Reflection Of Falsettos

Escaping current events might be found in the company of neighbors, but for New York theatre audiences, witnessing Oklahoma! put its viewers into a far removed realm for the time being. One might question if the events and activities the musical replicated for American society were intentional or not; however, given that musical theatre has the ability to convey relatable circumstances between the characters and the audience, it would not be a reach to assume the musical did this intentionally. Oklahoma! helped the American people grasp onto serenity, and even a bit of nostalgia, if only for

Before one can understand why Bob Fosse has had such an indelible impact on the musical theatre community, one must understand the world that existed before he had stepped into the limelight. The American musical comedy gained international significance during World War I, distracting a run-down theatre-going public with light-hearted sentiments and popular songs “at the expense of a plot” (Acuban). Many shows were musical revues, series of sketches or songs with little to no connection between them, or sentimental operettas that were tailor-made for an audience to digest with ease. The appearance of Broadway’s Showboat in 1927 represented a brief respite from the comparatively frivolous productions of the previous decade, but the lighthearted

The documentary Deaf Jam produced by New Day Films provided an in-depth look into the beauty and dexterity of American Sign Language (ASL) while highlighting many important aspects of deaf culture. It also gave an even deeper analysis of the personal lives of those who are deaf and the societal and emotional struggles they face every day. This was done through the eyes of an Israeli immigrant named Aneta Brodski and her empowering journey to share her story through signed slam poetry.

On February 10, 2017, I attended the musical Pirates of Penzance. This musical was put on by the drama students at Spring Arbor University in White Auditorium at 8:00 P.M. Pirates of Penzance, is a two hour musical about an apprentice named Frederic, who was just informing his boss, the pirate king, that his apprenticeship was up because today was his 21st birthday. Hesitantly, the pirate king agrees to let Frederic leave the pirate gang and live in the real world. However, before he leaves, Frederic asks his nursery maid, Ruby, if she was pretty. Ruby responded, “Yes,” and Frederic believed her and prepared to marry her. Just before the marriage was to take place, a group of sisters stumbles upon the pirate’s island and Frederic is taken aback by their beauty. In haste, Frederic calls of the relationship with his nursery maid- because she lied to him about her beauty- and he began pursuing a relationship with one of the girls who stumbled upon the pirates’ island. Major General Stanley and his daughters take Frederic under their wing and help him

I attended the live performance of “Love Bomb” the musical, produced by Donna Spencer and directed by Reneé Iaci. The production was put up by the Firehall Arts Center located at 280 E Cordova St, Vancouver, BC. The central storyline of the show was as follows: A concert of emotion rips through Justine’s (played by Sara Vickruck) first performance in years, and all because of one uninvited guest, Lillian (played by Deb Pickman), her music takes on a life of its own. Lillian is a desperate mother searching for her missing daughter while Justine is hiding a secret that could kill her career. As the musical’s storyline developed further, it was clear that a sensitive topic was the underlying issue: Prostitution.

Furthermore, a few of his plays are written about drag queens and others about being gay. Mr. Fierstein grew up in a time when being gay was a very hard lifestyle to be open about. Over the decades the support group lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community or better known as LGBT, has supported the mass movement worldwide. Mr. Fierstein set out to illustrate to the world that it is ok to be yourself, and that the LGBT community will not accept anymore bigotry. His plays focus on the hardships faced by the oppressed and by the tyrants.

As a junior, I was a cast member of my high school's production of The Sound of Music. Some of my best memories are from that show. Having to wear a nun costume makes for great stories. A major aspect of the musical is the Von Trapp Children. To identify young performers, our school extended invitations to local elementary schools, enlisting a middle-school boy to play Friedrich. He was shy, placed in an alien school with no friends. Problems started when he began to sing. He was untrained in technical vocal performance, and therefore, the other cast members ridiculed his strained singing. The teasing began light-hearted, until suddenly it wasn't. Girls would whisper mockingly, nitpicking anything they desired for a cheap laugh: his singing, his looks, his name, his awkward demeanor. Vicious nicknames and cutting jokes rang through the drama hallway. The cast members fancied themselves discrete, but he felt their derision. I noticed his fallen face when after

