Musical City?

What’s Musical City anyway? It’s the new brand campaign for our 2012-13 HCA/TriStar Broadway at TPAC Series. Yes, Nashville is world-renowned as “Music City”. So we designed Musical City to give musical theater some elbow room at the table, and to put TPAC amongst the great live music venues in this town.

Did you know there was a time when musical theater was a main source of pop songs? While that’s no longer the case, musical theater is still relevant with melodies and lyrics as touching and funny as any written. In a city where great music permeates, musical theater maintains a residence here, too. So our theme and graphic approach to the season was to not take the lazy route and call it a “royal” season (or some other cheap pun or easy graphic based on The Lion King). We instead took a step back, reflected on what TPAC is, and what we contribute to the performing arts/entertainment landscape of our community. Our team brainstormed…concepted…came up with good (and bad) ideas. The final result is here. We played with sound wave graphics, adjusted them to play homage to Nashville’s skyline, and added a sunny “al” (with a marquee light vibe) to the famed Music City moniker.

In the end, our goal was to make you slightly reconsider what Music City means to you. Did we succeed? Let us know.

-Steve

Live Theatre vs. Living Theatre

The fact that we are in an age defined by technology is not news. At this point it is common knowledge. Technology has become such an extension of our daily lives that we no longer differentiate between our hands and our cell phones. However, this has caused live theatre to be redefined. Theatre was created to be something that people experience. It was in your face, and every night provided something different. People would come and experience something that pushed them artistically, and allowed them to think critically. The experience of watching something unfold before you, on stage, added to the experience of watching some fantastic story play out. Now, technology has come in and redefined one solid idea: What is live theatre?

Technology contradicts this seemingly simple term, ‘live theatre.’ More Broadway shows are being filmed on Broadway and produced for movie theaters, or they are automatically streamed on Netflix. Now the younger generation of theatergoers has the option to sit anywhere and watch a prerecorded NY version of a great Broadway tale. Who wouldn’t consider that what these people are doing is watching live theatre? Technically, they are. These films are set in a live Broadway theater, and you still do see the stage, the lights, and hear the audience. They are watching the experience unfold before them and they are able to observe almost everything that comes with watching a Broadway show. But, there is a defining line between watching screened, live theatre compared to being a participant in “living” theatre.

A scene from the Broadway hit Memphis. This show was recorded and streamed on Netflix.From the moment you buy a ticket the anticipation grows. You know for one night you will be transported to another world. You’ll sit in a fancy seat in a theater with hundreds of other people who, in turn, also bring with them all their hopes and excitements. You feed off of one another as the curtains rise. Being there together as an audience allows you to be a participant in what you are about to see, even though you will not physically be onstage in the show, you are still an active part of everything going on that night. These feelings and emotions are not able to be replicated for a TV- style audience. The dull tones that escape a computer speaker cannot compare to the moment you first hear the breath of someone standing on stage. You cannot beat having options, which is ultimately what technology has provided to theatergoers. I think options can be overrated.

-Sara

It’s Broadway, baby! Yeeah!

Austin Powers, everyone’s favorite shagadelic super-spy is headed to the stage, more proof that Broadway producers will adapt anything into a musical (I’m talking to you, Spider-Man: Bring Out the Dark). According to the Hollywood Reporter, Casey Nicholaw (Book of Mormon, The Drowsy Chaperone) has been tapped to direct and the International Man of Mystery himself, Mike Myers, will write the book. I haven’t had the opportunity to see Book of Mormon yet, but I loved The Drowsy Chaperone so I guess there is the possibility that this could turn out to be a halfway decent show. I guess in retrospect it could be worse. Can you say Love Guru – The Musical?

- Akil

Twilight – The Musical?

Yeah, you read that right. Just when I thought I was rid of that incessant franchise, this gets announced. In the words of SNL’s Amy Poehler and Seth Myers, “REALLY?!” It’s bad enough that I’ve been forced to endure watching all four ridiculously melodramatic films (My wife has sat through every comic book movie that’s come out in the past 3 years. It’s the least I could do). Now the whole thing will be put to music? Well, if the powers that be insist on bringing Twilight to the stage, I would like to offer a few song title suggestions:

Jacob’s Lament (The Furrowed Brow)
Boys Love a Helpless Girl
Body Glitter Blues
Smells Like Wet Dog

Sometimes I am utterly amazed at my own genius. This would not be one of those times.

-Akil

Funny Girl revival scrapped

When I heard that the revival of Funny Girl (starring Lauren Ambrose in the iconic role of Fanny Brice) had been postponed indefinitely, I immediately envisioned a trench coat and a fedora-wearing Lea Michelle in a dark alley somewhere, paying off some unseemly character with an envelope full of cash. I, for one, am glad that this project fell through. As far as I’m concerned, Funny Girl will always be Barbra Streisand’s show. Anything else is just a pale imitation. You don’t remake Gone with the Wind. You don’t remake Citizen Kane. And you absolutely DO NOT remake Funny Girl.

Now, a stage adaptation of Yentl is a different story.

- Akil