Prouvaire

TV musicals like Glee and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend have dedicated fan bases and critical acclaim, thanks to their fabulous musical performances and unique exploration of characters' inner desires. Many of the best musicals have happened on TV, providing an excellent platform for storytelling through music, drama, and comedy, with streaming services allowing for more experimentation and creativity in the genre. Shows like Nashville, Smash, and Empire started strong but eventually lost their charm due to clichés, melodrama, and implausible plotlines, while underrated shows like Galavant struggled with low ratings but offered cleverness and fun.

The list includes:
10. Nashville (2012)
9. Smash (2012)
8. Empire (2015)
7. Galavant (2015)
6. Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (2020)
5. High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (2019)
4. The Monkees (1966)
3. Flight Of The Conchords (2007)
2. Glee (2009)

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015)

Can't argue with number 1. Personally I'd add Schmigadoon to this list somewhere.

Concord Theatricals launched One Singular Sensation: A Chorus Line Licensing Competition, which will award ten schools in low-income communities a complimentary license package to perform A Chorus Line: Teen Edition in 2024 or 2025, to honor the 80th anniversary of Marvin Hamlisch’s birth and the 50th anniversary of the original Broadway production.

The Competition is open to all high schools in America, especially Title 1 and other under-resourced schools.

“A Chorus Line is one of the most iconic and innovative musicals in the history of Broadway,” said Bill Gaden, President of Concord Theatricals. “We are so happy to give students from under-resourced schools the opportunity to explore the show’s characters and experiences. The story of A Chorus Line provides a unique peek into the backstage drama of putting on a Broadway show – a story every theatre student will enjoy.”

To enter the competition, schools must complete a written application, including an essay that answers the prompt: What makes your students singular sensations? Guidelines for an additional, optional video entry are also provided. Ten schools will be chosen based on a variety of factors, including financial need and creativity of answer. Each recipient will be awarded a three-performance licensing package for A Chorus Line: Teen Edition, including all rental material.

Applications are open now through Monday, February 12, 2024, at 11:59pm ET. Selected schools must present their production of A Chorus Line: Teen Edition between June 2024 and December 2025. For more information and to apply, visit https://www.concordtheatricals.com/singular-sensation

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS announced $400,000 in emergency grants to organizations providing immediate, on-the-ground support to people in desperate need amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and across the Middle East.

These Broadway Cares grants, shared January 8, 2024, consist of two $200,000 awards to Doctors of the World, a human rights organization providing emergency and long-term medical care to the world’s most vulnerable people; and the International Rescue Committee, an organization committed to responding to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helping communities survive, recover and rebuild.

“As those in Gaza continue to face seemingly endless devastation and loss, their rippling heartbreak resonates across the world and in our corner in the Theater District,” Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Executive Director Tom Viola said. “Broadway Cares is responding with action and compassion, providing food, water, fuel, quality health care, essential medicines and supplies to all caught in the tragedy of this conflict and so many families facing catastrophe.”

For more information on the organizations receiving emergency grants, visit doctorsoftheworld.org and rescue.org.

These emergency grants continue Broadway Cares’ history of action in the wake of natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and wildfires; national crises, like the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade and the Pulse nightclub shooting; international conflict, such as the war in Ukraine; and other humanitarian catastrophes.

Prince’s hit film Purple Rain is set to become a Broadway musical.

The 1984 movie will come to the stage with a book from the Pulitzer prize finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who is currently receiving rave reviews for the family drama Appropriate starring Sarah Paulson and Elle Fanning.

Music and lyrics will come from Prince and the musical will be directed by the Tony award nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz, known for 2022’s adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s dark comedy The Skin of Our Teeth.

“It’s been almost 40 years since Prince’s legendary film Purple Rain took the world by storm and we can’t think of a more fitting tribute than to honor Prince and the Purple Rain legacy with this stage adaptation of the beloved story,” said L Londell McMillan, the chairman of The Northstar Group, and Larry Mestel, founder & CEO of Primary Wave Music. “We are thrilled with our Broadway partners and creative team, who are bringing a theatricality to the film’s original fictional story. We can’t wait for a new generation to discover Purple Rain and for lovers of the original film and album to experience its power once again, this time live.”