Published in May of 1991, Tony Kushner’s gay fantasia on national themes, Angels In America, Part One: Millennium Approaches, brought to light the brutality of the Reagan Administration as well as the devastating AIDS epidemic during the 1980’s. The play takes place in New York City during the years of 1985 and 1986 and follows two couples - Louis Ironson and Prior Walter, and Joe and Harper Pitt. While the main focus is on these two couples, there are various other characters that come up throughout the play that hold great significance as well, such as Roy Cohn, Belize, Hannah Pitt, Mr. Lies, and, mostly importantly, The Angel. With these characters, Kushner accurately portrays the struggles of the 80’s with homosesxuality, the realisation

Falsetto- On the opening night of the play, the everyone in the audience was absolutely mesmerized by the star’s impressive falsetto.

“Jerry Springer : The Opera” is a British musical written by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas (Freud, 2003). The opera is based on the famous American chat show which has been running since 1991 and is still a very popular television show to this date (A&E Television Networks, 2015). The first time the musical was staged was at the Edinburgh Festival on ‘7 August 2002’ (Wikipedia, 2009) and due to its popularity it became a fully staged production at the end of 2002 (Freud 2003). The producers then moved the show to The National Theatre in London on 30 September 2003 (Freud, 2003). When the musical became very successful it was then decided to move the production to the West End, London later in 2003 (Baldock, 2004). One of the reasons the public and critics complained profusely was because of very bad language from the start. The opera has more than 400 curse words (Thorpe, 2005), a grown man is dressed in a nappy (who is meant to be Jesus later) and one of the guests on the show is cheating on his partner with a woman who likes to dress up as a little girl (Wikipedia, 2009), which is a typical situation on the television show. At around 1 hour and 25 minutes into the Opera, Jerry has been shot, goes to hell and the devil wants an apology from Jesus, people were shocked to see

Although big-hit Broadway musicals have always been popular with the masses and generated tons of money, the changing political weather on the United States has slowly affected the population’s view of their purpose in society. Stacey Wolfe addresses the changing political climate in the musical theatre form in her article, The 2003-2004 Season and Broadway Musical Theatre as a Political Controversy, as a subtle but impactful way to convey public issues after the events on September 11th, 2001. Musicals have a reputation of being over the top and cheesy with the old classics like Oklahoma! and The Music Man. Although the old musicals address issues like marriage and telling the truth, they lack the intellectual depth of the new millennium. However, singing and dancing are still effective ways of conveying the problems to a society where interest is easily lost. Wolfe adamantly points out that producing a musical takes years of work and funding, thus affecting the response time to modern events. The musicals Avenue Q, Wicked, and Caroline, Or Change, all discussed in her article, did not make their debut until years after 9/11. Nonetheless, the lag time allows for critical adjustments and full understanding of the events to be evaluated before they premiere on the big stage. Wolfe argues that despite the slow response time, modern musicals are still an effective way to show important issues to the public and especially inspire reflective change in the target audiences of the

Southern Utah University performed James Valcq’s musical adaptation of “The Spitfire Grill (Valcq, 2016).” The production overall was slightly above average. There were aspects of the musical that worked perfectly to go along with the main seed of redemption. Ideas and concepts of relationships, redemption, and continuity were successfully and less than successfully shared through this play. I will be going over how I believe The Spitfire Grill connected itself to the seed of redemption through what I saw and felt throughout the show.

At its core, The Jazz Singer is ostensibly a Jewish-American story. The central conflict is Jakie Rabinowitz’s heritage, family, and upbringing coming to a head with his chosen career and where his heart lies: performance in an American pop cultural milieu. A reading of the film suggests that although hybridity can be found between the old and the new; the traditional and the modern; they are fundamentally in conflict with each other and cannot

It is the first time I attended the Polysh’d Speakers meeting, I found it is so useful. When they first start I was a bit confused about what they will do because all their members are assigned for some specific works such as timing, recode grammar or pronunciation errors, evaluating, and so on. They told this month, May, is the mental health month so they choose topic relater to this area. The first speaker told about the important of breakfast, this speech is around 7 minutes in long. I learn some public speaking skills from the speaker in this 7 minute such as to get the audients involve by asking them questions that they will properly face or feel relate, need to have a good introduction of the topic to gain audient’s attention, to know

“The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice” - Brian Herbert