(no subject)
First of all, your regularly scheduled reminder: fma_ladyfest signups are closing in two days! We have a multitude of awesome prompts already, and will continue to be ridiculously excited about this upcoming round until you are all sick of hearing about it and probably for a while after that. :D
Second, the last of moonyazu9's top five requests for me: top five musicals,
1. Into the Woods
If this one is a surprise to anyone I will be extremely shocked. I don't even know how many hours I spent watching the filmed Bernadette Peters version of Into the Woods on repeat when I was a kid, but it was A LOT. I can still sing all of "Your Fault," any part, top speed. My weakness for black humor, for comedy that turns on a dime into tragedy and then back, for subverted fairy tales and wacky crossovers and meta-narrative about the role of tropes in our lives - I am pretty sure they can all be traced directly back to the first time I saw this show, five or six years old and utterly gobsmacked by the notion that you could do that to stories.
Also, if you want your hilarity fix for the day, here is the "Agony" reprise:
2. Notre-Dame de Paris
I don't even remember exactly how I first came across the soundtrack to this French-language musical - I think I picked it up on a whim on a high school trip to Quebec - but even if you don't speak French, it has one of the most gorgeous scores I've ever heard. It's also pretty astoundingly faithful to the book Notre-Dame de Paris, except with all the racism subverted into an antiracist message (not exactly a subtle or entirely un-faily one, but given the original - and current immigration issues in France - something I appreciate nonetheless.) A few years ago I finally managed to get my hands on the filmed version of the staging, which is . . . kind of hilariously bizarre and melodramatic, but let's not lie, I LOVE IT THAT WAY. I've still never seen it live, but it's somewhere on my list of things to do before I die.
And if you don't believe me about the score, try listening to "Les Cloches," which is one of my favorite songs of all time (there are even subtitles for non-French speakers!):
3. Les Miserables
(So if the above wasn't a giant bright red clue, I guess now is where I confess my childhood love for Victor Hugo?) If Into the Woods is responsible for my constant interest in subverted fairy tales, Les Miserables is probably equally to blame for my weakness for DOOMED IDEALISTIC REVOLUTIONARIES. And - okay, I am not claiming that Boublil and Schonberg are without their issues (OH DO THEY HAVE THEIR ISSUES), but the truth is I have absolutely no ironic distance from Les Mis. I could try to make myself look cool by pretending but the truth is that every time I see it live I get that throat-tightening wanting-to-cry-for-no-reason feeling that for whatever reason only emotionally manipulative musical theater ever brings out in me. And I will always love it for that.
"One Day More" is the song I find myself singing most often in the shower, so if you want to sing along let's go with that one:
4. The Scarlet Pimpernel
No, I don't know why most of my favorite musicals are melodramatic retellings of French history! IT JUST IS, OKAY. I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma even to myself. Anyway - Frank Wildhorn, oh, Frank Wildhorn. Your musical stylings are heavy-handed and instantly recognizable and you are responsible for so many, many inexplicable and hilariously horrific things, and yet I will always love you for this show, and for introducing my tiny self to the Scarlet Pimpernel, both as its own story and as a grand founding father of a trope (line of descent: Percy Blakeney ----> Peter Wimsey ----> Francis Crawford of Lymond ---> Eugenides, Diarmuid, SO MANY MORE.) Embarrassing but true fact: sometimes I forget that the version of the story in the musical is not actual novel canon.
Also, let's face it, "Falcon in the Dive" is one of the most HILARIOUSLY FROTHING songs in the history of musical theater:
5. Cabaret
Cabaret is in a different mold from most of the rest of these - darker, subtler, jazzier; Kander and Ebb write a very different kind of show - but it has in common with Les Mis that it inevitably comes as close as anything does to making me cry. It's a show that's gone through a lot of transformations through the years, but I was lucky enough to see the recent revival with Alan Cumming on Broadway, and that's always going to be the one that defines the show for me. I don't have much more to say about it, because I can't really be funny and clever about it - I pretty much just think it's brilliant.
I also don't have much to say about "I Don't Care Much," which, again unlike these others, is not a dramatic showstopper; I just love it.
And now that I have talked at great length about my deep and true and slightly embarrassing love for musical theater, I find myself curious. I know there are some of you reading this who love musicals like I do, and there are some others who find it a completely inexplicable passion and are judging me AT THIS VERY MOMENT. Therefore: a poll! (I promise I will not judge you whatever you answer.)