Purple Rain won the Oscar for best original score and made almost $100m at the worldwide box office. The album was number one in the US for 24 weeks and sold over 25m copies. Songs included When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy and I Would Die 4 U.

This year also sees musicals soundtracked by Alicia Keys, Huey Lewis and the News and The Who coming to Broadway.

Books about musicals in this list include:

• Here's to the Ladies: Conversations with More of the Great Women of Musical Theater by Eddie Shapiro
• Conversations in Color: Exploring North American Musical Theatre by Sean Mayes
• Purple Rising: Celebrating 40 Years of the Magic, Power, and Artistry of The Color Purple by Lise Funderburg and Scott Sanders
• Dance in Musical Theatre: A History of the Body in Movement by Phoebe Rumsey and Dustin Martincich
• African American Perspectives in Musical Theatre by Eric M. Glover
• Social Media in Musical Theatre by Trevor Boffone
• Jesus Christ Superstar: Behind the Scenes of the Worldwide Musical Phenomenon by Ellis Nassour
• Tell it to the World: The Broadway Musical Abroad by David Savran
• Contemporary British Musicals: ‘Out of the Darkness’ by Clare Chandler and Gus Gowland

During the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Cage was asked by Variety‘s Marc Malkin about a genre that he wants to work in. He replied, “Musical. I have not done a musical. I do think I could make a good Pontius Pilate in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.'”

However, he was reluctant to provide audiences with a glimpse of what they might see of him in the role, declining to sing.

BroadwayWorld points out that this is not the first time the actor mentioned wanting to play this specific role. In an April 2023 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Cage said that his voice would lend itself to Pontius Pilate.

"I think if I was ever going to go on Broadway, the only part that would make sense for me, because I have, over the years, blown out my voice," Cage said. "I think that might, might, lend itself to Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar."

A theater district server was stunned to discover a patron had left her a wildly generous $500 tip so she could finally afford a ticket for her dream Broadway show.

Clair Rachel Howell, who is originally from California but has since moved to New York City, took to Instagram to share the act of staggering generosity.

The server uploaded a series of photos, including a snapshot of the customer's receipt, as well as her subsequent trip to see Merrily We Roll Along at the Hudson Theater.

She described it as a 'magical New York moment' and voiced her overwhelming gratitude for the man who gave her the 'insane and unexpected gift.'

Last month, Clair shared that the customer had racked up a bill of $232.86 before leaving a whopping $500 tip.

He also scrawled a note on the receipt that read: 'Go see Merrily! Sit in the orchestra!'

The worker dished further detail on the situation in the caption which explained: 'Sooo a magical New York moment happened to me the other day at work.

'My serving job is located in the Theatre District, so we get lots of people coming in before seeing Broadway shows. As usual I always ask them what they're seeing, and the other night I had a family going to see Merrily We Roll Along.

'Now anytime I had tables going to see this show I told them how amazing I'm sure it would be, and how badly I wanted to see it!'

She continued: 'The table left to make their showtime and I picked up their check and did about seven double takes. Even writing this now I'm still speechless.

'THANK YOU to the gentleman who gave me this insane and unexpected gift. I hope you come in again so I can thank you in person. Magic is still alive in NYC and so is love and kindness and good, GOOD people.'

Clair concluded: 'Tonight's the night and as he wished I am in the second row waiting for the show to start. I love New York City.'

“The Color Purple,” a new musical take on Alice Walker’s landmark novel, seemed to arrive as an instant hit. Awash in critical exultation, the movie rolled into theaters on Christmas Day and sold more than $18 million in tickets, a near record for the holiday. Audiences gave it an A grade in CinemaScore exit polls. Oprah Winfrey, who produced the film with Steven Spielberg, celebrated on Instagram. “I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” she wrote, adding, “For y’all to buy tickets, dress up in purple, and show up in droves is filling me up.”

