Monday, October 1, 2018

Chew the Fat: Plays and Musicals!

Martinex1: We frequently talk about comics, movies, televisions and music; but we rarely discuss the theater, plays, and musicals.

From about the time of high school until the current day, my friends and I have made a habit of going to the theater.  From Shakespeare to Arthur Miller to Andrew Lloyd Webber's works, we've seen our share of stage productions.  My wife and I have season tickets and see four or five shows per year. 

And through the years, there have been some memorable performances.  Some productions are wacky and weird.  Some serious and some humorous.  Some are just odd and the choices questionable.  Some leave me wanting more.  Others leave me cold.  

I am sure we all have theater experiences - as audience and participants. 

It is a broad topic I know, but what are your favorite experiences at the theater, and what would you not recommend?  Let's Chew the Fat!













13 comments:

Charlie Horse 47 said...

I have made a point of seeing high school plays my nieces and nephews have been in. These are enjoyable events and I recommend them!

Otherwise I haven’t seen an adult play since i was a kid,!lol, notably the original Jesus Christ Superstar and The Wiz.

Now that we are empty nesters this year it’s time to explore this!

Redartz said...

Nice topic, Marti!

One of my old girlfriends in high school was a big theatre buff, and was in many plays at school. Our town had a small summer stock venue, and she was active in that as well. One summer she convinced me to participate, hence I was singing and dancing onstage as a knight in "Camelot". Thank God there were no smartphones available back then. Suffice it to say, there are good reasons I'm a visual artist and not a performing one. I did, however, do frequent set work for said theatre, and also for a local ballet company.

As for seeing plays, I've seen numerous, but not frequently. The last was a couple years ago when my wife and I caught "Wicked". We had both read the books, and were thrilled with the performance. Phenomenal production, and most entertaining.

J.A. Morris said...

Not fan at all of musicals. I'm just not crazy about the "traditional" Broadway-style singing, with a few exceptions (West Side Story is a good one). I do enjoy Hamilton though, Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of the greatest American artists of our time (In The Heights was also good). My wife, however, is a huge fan and currently singing in a regional production of The Sound Of Music. So I tolerate musicals.

I am a big fan of stage plays, I'd say Arthur Miller and August Wilson are favorites that come to mind. I act in regional theatre and just finished run as Peter Quince in A Mid-Summer Night's Dream. I also act in a lot of re-enactments of old time radio plays, getting ready to provide sound effects for a performance of Orson Welles' War Of The Worlds broadcast.

Humanbelly said...

Marti, I'm looking over my shoulder, wondering if you've somehow planted a spy-cam in my kitchen? "Are YOO talkin' ta ME??"

Theater person to the core, me, which I'm pretty sure is common knowledge 'round here. Tech Director (set builder and installer-- not designer, mind you--) by day, and in the midst of a steadier return to acting (which both my degrees are in) by (many) nights and weekends. My home theater is a medium-sized professional company in DC, called THEATER J--- "America's largest and most influential Jewish theater company"-- which is true in the grand scheme. But we are still only a staff of 8 on the playing field with organizations 4 or 5 times our size. DC's large, vibrant, thriving professional theater community has two tiers-- Big Companies and Little Companies. We are officially a Big Company-- but w/out a doubt just about the smallest one of all. "World's Smallest Giant"-- ha, that's us! I'm in the midst of my 15th season there, and am honestly enjoying my job more than I ever have before-- we have a fantastic and inspiring young Artistic Director who I love having as my boss.

Venn Diagram observation: Not a ton of old school Comic Book types (y'know-- guys our age, often very introverted, accustomed to keeping their hobby under wraps) in the acting ranks, although they were somewhat more common in the tech theater world. There has been an astonishing generational shift with that, though. OPEN DISCUSSIONS in dressing rooms with the 30-and-under crowd about Thor, about Captain America, about Batman, etc (both films and comics). Very much like discussing football or television shows. Even more encouraging: at a recent read-through, during a discussion about story-telling, a cited FIREFLY as a particular favorite, and ALL OF THE WOMEN in cast gave a loud, vocal, affirmative response. The GIRLS!!! They got into the club-house!!!

And hey, my one STRONG recommendation to our assembled teammates here: if you have any hankering to dip your toes in the theater world. . . be it as an actor, a technician/builder, a backstage runner, or even on the front-of-house/publicity/hospitality arm of the organization-- LOOK UP YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY THEATERS, and getcher self involved! The experience of that creative gestalt is nourishment for the soul, expands one's world, and is honestly the same regardless of what level of theater you may be doing.

And--- I am going to show some discipline and attempt to not take over this discussion, eh? Yeah? Wooo-hoo!

HB

Ward Hill Terry said...

Okay, you found a topic to lure me in! For a time, I was a professional actor. I was auditioning for anything I could, and taking all kinds of acting work. I did theater, low-budget commercials, movie background work, live industrials, costume-wearing promo jobs, etc. For this crowd, I'll share just a couple of things. When I was sending my picture and resume to anyone who might look at it, I sent it to Marvel Productions. Sometimes they needed actors to be their characters in conjunction with the release of a film or some other film-related product. Fortunately for me, a fan of many of late 70s Marvel Super-Heroes comics, I was hired at various times to be Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man, and Wolverine! I am in many photographs I have never seen with people I don't know.
I haven't done much acting in recent years, preferring to spend my nights and weekends with my wife and daughter, but about four years ago I accepted a role in a production of Light Up The Sky. As my character was not on stage for the first half of the show, I was backstage deeply engrossed on my smartphone perusing the blog Legion of Super-Bloggers!
That was more fun than playing solitaire over and over!

