As many of my readership know, one of my favorite topics to write about is Broadway poster art. I love an effective and efficient piece of graphic art that can entirely sum up a show in one memorable image. The Broadway poster art is the image that invites the audience to buy tickets, and stays with them long after they part the theatre. That is why it is essential that Broadway poster art get it exactly right. It’s part of a show’s marketing and its legacy
The 2016 Presidential Election is just a few days away and we will soon learn whether Hillary Rodham Clinton or Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. With that, I thought it might be fun to look at the songs that celebrate elections, leaders and the office of POTUS. Here is an Election Day playlist to help you get through the results as they trickle in.
The prospect of musical version of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had to have been, at one point, ridiculous to imagine. Thinking about it, one might have expected lessons in history and literature, high school tedium brought to life onstage. Also, a story that is largely locked to a space the size of a raft isn’t exactly going to lend itself to the song and dance treatment. Indeed, when such a musical arrived on Broadway in 1985, people balked at the idea and critics weren't exactly enthusiastic. Interestingly enough, Big River turned out to be the hit of the season, running 1,005 performances and winning the Tony Award for Best Musical
Bye Bye Birdie opened on Broadway in 1960, a time when musical theatre began to move in new, more daring, directions. Bye Bye Birdie proved to be an innovative musical that introduced the idea of rock & roll music to Broadway audiences. Yes, the Charles Strouse (music) / Lee Adams (lyrics) score is mostly traditional musical theatre, but it did include three songs that were a pastiche of Elvis Presley-like numbers. Michael Stewart’s book is one of the most finely-crafted original stories ever to be shaped for Broadway: colorful characters, a compelling situation, a touch of ridiculous farce, romance, and a happy-ever-after ending. People often underappreciate how solid the story is because it seems so simple and easy, but the cause/effect relationship between characters and their actions is extremely complicated and well-justified. Marry this complexity of storytelling to a tuneful, often witty score, and Bye Bye Birdie really needs to be acknowledged for the fine piece of musical theatre that it is
