Friday, April 6, 2012
The current theater season has provided me with ample opportunities for wistful nostalgia: Godspell, Evita, Follies. These were some of the recordings that I and other show-tune queens of a …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 07:02PMTuesday, April 3, 2012
A few weeks back, during spring break at the Boston Conservatory, I took advantage of the brief semester hiatus to hightail it down to New York to see as many shows as possible. (I mean, duh…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:05PMThursday, March 29, 2012
When I saw the new musical Once Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop, I found it disarming and sweet, but I had serious reservations about plans to move the show to Broadway. It's a…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:40PMMonday, March 26, 2012
So, you didn't win the tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar? Well, here's another chance to catch a brand new Broadway show absolutely free. We've been hearing for a few years now about the…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:57AMSunday, March 25, 2012
I continue to be amazed by purists who seem to think that any changes to Porgy and Bess represent nothing less than sacrilege. Of course, it started with Stephen Sondheim's now-infamous scre…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:01PMWednesday, March 21, 2012
What’s so special about Oklahoma!? Seventy years ago when Oklahoma! premiered on the New York stage, it singlehandedly changed musical theater forever. Well, I say “singlehandedly,” bu…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:20AMMonday, March 12, 2012
As you may have read, two formidable cultural icons are making double comebacks on Broadway this season: Jesus Christ and Andrew Lloyd Webber. The former is represented by both Godspell and …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:00PM"Carrie - There's never been a musical like her" That was the tag line in the ads for Carrie when it first appeared on stage in 1988. At the time, it was certainly true, but not really in th…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:40PMSaturday, February 25, 2012
Executive director Rob Orchard describes the current and future plans for this two-year-old arts-programming initiative.
SOURCE: TheaterMania at 08:00AMFriday, February 24, 2012
There have been quite a few musicals over the years that just kind of break your heart. Usually, these shows sound great on their cast recordings and make you wonder how, despite such terrif…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:03PMFriday, February 17, 2012
Dear Reader: As you may know, I, your humble blogger, teach musical-theater history at The Boston Conservatory. As part of my course, I direct a series of staged readings of historically imp…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:36AMThursday, January 12, 2012
As you may know, the terminally perky little musical Lysistrata Jones closed this past weekend on Broadway after only 30 performances, despite a near-rave from Ben Brantley of the New York T…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 01:07PMMonday, January 9, 2012
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 m…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:25PMWednesday, January 4, 2012
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. I…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:30PMMonday, January 2, 2012
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 …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:00PMSaturday, December 31, 2011
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 o…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:10PMWednesday, December 28, 2011
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. …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:26PMMonday, December 26, 2011
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 …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:02PMMonday, December 19, 2011
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 c…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:26PMTuesday, December 6, 2011
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 wer…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:50PMFriday, December 2, 2011
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 …
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 11:30AMSunday, November 27, 2011
For most musical-theater performers, Godspell is a right 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, th…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 05:41PMWednesday, November 16, 2011
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 uncompr…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:03PMTuesday, October 11, 2011
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…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 06:59PMWednesday, September 28, 2011
I'm about to break one of the cardinal rules of my criticism course. I encourage my students to eschew "empty" adjectives ("amazing," "fabulous," "incredib…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 02:47PMFriday, September 23, 2011
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 politic…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 03:53PMSaturday, September 17, 2011
So it's back to school for me and for my students. This semester promises to be even more zany-kooky-crazy than ever, and I couldn't be happier. Of course, one of the things I look forward t…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:11AMWednesday, September 7, 2011
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 fig…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:59PMMonday, September 5, 2011
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 t…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 09:29AMSunday, September 4, 2011
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 cra…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:26PMA 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 cra…
SOURCE: Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals at 08:26PM 