But the sizzle has turned to a sputter. “The Color Purple,” which cost Warner Bros. at least $90 million to make and another $40 million to market, collected an estimated $4.8 million from 3,218 theaters in the United States and Canada over the weekend, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. It was enough only for seventh place, behind George Clooney’s “The Boys in the Boat” — a period drama that also arrived on Christmas Day — even though “The Boys in the Boat” had only 2,687 theaters.

What happened?

In Hollywood parlance, the movie has not broadened beyond a “specialty audience.” To put it more candidly, “The Color Purple,” enthusiastically received by Black moviegoers, needs more white, Hispanic and Asian ticket buyers to give it a chance. The film’s opening-weekend audience was 65 percent Black, 19 percent white, 8 percent Hispanic and about 5 percent Asian, according to PostTrak, a service that provides studios with demographic information on ticket buyers.

Full story here: https://archive.md/aPimj

As part of a longer interview, Tim Minchin discusses the writing and reception of Groundhog Day (which will open in Minchin's native Australia later this month):

The runaway success of Matilda opened a host of doors for Minchin, and in the 13 years since, he’s been approached by just about everyone to write just about everything. But nothing captivated his attention until he and Warchus thought about the possibility of doing a musical based on the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. However, this is not a “movie musical”, a translation to stage of the type that has taken over Broadway, the West End and our own theatres in the past decade.

“Groundhog Day is an incredible text,” Minchin says. “And I like the movie very much. But that’s not what I like. And what people seem to misunderstand is that the movie is not the text. Because there’s no Bill Murray, you can’t light it like that, you can’t shoot it.

“What is the movie? The movie is the director, the actors, the light, the camera angles, the edit, the cut, the soundtrack? They’re all absolutely useless to us. In fact, if you get addicted to the shot in your head, you’re f---ed, right? Because that’s not the lens. An audience is not a camera.”

Minchin and his collaborator Danny Rubin, who wrote the film and the book for the show, saw in the story a world of possibilities, perhaps even better suited to stage than film.

“It’s about how to live and, and it’s a redemption tale. Like A Christmas Carol, or It’s a Wonderful Life, but bigger than that. And then it didn’t take me long to think, f---, I’m writing songs for a story that allows you to lean into the idea of a life as a day. We’re born in Punxsutawney dawn... The sun rises on our musical, and actually it ends with a sunrise as well when he’s finally out ... And so we get to use a day as the central metaphor. But then we got weather, this is another huge metaphor, the clouds will come and tides will turn and all I have to offer is tomorrow. We have hope, and hope as a positive thing, but hope as a negative thing because hope is aspiration and aspiration stops you being in the present.

“And then you have all the specific things, narcissism, the idea that we’re all the centre of the musical of our lives, when we have that massive metaphor, that world is a stage and we’re all merely players.

“And we have the extension of that metaphor, which is when you’re a f---ing musical, doing eight shows a week, doing the same thing over and over again, in the case of Groundhog Day, several times a night with the same beats. It’s like hell. And if we’re all actors trapped in the musical of our life, what’s that? What can we do with that?”

What he can do with that brain-bending, fourth wall-shattering concept is an Olivier-winning show that won over virtually every critic who has seen it, including The New York Times′ notoriously difficult-to-please Ben Brantley (who called Minchin “insanely talented”).

It premiered at The Old Vic in London in 2016 to sellout crowds and returned in 2023, becoming the highest-grossing production in The Old Vic’s history. In between, though, was a troubled Broadway run that failed to find an audience, despite critical raves.

What went so wrong in New York, I ask? Minchin is, as always, unflinchingly honest.

“Broadway has a zero-sum,” he says, considering the question carefully between bites of pasta. “It can sustain at maximum two new hits, and if you come late in the season where Dear Evan Hanson and Come From Away have surprised everyone, partly because of some really good producing, throwing money [around].

“And then you’ve got Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet [of 1812] in the same year trying to find its audience with Josh Groban at the centre. And you come in, you’re just f---ed. We come in with a slightly overly thoughtful, quite dark, dense, complex, untraditional musical, you can get all the five-star reviews and Tony nominations you like, you’re just f---ed. We just got unlucky.”