Poll
If you clicked one of the top two radio buttons and want to talk about your favorite musical, that also would be welcomed!
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/240410.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
Second, the last of moonyazu9's top five requests for me: top five musicals,
1. Into the Woods
If this one is a surprise to anyone I will be extremely shocked. I don't even know how many hours I spent watching the filmed Bernadette Peters version of Into the Woods on repeat when I was a kid, but it was A LOT. I can still sing all of "Your Fault," any part, top speed. My weakness for black humor, for comedy that turns on a dime into tragedy and then back, for subverted fairy tales and wacky crossovers and meta-narrative about the role of tropes in our lives - I am pretty sure they can all be traced directly back to the first time I saw this show, five or six years old and utterly gobsmacked by the notion that you could do that to stories.
Also, if you want your hilarity fix for the day, here is the "Agony" reprise:
Click to view2. Notre-Dame de Paris
I don't even remember exactly how I first came across the soundtrack to this French-language musical - I think I picked it up on a whim on a high school trip to Quebec - but even if you don't speak French, it has one of the most gorgeous scores I've ever heard. It's also pretty astoundingly faithful to the book Notre-Dame de Paris, except with all the racism subverted into an antiracist message (not exactly a subtle or entirely un-faily one, but given the original - and current immigration issues in France - something I appreciate nonetheless.) A few years ago I finally managed to get my hands on the filmed version of the staging, which is . . . kind of hilariously bizarre and melodramatic, but let's not lie, I LOVE IT THAT WAY. I've still never seen it live, but it's somewhere on my list of things to do before I die.
And if you don't believe me about the score, try listening to "Les Cloches," which is one of my favorite songs of all time (there are even subtitles for non-French speakers!):
3. Les Miserables
(So if the above wasn't a giant bright red clue, I guess now is where I confess my childhood love for Victor Hugo?) If Into the Woods is responsible for my constant interest in subverted fairy tales, Les Miserables is probably equally to blame for my weakness for DOOMED IDEALISTIC REVOLUTIONARIES. And - okay, I am not claiming that Boublil and Schonberg are without their issues (OH DO THEY HAVE THEIR ISSUES), but the truth is I have absolutely no ironic distance from Les Mis. I could try to make myself look cool by pretending but the truth is that every time I see it live I get that throat-tightening wanting-to-cry-for-no-reason feeling that for whatever reason only emotionally manipulative musical theater ever brings out in me. And I will always love it for that.
"One Day More" is the song I find myself singing most often in the shower, so if you want to sing along let's go with that one:
4. The Scarlet Pimpernel
No, I don't know why most of my favorite musicals are melodramatic retellings of French history! IT JUST IS, OKAY. I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma even to myself. Anyway - Frank Wildhorn, oh, Frank Wildhorn. Your musical stylings are heavy-handed and instantly recognizable and you are responsible for so many, many inexplicable and hilariously horrific things, and yet I will always love you for this show, and for introducing my tiny self to the Scarlet Pimpernel, both as its own story and as a grand founding father of a trope (line of descent: Percy Blakeney ----> Peter Wimsey ----> Francis Crawford of Lymond ---> Eugenides, Diarmuid, SO MANY MORE.) Embarrassing but true fact: sometimes I forget that the version of the story in the musical is not actual novel canon.
Also, let's face it, "Falcon in the Dive" is one of the most HILARIOUSLY FROTHING songs in the history of musical theater:
5. Cabaret
Cabaret is in a different mold from most of the rest of these - darker, subtler, jazzier; Kander and Ebb write a very different kind of show - but it has in common with Les Mis that it inevitably comes as close as anything does to making me cry. It's a show that's gone through a lot of transformations through the years, but I was lucky enough to see the recent revival with Alan Cumming on Broadway, and that's always going to be the one that defines the show for me. I don't have much more to say about it, because I can't really be funny and clever about it - I pretty much just think it's brilliant.
I also don't have much to say about "I Don't Care Much," which, again unlike these others, is not a dramatic showstopper; I just love it.
And now that I have talked at great length about my deep and true and slightly embarrassing love for musical theater, I find myself curious. I know there are some of you reading this who love musicals like I do, and there are some others who find it a completely inexplicable passion and are judging me AT THIS VERY MOMENT. Therefore: a poll! (I promise I will not judge you whatever you answer.)
Poll
If you clicked one of the top two radio buttons and want to talk about your favorite musical, that also would be welcomed!
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/240410.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.