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Posts tagged musical
What’s In A Spontaneous Musical II: Number Attack!
Aug 23rd
In the past post, I discussed people breaking out into song and dance in places outside the theater – from the general hospital to even Disneyland. In New York, where I saw a genuine Broadway show (Beauty and the Beast, to be exact), there’s a recent epidemic not pertaining to the swine flu pandemic of the here and now – there’s a spontaneous musical popping up at the mall or at a Walmart!
This theatrical group, which specializes in guerrilla musical theater, is called “Break Out In Song,” and the numbers the amateurs perform (or are they?) are no rip-offs of Improv Everywhere’s Food Court Musical! Those hits are pure Broadway gems: “Consider Yourself” from Oliver on Times Square, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl at South Street Seaport, the theme from Anything Goes on the Intrepid, and “If My Friends Could See Me Now” from Sweet Charity at the Time Warner Center! If I were to go back to my birthplace of Paterson, life would most definitely be a musical, but not now, since I’m in college. There’s no flashy costuming, no leotardlike attire, and no glitzy zoot suits – just ordinary clothes and some fantastic talent and choreography to make viral marketing great!
Let me reiterate that I’m writing a spontaneous musical myself, not only because of the videos, because I have seen a barrage of shows at various theme parks like Walt Disney World, a Broadway musical, and the Radio City Spectacular (just to name a few), have a plethora of friends on Facebook (I became a fan of the guerrilla musical theater group’s page.) who write for the theater, including a few very famous ones, and have acted in a few school musicals myself! The musical will be about people misunderstanding the puzzle of autism, and the plot of the number would be centered around a typical autism meltdown/tantrum, with the people wanting the mother to spank him. As soon as I obtain the $328-ish Sibelius, this musical of mine would take shape. Right now, I’m working on the libretto and lyrics.
If you want to see the spontaneous musical numbers, please, please visit www.breakoutinsong.com and tell me what you think!!
Muzak Accompaniment
Jul 12th
A Comparison of Castle Forecourt Stage Shows of the Past and Present
Back in the early decades of jazz, live bands in the form of big bands used to accompany wedded couples’ first dances, senior high school proms, or even mere socials involving the joys of social ballroom dancing. Of course, at Walt Disney World, from its opening day on October 1, 1971, particularly on the stages of the Magic Kingdom, show bands used to accompany the song-and-dance troupe known as the Kids of the Kingdom who used to do some theatrical acts with Disney characters known by memories of people who cherish them. Orchestra pits in school productions of known musicals used to set the scenes of the onstage ongoings and glitz.
Currently, things have changed since show bands used to accompany revue performers and big bands used to accompany couples doing the foxtrot. If you have been to the Magic Kingdom between 2001 and now and you have watched the shows on the Castle Forecourt Stage (in front of Cinderella’s Castle, with the current show being Dream Along With Mickey), chances are that you have neither seen a live band with brass and keyboards nor an enclosed “orchestra pit.” Sadly, to add to the grief of those of you who solely want live music in shows, even at amusement parks, you’re out of luck since last Christmas season - Mickey’s Twas the Night Before Christmas (with the articulated faces of Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Chip, and Dale) was the last show to feature such accompaniment, and its seasonally resident Galaxy Palace Theater in Tomorrowland is currently supplanted over two months ago with the former show, Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration, which features what most live music purists hate – muzak.
I know what you are really thinking – you might have applied the term to ennui-inducing music in elevators as “elevator music,” or the cheese oozing out of the speakers in Walmart (I have to admit that I loath this place so much!). To me, muzak is also a staple of most live shows, including ones featured at Walt Disney World. I have to assume that not everyone likes the idea of using prerecorded tracks in theatrical productions – one Englishman is one of those people who dislike this concept.
Adrian Bradbury, a cellist, took his family to see a professional account of the recent musical hit, Wizard of Oz, which played last Christmas at the Lowry Theatre in Salford, Manchester. He gave the matinee a negative review not because the singers are off-key, but a prerecorded track accompanied it! He sued the venue and won nearly $218 in the cost of the tickets and over $80 in damages. To add to the fun, his family, like him, are mostly musicians as well, with his father and twin brother both clarinetists, and composer Harrison Birtwistle compared it to a karaoke in a statement regarding the case, thus backing the musicians up in a battle against piped music. Even worse, the tap-dancing sounds are out-of-sync with those on the muzak – and that left the family utterly disappointed.
