From jazz hands and high kicks to Sondheim magic

[showtunesgirl]

Welcome to the Mumsnet Musical Theatre thread.

Pull up a sequinned pouffe, get cosy with a porn star martini, kick off those character shoes, take off the wig and let out your inner Bernadette Peters.

This is a thread for lovers of musical theatre, whether watching or participating in it. Anything Goes here so to speak...

I'll kick off by saying that in the last week I saw The Book of Mormon and sob, Merrily We Roll Along. Both excellent in completely different ways.

Anyone else?

I've been really lucky and played a few of the roles I've always hankered after:

Maisie (The Boyfriend)
Miss Adelaide
Ado Annie
Erma (AG)

But still on my list:

Sally Bowles
Lois Lane
Irene Roth
Mrs Lovett
Tzeitel
Velma Kelly

Alas time has run is running out for me for some of those

I used to have a video copy of the Making of... Very interesting, especially the audition process for Kim. IIRC, Ruthie Henshall was the cast member being run over by the moving set during the tech!

showtunes I was just going to post that! Agree, the rest are dirge until Lea comes along though I was always a bit about her mate...

Saw a Chorus Line...enjoyed it but felt it was quite dated.
And Cabaret...Will Young was ill but the understudy was amazing. I agree that Michelle do dah was not good...too restrained. I loved the whole staging of it. Dd knows the son of the director, so enjoyed seeing what he did.

She is singing "I hate men" and "you can count on me " at the moment in preparation for exam.

Yup, Ruthie was the one that got run over by the stage. "Breathe Ruthie, breathe!"

Anyone seen Book of Mormon yet? It's really good fun in an as expected South Park kind of way. If you know your MT stuff, you can spot all the spoofs in the music.

Haven't read the thread, sorry, as too excited at the prospect! I have always done (amateur) Musical Theatre and currently produce shows with young people (school mainly). I like to do really big show - have done Les Mis Schools Edition, West Side Story, Sound of Music etc. I am currently trying to work out a way to produce Miss Saigon Schools Edition.
DD has an excellent musical theatre belt and recently played Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray (she isn't black, but we live in a very mono-cultural area and she sounds black if you close your eyes...). Here she is singing a Jason RObert Brown song (love him) - you'll notice he has commented on her performance :)
Her dad (ex-H) has written a musical which is in the semi finals of Search for a Twitter Composer in London in July.

We went to Book of Mormon on its first Saturday night in London - fab! My face hurt from laughing.

Welcome cardibach! I love how excited people have got about posting on here.

I love Bernadette Peter's singing absolutely anything "Not a Day goes By"

Ooo will have to watch that link :-) I've seen Lea's audition before and she really was special - still is!

I love the idea of an SE Asian Ellen, fab dynamic.

What's Book of Mormon about?

The thing is though, I said before I had DD that if Bernadette ever came back to town to do a one woman show, I would sell my first born to get a ticket. Poor DD...

I have however seen her sing live before. I saw her at the Hey, Mr Producer! concert. She was bloody amazing.

The Book of Mormon is about two guys who get sent to Uganda to try and convert people there to Mormonism. Uganda is erm, not that receptive a place for this kind of conversion. The show is rude, dirty and nothing is off limits. But at the heart of it, it is quite an old fashioned show in many ways. It has strong numbers and tells a good story with humour.

I love the opening number and they did it for the Tony Awards last year: It reminds me of Fugue for Tinhorns from Guys and Dolls.

I just wrote a huge post and MN ate it
I loved Bernadette Peters in 'Into the Woods'.
I'm not sure I like the idea of them changing 'It's Her or Me' in Miss Saigon - surely Ellen's combativeness is the point? I hate it when Boublil and Schoenberg cave to pressure - they did the same with 'Martin Guerre'. I saw it in the previews and loved it, then they changed it because of mixed reviews (they were better than the ones for Les Mis first night though :) ). I saw it a couple of months later and it was nowhere near as good.

It changed from Her Or Me to Now That I've Seen Her fairly early on. Just as they cut The Sacred Bird fairly early on and replaced it with the newer finale "Now Tam, my brave boy".

She still sings "it's her or me" at one point but it does serve the purpose in rounding out Ellen and making her more likable by not making it the crux of the song.

Did you see Martin Guerre after the previews or after the recast and the extensive rewrite? I was sad when they cut Sleeping On Our Own. And I don't even want to think about the West Yorkshire Playhouse rewrite which was just awful.

It's her or me sums up exactly how Ellen would feel. Hell if yell its her or me at the top of my lungs too! It's such a powerful story.

Book if Mormon sounds good! I loved Ave Q too speaking of un PC MT!

Well if you liked Avenue Q, you'll like The Book of Mormon as it's the same composer!

Both, showtunesgirl - well, I saw one of the previews then after the rewrite. The rewrite wasn't a patch on the original :( I agree about 'Sleeping on Our Own'.
And re: Ellen, I don't think 'It's Her or Me' makes her unlikeable at all! I like her passion and can understand how she feels.

Re: Martin Guerre, I really preferred When Will Someone Hear to How Many Tears.

I'm loving this thread, I too work in theatre but not saying what I do or it will totally out me!! Lol.

Last thing I went to see was Once, at the Phoenix. Lovely show.

I wonder if we know each other WhatNow?

I haven't seen Once yet. I'm hoping Arthur Darvill will come back and do it here as I'm also a Doctor Who fan.

Me too, showtunesgirl! I love 'When will someone hear' and have sung it in concerts- it goes down very well.

Christ alive, I'm tired. I've been talking MT ALL DAY and DD was an overtired nightmare to put to bed.

BREAKING MT NEWS Tomorrow, they will be annoucing Open Calls for the new West End Production of Miss Saigon.

In The Stage? I saw it years ago when I was 16 at Drury Lane.

Wonder if dh has any students suitable for that.

www.thestage.co.uk/news/2013/06/west-end-stars-to-front-new-musical-theatre-radio-station/
Here you go ladies!! Might be a bit of a change from EP on Sunday!

Oooooh!

Ooh Ramin!

Until then there's always: Accuradio Broadway!

sigh if only I could audition for Miss Saigon! I watched the making if doco today - thank you for sending me the Lea link from which I found the whole thing

Can anyone point me toward vocal coaches/singing teachers in north London? Thinking about picking up some training as I can't commit to anything in the evenings with DS...

What's everyone's least favourite musical? I saw Porgy and Bess on Briadway last summer and hated every moment. It was dreary and blandly staged. The only redeeming feature was a beautiful rendition of Summertime the rest was over sung and painful (in my opinion, the Tony's didn't agree with me!)