PREVIEW: Bat Boy, the Musical

Yes, Bat Boy. The School of Music, Theatre, & Dance will be performing the musical at the Arthur Miller Theatre, Nov. 15-18. This American musical was written by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming with music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe. The plot is based on a June 23, 1992 Weekly World News story about a half-boy, half-bat, dubbed “Bat Boy”, who grew up living in a cave. It has never made it to Broadway, but succeeded for several years Off Broadway, winning several awards such as the Elliot Norton Award, the Richard Rodgers Development Award, and the Richard Rodgers Production Award. I think it’s going to be good, and it’s by the Musical Theatre school so, needless to say, expectations should be high.

Bat Boy the Musical
Bat Boy the Musical

Get your tickets soon!!

citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy:_The_Musical
http://events.umich.edu/event/9696-1171537

PREVIEW: Monkeys and Playbills

Head over to Arthur Miller Theatre November 8-10 to see Basement Arts’ FREE performance of “[Title of Show]”. Basement Arts is an entirely student-run performance network on campus and their shows are always beyond one’s expectations. The show, [Title of Show], is super clever. It tells the story of four friends who band together to write a musical. The songs are great, the laughs are rich, and its a great time. I can’t wait to see the show and you shouldn’t either! AND IT’S FREE!

Title of Show
Title of Show

Hope to see you there 🙂
more info on their website: www.basementarts.org

REVIEW: Sunday in the Park with George

Friday night, I had the privilege of seeing “Sunday in the Park with George” as performed by the Musical Theatre Department here at the School of Music, Theatre, & Dance. The premise of the show is the story of Georges Seurat, the creator of the famed painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. He struggles with success and criticism of his work in his time period, never having sold a painting during his lifetime. He has difficulties balancing work and his relationships with others and ends up losing his mistress and model, Dot, to another. George is an interesting character in a lot of ways. His concentration to his art and failure at succeeding at much else for one thing is quite perplexing and the attention to detail in his work is astonishing. The show mentioned also that it took him two years to finish the painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. I thought the musical did a lot to represent accurately Seurat’s work habits and advanced concentration to his work.

The show was definitely a success, the actors and actresses, singing, and dancing was entirely up to par, as anticipated. Some standouts from the show include the actress performing the role of Dot. Her voice was absolutely phenomenal and she totally reminded me of Bernadette Peters, who played the role while it was on Broadway. The lead, George, was so good at mimicking a crazed artist, affixed in both his paintings and his work. He flitted around the stage, particularly in the scene “The State of the Artist,” where he hovered between appearing interested in potential investors and posing for photographs. It was a whirlwind of a scene and it played to his strong points.

The middle of the show, in all honesty, was sort of a snore. The three hour-long performance droned on and I felt bored with the nitty-gritty of the plot while the songs seemed to me rather dull. The first act was definitely better than the second, but it still wasn’t entrancing. I truly believe, however, that this was due entirely to the writers of the show and not the men and women of the Musical Theatre department. I think the show isn’t Sondheim’s best, but it is such a cool concept, basing the entire plot and musical numbers on a single painting and its artist – it’s worth portraying. I think with a few more crowd-pleasing numbers and less dialogue-heavy scenes, it would have worked better.

All was restored for me, including the immensely boring middle parts, when that final song “Sunday” was performed at the ends of both acts. It’s such a beautiful song and the melodies seem to flow directly from the heart. It has the usual Sondheim ring to it, finishing with a bang and a grand flourish of the arm. I loved it. And when the musical ended and the backdrop went white, Dot leaves the stage while George’s final word coincides with the emotions of the audience: Harmony.

I don’t believe I would recommend the show to a friend if it were inconvenient for them to see it; although, if it was right in your backyard with an amazing cast, I wouldn’t say no to a ticket. Glad I saw it, but glad it’s over. Can’t wait for what show they put on next.

PREVIEW: Sunday in the Park with George

This weekend come see the stunning U-M Musical Theatre department perform the beloved Sondheim production “Sunday in the Park with George”! Inspired by the painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat, this fictionalized story tells of this painter’s life and his interactions with his lover and model, Dot. The book is by James Lapine, who also worked on such popularized shows as “Into the Woods,” “Falsettos,” and “Passion.” He frequently collaborates with Stephen Sondheim and this show is considered one of their best (info from wikipedia.org)

“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat
“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat

The show is running October 11th-21st at the Mendelssohn Theatre – buy your tickets soon!!

