All The Children Sing
I just listened to the York Theatre Company concert cast recording of I Sing! Which is, as such, described by its creators as "a foul-mouthed operetta about lost twenty-somethings searching for love in Manhattan." A musical about aimless twenty-somethings living in New York City? It is, as the liner notes state, well, more than once, "Sex & The City meets Friends set to Music!" I guess the cast recording is nothing to sneeze at, either. It stars Lauren Kennedy, Matt Bogart, Danny Gurwin, Leslie Kritzer, and Chad Kimball, none of whom were in the original Off-Broadway cast of the show, but all of whom have appeared on Broadway before (in the liner notes, the creators of the show give copious thanks to the one-night-only concert's casting directors...more so than their college advisors, anyway). I know what you're probably thinking..."Who? What? Why should I care about this thing?"
Long story short, I found out about this one through the impossibly good company and somewhat claustrophobic network I’ve cultivated since moving to New York City (and being an aimless twenty-something...hello). For a two-CD set, it is relatively inexpensive, but nonetheless hard-to-find (this was Amazon's last copy in stock). Also, there's a buttload of liner notes. The token intro to the liner notes was written by Lonny Price. Because if anyone knows about being an aimless, spoiled twenty-something in today’s New York City, it’s the original Charley Kringas.
So, I had auditioned for these guys who wrote the musical. I didn't hear back. But, during the downtime, I found out they wrote this tiny little Off-Broadway musical. After being outright rejected (or just impatient) I decided to seek it out. I really don’t know why.
It’s like when they have a skinny girl in a fat suit on as Tracy Turnblad. It doesn’t make sense.
Just, as well, the CD arrived in the mail yesterday.
Maybe because it does kind of seem like some well-worn territory...I'm not upset with the fact that it's been done before. Just the fact that it's been done better. Maybe I'm losing touch, or I'm watching too many of the televised ATW seminars where they interview composers who have been getting kind of disillusioned about the state of musical theat-uh, but there are maybe enough people I can count who can write better material than this. But, I guess it's that eternal idea of "I've got this great idea for a musical!" When no one really follows through on the promise. I mean, my mom wouldn't, but she probably could write better. There have been...well, I guess because old musicals never die, they just play in rep, so, there are enough musicals with aimless, spoiled twenty-something characters that are a lot more timeless and less dated.
And that reminds me...I want to know what is so fricking wrong with Baby.
Yes. Please. Bring this back. No Les Miz; yes, Baby. Boyz 'R Us!
As for I Sing!, I read my mom the following lyrics over the phone yesterday.
I am Barbra Streisand
In the body of an elf
I never liked my thighs
And I feel bad about myself
There's twelve unfinished screenplays
On my self collecting dust
I don't wanna temp forever
No, it's Miramax or bust
I feel like Nora Ephron when I start out
Then I grab the teflon
And I stir-fry my heart out
My mom: It’s like they set your life to music!
I just wish I could sing more like Kritzer.
The music is cutesy, piano-driven fluff that owes more than a little to William Finn and Jason Robert Brown. And the voices? Well, it’s like discovering a movie like Can’t Hardly Wait just now. When I was a whippersnapper your age, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lauren Ambrose, Donald Faison, and Ethan Embry were the stars of tomorrow! Yeah, these are the new-school musical theatre actors of what is probably my generation. There really is no Broadway star system anymore, so just try to imagine that they’re big names right now. Even if they’re mostly in their mid-thirties and barely even on Broadway anymore. Well, Kennedy is in Spamalot…but who else is in that these days? On the plus side, all of them sing variations on the f-word numerous times on this recording.
I mean, I’ve been hopelessly in love with Gurwin’s voice since Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey. I’d like to forget he was ever in Little Women. Bogart is the big, booming, dramatic baritone you could easily imagine as Billy Bigelow, Chris, or Dr. Zhivago. I'll bet he competes with Patrick Wilson for a lot of those roles. Kennedy’s the blonde ingénue, Kritzer the cute, young, belty Streisand-alike, and Kimball the whiny nasal high tenor with big ears. Last I heard of him he was in a beer commercial. Which is a damn shame, because he was, like, the first person to ever play Milky White on Broadway. Poor guy also had the misfortune of starring in both Lennon and Good Vibrations. Is he in hiding?
