Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jan 12, 2012, 1:07 pm
... tone of the book. But upon second viewing, the book isn't so much witty as jokey, replete with one-liners but lacking in any larger cohesion or significance. In his book for Xanadu, Beane deftly maintained the unifying themes of playfulness and self-conscious irony. Here, the characters ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jan 9, 2012, 2:25 pm
I've heard a lot of apologists for Bonnie & Clyde say that it was surprisingly good. You know, for a Frank Wildhorn show. Well, saying that Bonnie & Clyde is Wildhorn's least awful musical is sort of like saying leukemia is the most survivable form of cancer, or that Mitt Romney is the most electabl...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jan 4, 2012, 8:30 pm
I had been hearing really great things about the revised version of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which has been kicking around for a few years now in various workshops and readings. In fact, the advance word was so strong, and the sources so reliable, that On a Clear Day was easily one of the...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jan 2, 2012, 2:00 pm
I like to think that nobody deliberately sets out to write a bad musical. Every composer, lyricist, and librettist who has ever set pen to paper, hands to piano keys, or fingers to computer keyboard has had it in his or her mind to craft something of quality. But, as I'm fond of telling my st...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Dec 31, 2011, 2:10 pm
For Christmas, I treated myself to the Stephen Sondheim's Hat Box, which comprises both volumes of his collected lyrics: Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. I'm in the active process of devouring the latter, and was struck by one of Sondheim's sidebars, this one about "Awards and Their Useless...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Dec 28, 2011, 5:26 pm
More blogging catch-up today. This post is about two (gasp) non-musicals that I saw recently on Broadway. One of these shows has already closed, but is likely to return later in the season. The other closes this week, about a month sooner than it was supposed to. In short: the one that's coming b...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Dec 26, 2011, 2:02 pm
I'm really late to the game on this one, as The Blue Flower closed at the Second Stage Theatre (2ST) about a month ago, but I'm taking advantage of the semester break to catch up on some of my long-overdue blogging. So here goes. I always like to give shows a second chance, no matter what my ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Dec 19, 2011, 3:26 pm
The fall semester at the Boston Conservatory is over. ("Big breath in. And release.") Now I get a chance to catch up on some much-delayed blogging. Among the numerous shows in my current blogging backlog is the Boston stop of the national tour of La Cage aux Folles. I was so enamored of Terry...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Dec 6, 2011, 3:50 pm
I hated history in high school. At the time, I thought this was simply because the subject didn't interest me, but I eventually came to understand that it was because my history teachers were somewhat perfunctory and uninspired in the way they presented the subject matter. In college, I was "...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Dec 2, 2011, 11:30 am
Dear Reader: The following is a guest blog posting from one of my most loyal readers, and newest friends, Dr. Geoffrey Greene (@Elder_Greene) from Tampa. Enjoy. -- C.C. Just where has Tommy Tune been all these years?  He disappeared from Broadway in self-imposed exile following the failure ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Nov 27, 2011, 5:41 pm
For most musical-theater performers, Godspell is a rite of passage. Or at least it seems that way. I mean, is there any drama nerd out there who hasn't done Godspell? I suppose, perhaps, there must be, but I can't help shaking this notion that everyone who wants to perform in musicals has to have at...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Nov 16, 2011, 2:03 pm
I've always admired the work of Michael John LaChiusa. Let me rephrase that: I've always felt that I should admire his work. I appreciate the ambition of his material choices and his uncompromising focus on creating meaningful, challenging works: The Wild Party, Hello Again, Marie Christine, See Wha...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Oct 11, 2011, 6:59 pm
I've seen Candide more times than I can really count. The first time I saw the show, it was in a fourth-floor walk-up loft in the Back Bay of Boston. It was about 30 years ago, but I seem to recall that they used the revised script from the 1974 Hal Prince revival. Since then, I've seen Candi...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Sep 28, 2011, 2:47 pm
I'm about to break one of the cardinal rules of my criticism course. I encourage my students to eschew "empty" adjectives ("amazing," "fabulous," "incredible," etc.) and search instead for more specific and evocative words when they're writing up their reviews. One word in particular that I s...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Sep 23, 2011, 3:53 pm
Someone is always trying to bring Follies back to Broadway, or at least it seems. There was talk of moving the 1998 production at Papermill Playhouse to NYC, but apparently backstage politics put the kibosh on that move. The well-received 2007 Encores production also had people calling for a Broadwa...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Sep 17, 2011, 8:11 am
... Piazza, A Little Night Music, Memphis, The Pirates of Penzance, Rent, Show Boat ... Mormon makes its first appearance on the list, which is understandable, because it ... I think this explains the presence of The Spitfire Grill, Starting Here ... nonethless exhibits very little genuine cr...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Sep 7, 2011, 8:59 pm
Well, apparently, my readers love a challenge. There was a huge response to the U.S. version of my Musicals Across the Map Quiz, in terms of blog traffic as well as Twitter chatter. So I figured I should get to working on a worldwide edition of same. Of course, with the U.S. edition, it was e...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Sep 5, 2011, 9:29 am
Don't ask me how I got started on this. I can't really remember. I think I was looking at a map of Europe, and I suddenly started to think about various musicals that took place in each of the countries, challenging myself to find at least one for each country. Then I got to thinking that thi...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Sep 4, 2011, 8:26 pm
A confession: There are certain historic entries into the musical-theater canon that I've never really warmed up to, supposed masterpieces that I can appreciate for their innovations and craft, but that in performance usually leave me cold. One of those is The Threepenny Opera, which, although I rec...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 31, 2011, 9:20 pm
The songbook revue is both the easiest and the hardest type of theatrical show to pull off. "Easiest" because you seemingly just throw together a bunch of songs and let the audience revel in waves of nostalgia. "Hardest" because, if you don't want the audience tuning out after the first few numbers,...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 28, 2011, 2:00 pm
Well, Hurricane Irene seems to have officially landed ashore in the Boston area, so much of the city has rightly shut down to keep the populace safe. In particular, all events have been canceled at the Boston Conservatory, which has given me the chance to catch up on some of my blogging backlog.