REVIEW: Next to Normal

In an audience of musical theatre majors, my three friends and I sat to watch a small cast of six put on a musical we’d all hoped to see, called “Next to Normal.” There was very little publicity for the event, and it was pure chance that we found out they were even doing it. I’m so glad we did because it was yet another fantastic evening of musical-wonderfulness for me!

“Next to Normal” tells the story of a dysfunctional family dealing with the turmoil of everyday life. The mother of the family is a bipolar/schizophrenic character who struggles with coping, the father of the family is in denial of pretty much everything, and the sister has to deal with regular teenage angst while being raised by two struggling, and mostly absent, parental figures. The mother’s character was, as I’m sure you can tell by her description, a definite challenge, but Chelsea Wilson was absolutely amazing. She pulled off crazy so unbelievably well. Everyone was just cast so perfectly, like C.J. Eldred as the role of Gabe and Ted Stevenson as Dan, I could hardly believe it.

Complaints bring color to a review, but I’m seriously struggling here. It was long? Yeah, 2 and a half hours, I’d say, and a few of the songs dragged, like the saga “I miss the mountains.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t just press skip this time when it came on.

The passion of the show exploded off the stage for sure, and I felt the musical shift perspectives constantly, from mother, to son, to daughter, to father. The lighting would tilt and change its tone as the melodies would lift and fall. It’s one thing to hear the recording bajillions of times, and an absolute other thing to see it performed in front of you. I’ll never hear THAT recording the same way again.

It was such a great show, and I’m so so glad I have friends who are more informed than I to tell me what is going on in the distant woods of north campus. If you read this in time, go tomorrow night!

REVIEW: Spring Awakening

There are those musicals that are frivolous; the ones that of course you still enjoy, but you leave saying, “Oh, that was cute!” Some leave you cross-eyed, uttering, “What did I just watch?” Then, there is Spring Awakening where you leave physically hurting, the tension of the show washing over you in waves, long after the final chords have faded away. A musical that can make you feel the magic of intimacy, the pain of betrayal, and the beauty of the human existence can be deemed unbelievable, I suppose, but even that is sort of vague and nonspecific. It was awesome, let’s call it that.

I’ve seen the show before and heard the music thousands of times; however, the School of Musical Theatre here produces and attracts such remarkable talent that I could honestly say that I’d never heard the show like those students performed it last night. Conor Ryan, as previously seen in Caberet last semester, was an extremely impressive male lead playing the character of Melchior, a “radical” who goes against the grain of the 1890s German society of restrictions, regulations, and rules against young adolescents. His acting and vocal talent is postively flawless. Erika Peterson played the female lead, Wendla, with remarkable flourish and a moving vocal performance. I would honestly say I’d rather see her play the role again than ever watch Lea Michele as Wendla, as made famous from the show Glee but previously debuted the role of Wendla on Broadway. Granted, I have only heard Michele sing the songs; however, I truly loved Peterson’s voice for the part and thought she was spectacular. Her body language when she performed was so timid yet powerful as she spent most of the show, shoulders hunched and hands laced over her stomach. It’s a hard thing to describe and I’m sort of struggling here, but just trust me when I say it worked; it just worked.

My favorite performer of the show, if I had to choose, would be Ryan Vasquez in the role of Moritz, another male lead playing side-by-side as best friend of Melchior (Conor Ryan). I loved him in the role so much and afterwards, I could not get his interpretation of the song “Don’t do Sadness” out of my head. If you haven’t seen the show, this is not going to make much sense, but he added a bunch of rifts to the song that gave it a newer and more desperate quality. I got chills. The torment of his character was evident in every movement of his body and the songs he sang. I cried at the beginning and the end for poor Moritz.

After the show ended, I wanted desperately to close my eyes, rewind time, and just watch the show over and over. It’d only been about four years since I’d first seen the show, but in no way was I numb to the passion of this show. I hope that everyone has the opportunity to see Spring Awakening at some point because it is just so phenomenal of a musical that everyone is bound to find something they adore within its contents.