Selenarch said...

As a kid my parents record collection fell into two main groups, the Beatles and Broadway shows. I grew up with these and for a couple of years we had season passes for small productions of most of the major ones, Oklahoma, Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair ...

I think it's pretty nifty to have a familiarity with all of those, and I like the films as well. My Fair Lady is a particular favorite, and while I really liked West Side Story as a kid, I recently re-watched the movie, and it doesn't seem nearly as cool as I remember it. Mostly the voices and performances didn't have that Broadway crispness, I thought.

I really liked HB's story. Local theater is so much fun, particularly if you know someone in the cast with a little bit of talent who's been bitten by the bug . Maybe the performance isn't a knockout, but just seeing their enthusiasm for something they love can be pretty heartwarming and fun.

And nowadays there's something that I definitely didn't have during the Bronze Age ... Bollywood! Big action thrillers with musical numbers, how is that in any way not awesome?!

Thanks for the topic, and cheers!

Disneymarvel said...

With parents from the late '20s, I grew up watching all the old musicals and enjoying them. Every summer we would drive to St. Louis for the weekend and see an outdoor play at the Muny in Forest Park.

A favorite memory of these was seeing the original Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, back to reprise her role on the Muny stage! She was amazing!

We also saw many of the classics, like Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma and many more.

In high school, I never acted in our school plays, but did participate by playing trumpet in the pit band and painting the scenery backdrops. One of my favorites was "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

Other comics musicals that I've enjoyed "Annie," which I saw during it's original run, along with a 40th anniversary production this past summer, back at the Muny. Also, a Funky Winkerbean play, which was very good, at a local high school.

I moved to St. Louis in the '80s, so have continued to see productions at the Muny and at the indoor venue of the Fabulous Fox Theatre! My wife and I have had season tickets a few years, and have seen many more recent productions of "Cats," "Little Shop of Horrors," "Phantom of the Opera," "Beauty and the Beast," "The Lion King," "Aladdin," "Mary Poppins," and so many more.

To close, I'd say two of my favorite stage plays are "1776" and "A Christmas Carol."

The Prowler said...

I will say this about that:

I have seen many of the movie versions of famous musicals. As some of you may know, 1982's Annie occupies a special place in my heart. A few other standouts are Grease, West Side Story and My Fair Lady. In fact, Selenarch, if you are referring to the recent Fathom event reshowing of West Side Story, I too finally caught it on the big screen.

One thing I find very interesting about Grease, which was one of those Broadway shows that became a movie that then inspired a second version on Broadway that more closely resembled the movie. Grease was also reworked to make it more "school friendly". I do believe there is even a very chaste Junior High Version that makes the rounds...

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!!!

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(Well be-bop-a-lula she's my baby,
Be-bop-a-lula I don't mean maybe.
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Be-bop-a-lula I don't mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula she's my baby love,
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She's the chickie with most everything.
She's the girlie that shakes that thing
She ain't got a diamond ring,

Be-bop-a-lula she's my baby,
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Be-bop-a-lula I don't mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula she's my baby love,
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Osvaldo Oyola said...

I love musicals, esp. the older more classic ones (despite their content problems), so like I know all the songs to Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance"(which I was in in HS) and Lerner & Loewe's "My Fair Lady." "The Sound of Music" is one of my favorite films - and of course "West Side Story."

"Oklahoma," "The Music Man," "Guys & Dolls" I love all that stuff.

I love "Hamilton" (and have seen it twice two years in a row to the day - anniversary date night for me and the wife).

That said, there is a whole swath of musicals in-between I don't like as much. For example, while I think "Jesus Christ Superstar" is alright, there is no other Andrew Lloyd Weber musical I can stand listening to, let alone would go see.

Oh and as much as I detest the South Park TV show, the film is a fine fine musical. Impressive, really. I love it.

I was in a student written and directed musical in college, too. Probably the highlight of my short stage career (I got great reviews).

Graham said...

Our local community college presents a musical annually. These were really my first exposure to musicals as a kid. I was inspired to see some of them that were made into movies. I really liked The Music Man and Grease the most.

One thing that I never thought about was opera. My daughters' music teacher took them to an opera every year presented by the state's opera foundation, and I went as a chaperone. Now those I really enjoyed each time, and the kids did, too

Humanbelly said...

This is SO COOL!

Look HOW MANY of our happy tribe here are folks that have an honest-to-goodness appreciation for the theatrical arts, along with a sizable portion who have been outright participants! This is so heartening-!!

It's also kinda hilarious that even here. . . EVEN HERE. . . the ancient "Love Musical Theater/Hate Musical Theater" feud rears its immortal head. I swear to Glod, this conflict almost certainly began when Able offhandedly opined to Cain, "Y'know, I think CATS is the best show ever written. . . PERIOD." And we know full well that the conversation went well-south from there. . .

HB

Humanbelly said...

Osvaldo, I'm gonna toss a virtually unknown Andrew Lloyd Weber show for your consideration-- BY JEEVES. If you have any appreciation for PG Wodehouse at all-- this confection is the perfect musical adaptation of Jeeves & Wooster (and their usual crowd of idle-rich malingerers---). It's the most non-ALW show he's probably ever done. And the recording of it works perfectly as a self-aware recording.

HB

Dr. O said...

Thanks, HB! I love Jeeves and Wooster! And have long thought a satirical version of a comic starring Wong and Dr. Strange in the roles would be great.

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