...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 20, 2011, 9:56 pm
I was a bit delayed in seeing Death Takes a Holiday, the new musical with a score by Maury Yeston and book by the late Peter Stone and the not-late Thomas Meehan. The show is currently running Off Broadway under the auspices of the Roundabout Theatre Company. My delay in catching Death wasn't...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 17, 2011, 7:34 pm
As I was in the process of writing this review, the producers of the new Off-Broadway production Traces announced that the show would be extending its run until January 2012. The show opened last week to some really strong reviews, so the extension was certainly no surprise. Traces was originally sc...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 11, 2011, 10:53 pm
Lots of people seem to have their nose out of joint over the new Off-Broadway production of Rent, which opened last night at the New World Stages. (Well, those who aren't complaining about Porgy and Bess.) It's only been three years since the Broadway production of Rent ended its twelve-year run, an...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 9, 2011, 11:01 am
Recently on Twitter, my friend Howard Sherman (@HESherman) started a hashtag topic on the best closing lines from the stage (#beststageclosinglines). Needless to say, I contributed a few of my own, and I'm sure you won't be surprised that they were mostly from musicals. (Although I did inclu...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Aug 3, 2011, 12:24 pm
I'm not really a summer person. I never really have been. I've always looked forward to the fall, partly because my birthday is in September, but also because, when I was in school, I always looked forward to the the new academic year. (Yeah, I'm kind of a dork.) And now that I'm teaching full-time,...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 30, 2011, 11:58 am
How can a show be a masterpiece if it has no official version? That's the question I always pose to my students when we cover Show Boat. There's no question that the show is historically significant. With Show Boat, librettist and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, along with composer Jerome Kern, intr...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 27, 2011, 8:00 am
Yesterday on Twitter, there was a lot of talk about a recent list that EW.com posted of the 13 Funniest Broadway Musicals Ever. (Although upon closer inspection the list was actually published in June. Whatever.) Click through the link above for a slide show of the musicals that made EW's lis...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 26, 2011, 3:43 pm
Dear Reader: Here is the first in what I hope will be a series of Second Opinion reviews here on EIKILFM. The authors will be coming from my growing population of theater and criticism students at the Boston Conservatory. First up: One of the best students I've had in the 8 years I've been teaching...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 21, 2011, 9:42 pm
One of the most overused punchlines of recent times has been "[Fill in the Blank] -- The Musical." You take the most unlikely property and speculate about making it into a Broadway tuner, and - pow - instant comedy. For example: Schindler's List -- The Musical The Warren Report -- The Musica...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 15, 2011, 3:42 pm
One recent trend on Broadway has been a series of revivals of well-regarded plays that, in the harsh light of retrospect, have revealed themselves to be somewhat less than we once thought. The recent production of Equus shone a none-too-flattering light on the play's heavy-handed melodrama and archa...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 14, 2011, 11:33 am
Dear Reader: For some reason, I didn't receive a press invite for the return engagement of Hair on Broadway. Harrumph. But I did get a chance to catch and review the touring production when it was in Boston. Here's my review reprinted here for your convenience. -- C.C. A few days ago, the go...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 8, 2011, 10:00 am
I missed Sleep No More when it played in Boston in 2009, under the auspices of the American Repertory Theater. There was a mix-up with my press tickets, and by the time I realized something was amiss, the entire run for the show had already sold out. I was pretty pissed. I was in New York la...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 7, 2011, 3:53 pm
We don't see a lot of revues any more. There was a time, some 80 to 90 years ago, when musical revues were a staple of the Broadway theater scene. Of course, this was when "book musicals" were on the ascendant, and they eventually supplanted both revues and operettas, essentially by morphing ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 5, 2011, 8:59 pm
Every once in a while, I see a production that reminds me of what theater can really be. I'm not talking about commercial theater. I'm talking about theater in its purest form, which, at least for me, is about connecting with people and their stories and about communicating important and challenging...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jul 1, 2011, 3:14 pm
