Aug 12

Aug 12 Remembering Big

Movies have long been the inspiration for Broadway musicals. It is easy to say that this is a recent trend, but that simply is not so. Just as there have been many musicals that have taken their inspiration from plays, books, and historical events, there have been musicals that draw from cinema (from the 50’s on, anyway). In the 1990s, the trend toward adapting films for the musical stage seemed to gain even more traction, and by the turn of the century, everywhere you looked on Broadway you could find movies reimagined for the stage.

Aug 10

Aug 10 Remembering Steel Pier

Mark Robinson

Music That Makes Me Dance

The composing team of Kander and Ebb were often attracted to properties that allowed them to tell a show-within-a-show story, often using the show or entertainment style within to provide commentary on the show the theatre audience is watching. Cabaret (cabaret), Chicago (vaudeville), Kiss of the Spider Woman (film), Curtains (musical theatre), The Scottsboro Boys (minstrel shows) and, even to a degree the village storytellers in Zorba employ this conceit. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that the team found a way to utilize the dance marathons in Atlantic City of the 1930s to similar effect in the short-lived musical Steel Pier.

Aug 8

Aug 8 Married to Showtunes: A Playlist that Requires a Prenup

Mark Robinson

Music That Makes Me Dance

Summer is such a popular time for weddings, everyone betting the bank on happiness and receiving gifts for trying. I’m not a fan of weddings and I often find myself drifting into distraction when I’m at one. At a recent wedding, during all the pomp and circumstance and the ongoing blah blah blah, I of course had to entertain myself somehow to keep from nodding off. So, I got to thinking about showtunes about getting married and decided to make a list of them. My one rule: any song that made the list had to include the words “married” or “marriage” in its title in some form. Here is what I came up with…

Aug 6

Aug 6 Remembering The Life

Mark Robinson

Music That Makes Me Dance

A musical that seems to have those who remember it divided, with some people having enjoyed it and others just absolutely disgusted by it, was the 1997 Broadway production of The Life. With music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Ira Gasman, and a book by Coleman, Gasman, and David Newman, The Life took a look at the underworld of New York City’s Times Square circa the 1980s. The seedy and unsavory world may have been hard for some people to get excited about, considering the show was populated with pimps and hookers, hustlers and drug dealers. Others easily connected to the piece, understanding that these characters were the product of a harsh world, runaways and forgotten people and that this was their way of making ends meet and to escape living on the streets.

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