”

Criss welcomed Brother, his second baby, this past June with his wife Mia. The timing couldn’t be more coincidental, since their first, Bluesy, was born during his run of American Buffalo.

As our conversation comes to a close, Criss says he kind of got all of his chores done and haphazardly put things away and folded laundry. The next project he wants to pursue is his writing, something he hasn’t tackled much in five years. Until then, he’s reveling in Maybe Happy Ending.

“I do find myself at a loss for words, trying to truly put into words how special this experience has been,” he adds. “I think it really is a thing of beauty that can really add quite a bit of ornamentation in perhaps a grim world.”

[xo-fever]

exquisite corpse

(tw- sh)

it appears i’ve made a mess of myself again.

i would be embarrassed if i died without warning and my body was on the embalming table without time for me to cover up. (use contrasting colors. green and yellow work best.)

i am a moth-eaten sweater hiding in the back of the closet, but one day i’ll be found and brought out, and i’ll be thrown away with an “ew” and nothing more.

there are termites and ticks in my fingertips and they leave their mark everywhere.

this skin is raw. this flesh has started to see the light of day.

what is black and white and red all over? my vision and my scars and my scabs.

everyone can see the colors i try so hard to hide. it doesn’t matter if it’s covered with cotton or polyester or leather or denim or flannel. everyone has x-ray vision. everyone is looking at me. everyone is judging my junkyard of a body.

this corpse is not exquisite, only jumbled and surreal.

i’m a culmination of every flaw; i’m made with conjoined achilles heels.

who am i to abuse other than me, myself, and i?

because if i take off the filter and shed all my clothes, i can’t even be beautiful on the inside.

-x.o. fever

[asksoldieron]

SO-12: The Spirit of Harpo Marx

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for Alight at the Window (SO-12) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Awwwwww, ya know? Awwwwww ❤️!

Poor Erik is in ⚡🔋no shape🔋⚡ to communicate, but he's doing his best. Maggie has no idea whether he's messing with her on purpose, or what's wrong with him, but she won't let him go. They'll get to him eventually. (I've just finished that part, actually. They've got him! Uh. Sorta. At least he's... safe now? 😅Oh, I can't say that with a straight face.)

This is the last of my queued posts/instalments, and I have no idea where my reading and drawing ability will be when it goes live. If I can't update you on my condition (and the condition of the next six instalments) I'll hafta have the spouse type a note for me. I want to do six more right away, or I might take a two week break, or - if I'm really struggling - it'll be a break of indeterminate length. I hope I'll be okay to just keep going, my Patrons have been so patient this year. Thanks, y'all.

But, either way, there will be a break at some point, because I'll have a while where I can't write or draw and that's going to eat up my backlog. Also, recent updates have done more stupid things to my theme and I think the site needs a redesign - maybe including some radical simplification. I'm just not mobile friendly and I can't make the current format behave. People with better eyesight than me do a lot of reading on their phones.

I have no idea how to build a community and I'm flailing, really, but maybe if I can get the interface more convenient, more people will like me? (I have no idea. Probably they won't.)

Look, though! You've got some extra art to tide you over! And a song!

I'm not in love with how Erik's design looks right now - he looks like a train wreck, but he should look like a train wreck. Nobody is going to fix his hair. I still feel self-conscious about it. He used to be cute. I've got to do a full-body rendering of how he'll clean up, but I don't have time for it now.

However, I did do a page of something trying to get comfortable with his ability to emote in train reck form. I don't have time to finish it, but I think it looks cool so I'm sharing.

This is potentially a way for me to serve you the music without lyric backgrounds that you can't read! It's very labour-intensive, but I was figuring out how to do it and it might get a little easier with practice. Also, my current tablet is struggling with the resolution and I plan to update it by the end of the year - depending on sale prices.

After I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I found out the original Off-Broadway incarnation had filked music with lyrics by John Cameron Mitchell. 🥹😊I'm calling it! This is something other people sharing my identity do to tell their stories! Filk musicals are an enby thing! We do not give a shit about the music industry's copyrights! I'm performing nonbinary correctly!

So here's the lyrics again, and maybe I'll give you the rest in comic form as my vision and my tools improve.