Imagine if the man were to be onboard one of the two Disney Cruise Line vessels and saw, say, Toy Story: The Musical on the Disney Wonder – he’d be very ticked off because of the piped music, despite the pyrotechnics that were used to give children the illusion of Buzz Lightyear flying or the LCD screens of the action figure’s television advertisement played to its respective reprise of “To Infinity and Beyond.” Then again, he’d sign on to a review site and give the ship a bum rap. I favor the ship fleet over others (thanks to the presence of greetable Disney characters) despite the fact that their shows use prerecorded tracks, but it is not alone in that kind of entertainment. One reviewer who sailed on the Costa Magica would have agreed with Bradbury, had he sailed with him, that her shows used muzak as well, but he did not seem to care much. A majority of other cruise lines, Carnival included, use some sort of stage band, with all the keyboards, drum sets, guitars, electric basses, saxophones, trumpets, and trombones trying to compete for your attention as they set the moods for the scenes in their spectacles. On the Disney cruise ships, the presence of musicians grouped in the pit or off to the side are really absent, and I think that in their case, it distracts them from the onstage magic, yet those against muzak would be least likely to sail on them.
So, were the Bradburies the only ones experiencing musical theater with muzak? Of course not – over five years ago, I watched (and performed as violist in the school orchestra before the show) my middle school’s production of Once on This Island. I really did not care for the prerecorded track accompanying peasant Ti Moune’s ill-fated relationship with millionaire Daniel Beauxhomme, but after seeing the show (as well as the rehearsals), I since that time have ached for a professional account of my favorite musical of all time, maybe accompanied with a live orchestra if I’m extra wistful. Fate knows how writers Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty would react if it were accompanied by a backing track…
In the midst of an ill economy, many theatrical groups, school, community, or even professional, setting up their theatricals are wondering what would accompany their performers as the sing, dance, and act onstage. If their budgets are really tight, then they turn to those minus-one-like tracks on CD or USB, and the orchestra pits or even the pianist would be left to more affluent campuses. That’s the cost-saving aspect of them, but there are many factors that make them feasible. Compared to live musicians, tuning and intonation problems would be virtually deficient if they implement it – there would be no musical director constantly telling the clarinetist to adjust his or her tuning barrel or wrong notes played by the trumpeter. In contrast, backing tracks detract from the sonorous experience the theatergoer would really expect, and it sounds cheap in comparison with just a few musicians plucked from band. Also, it is more like child’s play, because the contributions of many people who are working on the show can determine the quality, and as implicitly mentioned by most longtime Disney fans who go to Walt Disney World and have a soft spot for it, the stage shows at the Magic Kingdom have declined in caliber since the closure of Tomorrowland’s Galaxy Palace Theater in late 2008, thanks to the presence of piped music in them. Despite the convenience and feasibility it gives, most people say it would degrade the show mostly or even completely.
I’m really not against backing tracks in staged productions, but I feel that there is a time and place for them. It’s completely OK for dance recitals, amateur talent shows, and such, but as for theatrical productions, it should be used in very rare cases (such as those of schools who are grappled with very severe budget cuts). I neither really believe that the lack of live bands in the shows featured at the Walt Disney Theater would hinder me from going to a vacation involving a Disney cruise nor the absence of them in most live shows since late last year would hamper me from going to Walt Disney World. But then again, if Dream Along With Mickey would be replaced with a new show on the Castle Forecourt Stage in the future, I’d find it a hair better if it involves live music wafting out of the orchestra pit players’ saxes and trombones as if Disney Mania (a show in the 90’s that features the Kids of the Kingdom, Disney characters, and live music) just got revived – just have the designers, directors, and choreographers retain the articulated faces of Mickey and his kin as they did in Mickey’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas before its residential theater got razed…
What do you think about the issue of pre-recorded music in stage shows – are they a boon to money belt-tightening theatrical companies and school drama clubs or are they making it look like karaoke, as Birtwistle pointed out in the lawsuit against a prestigious theater in his native England? If you are a longtime tourist of Walt Disney World, would the stage shows on the Castle Forecourt Stage have been better if they had a live pit band instead of a backing track? Please tell your stories and opinions about the issue in the Comments section, and as long as it’s clean and not defamatory, profane, or on the verge of spam, I welcome all opinions expressed.
What’s In A Spontaneous Musical?