I guess I feel an obligation to worry about anyone who posts this entry in his blog:
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
penis poop pee
current mood: :( sad
well, well, well. i see i got your attention. so, did you read my other blog? because you haven't commented OR left any kudos, and i am beginning to feel like you don't care. that makes me sad. i have been crying almost all day. except at lunch. i didn't cry then. that was fun. but then i started crying again after my nap. and as i write this, tears are falling inbetween the keys and making it hard for me to type. ll dlakda ;alkd. hold on. i am drying off the keyboard. would you hand me some paper towels. thanks. anyway. would it kill you to leave a comment - or even read it? crying hurts. why you want to hurt me?
Anyway, he’s quite good and doesn’t sound the least bit depressed over Good Vibrations closing early or the lack of a Lennon cast album. He can wrap his voice around a decent power ballad here and, in the numerous photos in the liner notes, his look, with thick, square-rimmed glasses, a baseball shirt, and a repeatedly, strategically, slanted-at-different-angles tan newsboy cap, says to me, “Artsy-fartsy-alternative Boston guy.” Which, apparently, he is. That or he’s losing his hair.
Still, Chad doesn’t really carry this whole thing by himself. And he shouldn’t. The liner notes explicitly state that this is "Sex & the City meets Friends set to music!" You mean like I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change was “Seinfeld” set to music? Or how Forbidden Broadway is "sort'a like Weird Al goes Broadway"?
It's like...it's actually less like Can't Hardly Wait and more like that shelved, low-budget movie set in a pizza place with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Dash Mihok, and Jamie Kennedy that seems to exist perpetually in the "New Release" section at Blockbuster with the simple tagline "Hot Young Cast..." If it was given a "Special Edition" DVD rerelease. If that could actually happen this soon, considering how the Blockbuster seems somewhat - entirely - obsolete now.
Anyway, yes, this "Hot Young Cast..." is given enough play, but the rest of this thing feels pretty excessive. I suppose it's just the packaging. No Off-Broadway musical deserves liner notes that thick, especially if they're just pictures of the actors in rehearsal clothes standing behind music stands, emoting dramatically, and sipping hot coffee out of cardboard cups with straws and sleeves. There's even a photo of Danny Gurwin kissing Lauren Kennedy on the lips. Just as soon as my mom was going to jokingly ask if there was also a photo of Gurwin kissing Matt Bogart on the lips, sure enough, there is a photo of Danny Gurwin kissing Matt Bogart right on the lips in these particular liner notes. Excessive, much? That's an argument you seriously can't refute.
As far as music goes, it's a cutesy diversion. Is it one of the 50 Greatest Off-Broadway scores ever written? Yes. Does it deserve to be ranked above Lucky Stiff, No Way to Treat a Lady, and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown? Hell's no!
Well, let's weigh it out.
Plus: Hot young stars cursing like sailors!
Minus: Too thick, man, too thick.
And pretty people.
Motherfuckin'a.
Long story short, I found out about this one through the impossibly good company and somewhat claustrophobic network I’ve cultivated since moving to New York City (and being an aimless twenty-something...hello). For a two-CD set, it is relatively inexpensive, but nonetheless hard-to-find (this was Amazon's last copy in stock). Also, there's a buttload of liner notes. The token intro to the liner notes was written by Lonny Price. Because if anyone knows about being an aimless, spoiled twenty-something in today’s New York City, it’s the original Charley Kringas.
So, I had auditioned for these guys who wrote the musical. I didn't hear back. But, during the downtime, I found out they wrote this tiny little Off-Broadway musical. After being outright rejected (or just impatient) I decided to seek it out. I really don’t know why.
It’s like when they have a skinny girl in a fat suit on as Tracy Turnblad. It doesn’t make sense.
Just, as well, the CD arrived in the mail yesterday.
Maybe because it does kind of seem like some well-worn territory...I'm not upset with the fact that it's been done before. Just the fact that it's been done better. Maybe I'm losing touch, or I'm watching too many of the televised ATW seminars where they interview composers who have been getting kind of disillusioned about the state of musical theat-uh, but there are maybe enough people I can count who can write better material than this. But, I guess it's that eternal idea of "I've got this great idea for a musical!" When no one really follows through on the promise. I mean, my mom wouldn't, but she probably could write better. There have been...well, I guess because old musicals never die, they just play in rep, so, there are enough musicals with aimless, spoiled twenty-something characters that are a lot more timeless and less dated.
And that reminds me...I want to know what is so fricking wrong with Baby.
Yes. Please. Bring this back. No Les Miz; yes, Baby. Boyz 'R Us!
As for I Sing!, I read my mom the following lyrics over the phone yesterday.