The most appropriate thing for Groundhog Day to do in the face of failure, of course, was to dust itself off and try again. Its London revival was even more popular the second time around, but Minchin thinks Australians are the true target audience for the show.

“Australians got Matilda like the Brits did,” he says. “The dark and the light. And I feel the same way about Groundhog Day’s humour. Danny’s, which is this really hilarious Jewish American [sense of humour], he’s so funny. And then my slightly harder edge, slightly obsessed with death and sex. We worked very hard to make sure that felt seen.”

It’s clear he has a genuine passion for the show. “I wish you’d seen it,” he tells me. “I need people to write about it having seen it.”

An actress travelled more than 150 miles to ensure a musical went ahead after its leading lady and understudy both became ill.

Jessica Daley travelled from Middlesbrough to Leicester's Curve Theatre to star as Eva Peron in Evita at 19:30 GMT on Saturday.

The theatre, which had spent the day trying to find a replacement, described Ms Daley as a "diamond".

She received a standing ovation for her "amazing" performance.

Martha Kirby and her understudy Chumisa Dornford-May were too ill to go on, although Ms Dornford-May has since recovered and will return to the stage later.

In 2019, Ms Daley led the international tour of Evita to "high acclaim".

I love stories like this, and can only marvel at what it must have been like for the cast and crew. It's not just a matter of knowing the songs, but also somehow figuring out, with no prep time, the blocking (ie how the scene is staged - where to enter and exit, how to position yourself in relation to other people etc), music direction, costumes etc.

An interesting look at the rise and fall of movie musicals over the decades. Considers numbers of movies made, box office, critical acclaim and more. Worth a read if you're a fan of musicals or movies more general.

Some tidbits from the article:

• In the 1960s four of the Best Picture Oscar winners were live action musicals.
• Of the top 50 grossing films of all time, 11 are movie musicals (10 of which are Disney films).
• In the 1930s, around 10% of all films were musicals. Today, that number sits below 1%.
• There is a sustained drop in acclaim for films released following the 1970s (based on imdb ratings).
• Musicals are unable to produce the billion-dollar returns of action franchises, and they are not cheap enough to yield a modest profit, like that of low-budget horror films or prestige indie dramas. As such, the live-action musical is stuck in a middle ground of sorts—popular enough to hit on occasion but not a standard project for risk-averse studios
• Over the last twenty years, online searches for "Movie Musicals" have significantly decreased, despite a spike in 2016 likely spurred by Hamilton and La La Land and a slight increase in 2021 driven by Steven Spielberg's West Side Story.

Audiences are receptive to the format, with searches increasing in response to a breakthrough hit. And yet, in the absence of future musicals emerging within the zeitgeist, appeal may continue to wane. What's left is a chicken-or-the-egg problem. The genre needs more mainstream entries to stoke interest amongst average moviegoers; however, few producers want to gamble on a musical without pre-existing moviegoer interest.

Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and America Ferrera are interested in bringing Barbie to the stage.

The team behind the summer blockbuster told ET that they have tossed around the idea of a musical adaptation.

"Trust me ... this is not the first time we've thought of it, yeah," Robbie said. "It's so fun when you can turn everything into a big, crazy musical number. Everything is infinitely more fun."

"A lot," Gerwig continued, nodding to Fererra as they have seemingly discussed the possibility at length. "I'm deeply [in] love [with] musicals. Also, America's performed in musicals!"

Ferrera, who played Roxie Hart in the West End production of Chicago, said that her character "has a number in her."

"I really love musicals. I mean, nothing would make me happier. So, I would love a musical," Gerwig said.

Barbie did include two musical numbers. The first was set to Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night Away," during which the Barbies and Kens had a big disco party at Barbie's Dream House.

The second came with Ryan Gosling's viral "I'm Just Ken" sequence, which featured all of the Kens feeling their "Ken-ergy" as they danced to the Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt-written song.

The film's soundtrack also boasts several songs that would fit right in on stage, including Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?" and Lizzo's "Pink," which narrates the opening scene of the film.