You Are Found! (based on "We Are Young" by fun.) I need a minute, I… I don’t know if I’m ready yet I’m tryin’ to get my shit together, Maggie, please don’t be upset My family must be looking for me somewhere very near Guess I knew you must be coming but I can’t believe you’re here, and… It’s been forever since I’ve seen your face I know you want to take me home But although it hurts to do this work they need my help for what it’s worth —  Oh, gods I’m not sure if I wanna go So maybe if, next time you see me, You can take me by the hand, You’ll steal me away At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down No, I wanna go home I’m just not done I guess that I, I just hoped We could visit and I’d get right back to work But I can’t go yet So I must forget 'Cause I think you’ll hafta steal me away At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down Steal me away at last (na na na na na na) Come steal me away at last (na na na na na na) Steal me away at last (na na na na na na) Come steal me away at last (na na na na na na) The gods have their own plan (na na na na na na) But I’m just one weary man (na na na na na na) So you're gonna hafta steal me away at last (na na na na na na) I have so much to do (na na na na na na) How can I go with you? (na na na na na na) So you're gonna hafta steal me away (na na na na na na) At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down At last I am found So I guess the party’s over Time to get sober, and come down So maybe if, next time you see me, You can take me by the hand You’ll steal me away at last

See you soon! Ha, I hope!

Late edit: Two week break, folks. No drawing ability yet, so we're stuck with it. I still hope to get you the next six by the end of the year. I'll keep you posted!

[Back to Site?]

[willowpudge27]

okay hit me with #8, #13, #42, #75, #99, and #100! gimme the söngs

Oh hell yeah let’s go

8 - Sehorn’s Farm by The Meters

To help me build up a daily bass practice routine that I can actually keep my dumb lil brain invested in I’ve just been learning songs, memorizing them, & running them daily to get that process to be a routine! This is one of those songs & it’s got a sweet guitar solo that translates to bass real nice!

13 - Exquisite Corpse from Hedwig & the Angry Inch (the broadway recording)

Back in the summer I played in a local production of Hedwig that was an absolute blast! Because the band was onstage for the show we got to do a cool thing on this song where the guitarist & I came out into the front for the big breakdown at the end & smacked our guitars together with fuzz & distortion running to make it super cacophonous & wacky

42 - Rain is a Good Thing by Luke Bryan

For the last year & a half I’ve been playing in a country band & this is one of the songs we do that we play a lot, usually as one of the first couple of the set to get the crowd’s energy really high. It’s a dang goofy song & it’s got a neat chromatic passing chord in the chorus that’s nice cause you don’t see that a whole lot in pop writing. It’s also my mom’s favorite country song

75 - The Grid by Tigran Hamasyan

Okay so this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn. Right before I graduated I played on a percussionist’s senior recital & he wanted to do like 4 songs by Tigran, who is a jazz/metal fusion pianist who makes some of the most rhythmically wacky music I’ve ever heard.

99 - Nada Surf Hotel by Autonomics

Oh boy do you like pop punk by dudes with depression? Because I have the thing for you! One my favorite tracks off one of my favorite albums hands down, a great mix up upbeat driving music with crushingly apathetic lyrics. If I ever start making uquizzes I’m gonna be pulling from this!!

100 - You May Be Right by Billy Joel

Look…dad rock is great

[nervous-breakdown-hat]

I guessed 40-60, which would average out to 3-ish per year since I was 10. I wonder how many people are that confident in their answers because this seems like an impossible question.

Even if you discount that I live in NYC and have seen a lot of Broadway, my high school did two shows a year, but I probably didn't see all of them. And then I had friends in a neighboring town's high school who's musicals I'd go see. Plus the local park where I grew up put on one outdoor summer show a year, which we used to go to as a kid, even if we'd fall asleep before the end.

(Broadway I've seen off the top of my head: The King and I, Rent (x3), Les Mis (x3), Jekyll & Hyde, Chicago, Cabaret, In the Heights, Hamilton (x2), Billy Elliot, Beetlejuice, Prom, Amelie, Six, Hairspray, American Idiot, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (parts 1 & 2), Be More Chill, Godspell, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, How to Succeed in Business (x2), Spring Awakening, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and now that I've listed these out I'm thinking 60 might actually be under guessing because I've seen at least 4 operas, and I can think of 7 off-Broadway shows I've seen, and I've been to Rocky Horror a few times, and at least one ballet)

*by live theatre i mean plays, musicals, operas, ballets, concert versions of musicals, staged readings, & things of that nature.

if you want, list the names of the shows you've seen in the tags!

[maximuswolf]

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (original off broadway taping of opening night 1998)

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (original off broadway taping of opening night 1998) /r/Hedwigandtheangryinch/comments/1dkwexe/hedwig_and_the_angry_inch_original_off_broadway/ Submitted June 20, 2024 at 11:30PM by HotelAgreeable3186 https://ift.tt/q7J3Drx via /r/Music