Jul 10th
As well as classical music, I live for musical theater as well. As a kid growing up in New Jersey and here in Florida, I’d star myself as the background ensemble of school plays from the Forum School, as a gingerbread girl in the jukebox-musical-like production of Hansel and Gretel and as the backing chorus member of Jill Gallina’s musical, Shapin’ Up Santa. On vacations (and nowadays, day trips from home) to Walt Disney World, I’m particularly attracted to the stage shows – from Dream Along With Mickey to the unseen (by me, of course) Finding Nemo, the Musical. Cruise ships offer me the best in entertainment in the form of stage revues with singers, dancers, pyrotechnics, lighting, costumes, magic, and (with the exception of Disney Cruise Line) a show band, and they are the must-sees of every cruise vacation. I even went to see a professionally-staged musical on Broadway growing up as a Jersey girl in 1994, and it was Beauty and the Beast, staged by Disney Theatrical, believe it or not. I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Once on This Island as my favorite musical, because it’s the first real musical I have ever seen in my middle school over five years ago, although I ached for a professional staging.
But the thrill of seeing musical theater personally (and starring in it, to a lesser extent, although my roles in it are minor) is just the cover of the libretto, or book, of a staged hit. I also see some of that on TV, not only in the form of musical films (like Hans Christian Andersen, a musical film that starred Danny Kaye as one of my speculated autism heroes). I love musical episodes as well, and my personal favorite of the genre is the Rocko’s Modern Life (a former Nickelodeon cartoon series I grew up watching as a child of the 1990’s) episode, “Zanzibar,” which is centered on the subject of pollution and environmental issues. Commercials, like the “Do it eBay” ads of old or Geico’s “I’m So Happy,” have given me an excellent musical theater fix without the cost of seeing a school musical and amid infomercials starring the late, annoying Billy Mays or the dreaded Nutrisystem (or recently, the Right Size Smoothie) spots. Even public service announcements get the showtime treatment as the actors carry their persuasive messages regarding the issue by breaking into song and dance – and the American Legacy Foundation’s Truth anti-tobacco ad, “Let’s All Focus on the Positive,” and the Ad Council’s patient involvement spot, “Questions Are the Answer,” never grow way too old for me.
Recently, the love for musical theater flared up as I came across a video described as a “spontaneous musical.” To the best of my memory, it was the famous Food Court Musical (with the book, lyrics, and music penned by longtime agents Scott Brown and Anthony King) by New York-based amateur drama organization, Improv Everywhere. In a food court in Los Angeles’s Baldwin Hills Mall, a cashier from Hot Dog on a Stick accidentally spills lemonade and then breaks into song as she petitions the diners and fellow employees for a napkin. A male diner who spilled mustard on his jeans, and a woman whose child vomited on her shirt did so likewise. Later, a dancing janitor, a security guard, and a couple of other patrons join in this melodious imploring for a paper napkin. I watched a host of other musicals similar in format to the video, which reached over 3 million views on YouTube. There’s What’s There to Do in Richmond (about the venues that suit the needs of residents in this Virginia city), Unexpected Performance (a British commercial by travel agency lastminute.com that surrounds a janitor’s struggle to get her potato chips out of the vending machine), and Reach (in which a lecture is interrupted by three students breaking into song – it also predates the aforementioned Food Court Musical). I also favor Church Service Musical, which tells the tales of how responsibilities and hurdles keep the congregation, ministry leaders, a technician, and the pastor separate from worshiping God. Even Disneyland – noted for its brilliant stage shows often brimming with Disney Characters you can name from memory – created a spontaneous musical too, which centers around a marriage proposal and promotes the ongoing Summer Nightastic campaign. An organization called ANMT (the Academy for New Musical Theatre) calls them “guerilla musicals,” and of the two that they made, I favor The Customer is Always Right highly. After watching all those videos that feature people staging a musical number out of the blue, in public, I was called by the genre to create one myself.
As an autistic, I personally know what a meltdown is really like, and I had those tantrum-like episodes in my teens at school, and I felt really horrid with all the other students staring directly at me. I have watched videos of tantruming children and looked in the comments section – a majority of people who responded to the videos say that they would like the “brat” to be slapped, or spanked, preferably with a belt. Those things I’ve seen gave me an idea – conglomerating a scenario when an autistic child has a meltdown with strangers persuading his mother to spank him and the glitz of a spontaneous musical. I will be writing the book and lyrics pertaining to that, and send it off to a composer as soon as I am able to drive and as soon as the visit by distant kin is behind me. In the meantime, I’m researching on ways to handle an autism meltdown and what the people say about spanking kids who tantrum. I will be posting details about my first foray into musical theater in the near future.
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