I am Barbra Streisand
In the body of an elf
I never liked my thighs
And I feel bad about myself
There's twelve unfinished screenplays
On my self collecting dust
I don't wanna temp forever
No, it's Miramax or bust
I feel like Nora Ephron when I start out
Then I grab the teflon
And I stir-fry my heart out
My mom: It’s like they set your life to music!
I just wish I could sing more like Kritzer.
The music is cutesy, piano-driven fluff that owes more than a little to William Finn and Jason Robert Brown. And the voices? Well, it’s like discovering a movie like Can’t Hardly Wait just now. When I was a whippersnapper your age, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lauren Ambrose, Donald Faison, and Ethan Embry were the stars of tomorrow! Yeah, these are the new-school musical theatre actors of what is probably my generation. There really is no Broadway star system anymore, so just try to imagine that they’re big names right now. Even if they’re mostly in their mid-thirties and barely even on Broadway anymore. Well, Kennedy is in Spamalot…but who else is in that these days? On the plus side, all of them sing variations on the f-word numerous times on this recording.
I mean, I’ve been hopelessly in love with Gurwin’s voice since Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey. I’d like to forget he was ever in Little Women. Bogart is the big, booming, dramatic baritone you could easily imagine as Billy Bigelow, Chris, or Dr. Zhivago. I'll bet he competes with Patrick Wilson for a lot of those roles. Kennedy’s the blonde ingénue, Kritzer the cute, young, belty Streisand-alike, and Kimball the whiny nasal high tenor with big ears. Last I heard of him he was in a beer commercial. Which is a damn shame, because he was, like, the first person to ever play Milky White on Broadway. Poor guy also had the misfortune of starring in both Lennon and Good Vibrations. Is he in hiding?
I guess I feel an obligation to worry about anyone who posts this entry in his blog:
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
penis poop pee
current mood: :( sad
well, well, well. i see i got your attention. so, did you read my other blog? because you haven't commented OR left any kudos, and i am beginning to feel like you don't care. that makes me sad. i have been crying almost all day. except at lunch. i didn't cry then. that was fun. but then i started crying again after my nap. and as i write this, tears are falling inbetween the keys and making it hard for me to type. ll dlakda ;alkd. hold on. i am drying off the keyboard. would you hand me some paper towels. thanks. anyway. would it kill you to leave a comment - or even read it? crying hurts. why you want to hurt me?
Anyway, he’s quite good and doesn’t sound the least bit depressed over Good Vibrations closing early or the lack of a Lennon cast album. He can wrap his voice around a decent power ballad here and, in the numerous photos in the liner notes, his look, with thick, square-rimmed glasses, a baseball shirt, and a repeatedly, strategically, slanted-at-different-angles tan newsboy cap, says to me, “Artsy-fartsy-alternative Boston guy.” Which, apparently, he is. That or he’s losing his hair.
Still, Chad doesn’t really carry this whole thing by himself. And he shouldn’t. The liner notes explicitly state that this is "Sex & the City meets Friends set to music!" You mean like I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change was “Seinfeld” set to music? Or how Forbidden Broadway is "sort'a like Weird Al goes Broadway"?
It's like...it's actually less like Can't Hardly Wait and more like that shelved, low-budget movie set in a pizza place with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Dash Mihok, and Jamie Kennedy that seems to exist perpetually in the "New Release" section at Blockbuster with the simple tagline "Hot Young Cast..." If it was given a "Special Edition" DVD rerelease. If that could actually happen this soon, considering how the Blockbuster seems somewhat - entirely - obsolete now.
Anyway, yes, this "Hot Young Cast..." is given enough play, but the rest of this thing feels pretty excessive. I suppose it's just the packaging. No Off-Broadway musical deserves liner notes that thick, especially if they're just pictures of the actors in rehearsal clothes standing behind music stands, emoting dramatically, and sipping hot coffee out of cardboard cups with straws and sleeves. There's even a photo of Danny Gurwin kissing Lauren Kennedy on the lips. Just as soon as my mom was going to jokingly ask if there was also a photo of Gurwin kissing Matt Bogart on the lips, sure enough, there is a photo of Danny Gurwin kissing Matt Bogart right on the lips in these particular liner notes. Excessive, much? That's an argument you seriously can't refute.
As far as music goes, it's a cutesy diversion. Is it one of the 50 Greatest Off-Broadway scores ever written? Yes. Does it deserve to be ranked above Lucky Stiff, No Way to Treat a Lady, and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown? Hell's no!
Well, let's weigh it out.
Plus: Hot young stars cursing like sailors!
Minus: Too thick, man, too thick.
And pretty people.
Motherfuckin'a.
posted by Gypsy at 12:58 AM
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