You may recall that the Tony Awards got booted out of the Radio City Music Hall this year and had to make do with the Beacon Theatre, which is about half the size. (Roughly 6,000 versus 3,000 seats.) This caused no end of consternation on the part of Broadway producers, some of whom had to settle f...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 25, 2011, 10:17 pm
We seem to be seeing quite a bit more of these "cinecasts," i.e. Broadway shows and the like taped and presented in local movie theaters. It started with Rent, of course, and lately we've seen cinecasts of The Importance of Being Earnest, Memphis, and Fela, as well as a number of shows from London, ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 23, 2011, 12:12 pm
West Side Story may be the best musical that I've never actually seen work on stage. I mean no disrespect to the piece itself, which I consider to be almost a masterpiece. (Read my review of the recent Broadway West Side Story revival). I've just never seen a production that did the piece full justi...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 18, 2011, 1:48 pm
I don't know about you, but I'm definitely bored with the whole Spider-Man thing. Last week, the show finally opened after a record-breaking 183 previews, but I had long since given up paying attention. Yeah, it was great that Julie Taymor came to the opening, and yeah it was kind of condescending f...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 14, 2011, 2:02 pm
This is not a review. I repeat: This is not a review. As you may know, the fine, talented, and delightful crew that gave us's Off-Broadway run. Now, technically, critics are not invited to these developmental workshops, and I think rightly so. Artists deserve the chance to work out the...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 13, 2011, 12:01 pm
 I haven't watched the Tony Awards yet. I know that sounds strange, but I had a concert to attend last night, and earlier this year I disconnected my TiVo and got rid of cable, and I haven't had the desire nor the ambition to do whatever it is I need to do to get my TV up and running without cable....
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 6, 2011, 10:29 pm
It's funny how reasonable critics, and audience members, can disagree about the merits of a particular piece. After I sat through Lysistrata Jones last Friday night - "endured" would be a more appropriate verb, actually - I fully expected to awake this morning to a set of reviews that echoed my own ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - Jun 5, 2011, 9:16 pm
Thrilling musical theater can come from the most unlikely places. As I'm forever reminding my students, there's no such thing as a bad idea for a musical, only poor execution. If you amass the right collection of forces, talents, viewpoints, and luck, even the most improbable story sources can sing....
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 28, 2011, 9:58 pm
Before posting my recent review of A Minister's Wife, I thought long and hard about my reaction to the show. I went in genuinely wanting to like the show, but somehow it left me rather cold. (Read my review.) But, for a number of reasons, the prospect of posting my review made me uncomfortable. ...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 27, 2011, 11:39 am
On Wednesday, the producers of the new Off-Broadway musical Lucky Guy announced that the show would be closing this coming Sunday, May 29th, after only 14 regular performances and 23 previews. The show was originally scheduled to run until the end of July. The closing announcement came as a b...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 22, 2011, 8:47 am
When My One and Only had its out-of-town tryout in Boston back in 1983, word got around town rather quickly that the show wasn't working. Avant-garde opera director Peter Sellars was originally hired to helm the show, but the result was, by all accounts, a pretentious mess. What's more, star Tommy T...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 20, 2011, 9:29 am
The Independent Theater Bloggers Association (ITBA) is proud to announce the 2011 recipients of the Third Annual Patrick Lee Theater Blogger Awards. Patrick Lee was one of the ITBA's founding members, and was the author of the blog Just Shows to Go You. Patrick passed away suddenly la...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 18, 2011, 2:04 pm
In a theater season replete with commercial-minded, but artistically spare, musicalizations of Hollywood properties (Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), it's rather refreshing to contemplate a musical based on passion and ideas, particularly those of the great George Ber...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 17, 2011, 3:07 pm
You know what's really humbling? Being in a room with a bunch of people who know a lot more than you do, about a subject that you thought you knew a whole lot about. And you know what's even more humbling? When that conversation gets taped for broadcast purposes. A few months back, I was aske...
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Christopher C. posted an article on Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals - May 17, 2011, 1:22 pm
The movie "Born Yesterday" is easily one of my all-time favorites. I love to pop in the DVD on a rainy afternoon and luxuriate in the warm glow of Judy Holliday's star-making performance as Billie Dawn. As much as I also adore Bette Davis in "All About Eve" and Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard," ...
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