ONTD, what's your go-to karaoke song? If you're not a karaoke person, what's your favorite song to sing at the top of your lungs when you're alone in your car?
TBH, Sweeney Todd isn't my all time favorite musical but I have such a soft spot for it because my choir teacher loved it. He had a recording of the Broadway cast that he would let us watch at lunch on rainy days.
Annaleigh is definitely the best, but I thought everyone was fantastic. I don't get that at all, I thought Josh Groban nailed it, both in singing and acting. I saw it on March 11, so maybe those other reviews were earlier.
I saw it on March 14th, and hard agree! Fantastic show all around. Josh Groban also brought more of a sadness to the character than I've seen/heard before as opposed to just being unhinged; I thought it humanized the character a bit more.
At our show, there was an understudy for Toby, so I didn't see Gaten, but he did a great job.
I saw it last week, and Annaleigh really does commit - she used a lot of physical comedy, but it wasn't overdone. She also played off a slip really well*; during "A Little Priest," she went to hop her bum onto the counter and missed, went immediately into a backwards somersault on the ground, then ran offstage and back into a flying leap onto the counter.
*it's totally possible it wasn't a slip and was choreographed because everything kept going smoothly, but the OTT-ness of the running offstage made me think it was an "oops." Josh's laughing also seemed to shift from being for the scene into being genuine.
I may be biased because I've been a Groban fan for most of his career, but I saw his performance as more nuanced than anything. It seemed like we saw a descent into madness over the course of the show rather than him just being unhinged and vengeful from the beginning.
It was definitely a slip! She talked about it here (I always say that one of the things that separates professional performers is that they can make you believe a mistake was an intentional solo):
Thanks for sharing this! She really did play it off well, to the point that I was debating with myself if it was an accident or not. We all gave her a big cheer and applause when she took her running leap and landed correctly. I come from a instrumental music background and was always taught "if you mess up, mess up with confidence" so I figured there was something similar with acting but it must take some degree of improv skill!
I come from a dance background so I learned a similar lesson. When I got older and started teaching, I told my students that if you make a mistake, people are obviously going to see that you did something different, so make it so strong and deliberate that everyone in the audience thinks you just did a little solo and then keep going and they'll never know. But when you freeze, make an oopsie face, or mouth OH SHIT, people are definitely going to know it was a mistake.
That's exactly what I was taught as well - especially the oopsie face, because I'm a string player - our faces aren't involved with playing like winds and brass! I've had some perfectionistic tendencies as long as I can remember (oh hi undiagnosed-at-that-time anxiety and ADHD), and as a kid I always wanted to try to immediately correct any mistakes. It was hard to break myself of that urge, but when I progressed enough to work with an accompanist or in ensembles, I very quickly learned you have to keep going or you'll get left behind!
For a quick storytime my brain connected to your teaching: I got a free 3 months of Apple Fitness+ and decided to try out some of the Dance workouts because I love to dance, but am both terrible at it and have zero training. I'm sure dance cardio is probably different from what you do, but in one of the beginner videos, the teacher said "there are no mistakes here, just accidental solos" and I found that really heartening. A good reminder not to beat myself up for making mistakes either as I'm learning
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Seeing Sweeney Todd on Broadway May 18, can't wait ahhhh!
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Ooh make sure to report back to us about it!
TBH, Sweeney Todd isn't my all time favorite musical but I have such a soft spot for it because my choir teacher loved it. He had a recording of the Broadway cast that he would let us watch at lunch on rainy days.
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But then again, I also adored him in Great Comet.
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At our show, there was an understudy for Toby, so I didn't see Gaten, but he did a great job.
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*it's totally possible it wasn't a slip and was choreographed because everything kept going smoothly, but the OTT-ness of the running offstage made me think it was an "oops." Josh's laughing also seemed to shift from being for the scene into being genuine.
I may be biased because I've been a Groban fan for most of his career, but I saw his performance as more nuanced than anything. It seemed like we saw a descent into madness over the course of the show rather than him just being unhinged and vengeful from the beginning.
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I come from a dance background so I learned a similar lesson. When I got older and started teaching, I told my students that if you make a mistake, people are obviously going to see that you did something different, so make it so strong and deliberate that everyone in the audience thinks you just did a little solo and then keep going and they'll never know. But when you freeze, make an oopsie face, or mouth OH SHIT, people are definitely going to know it was a mistake.
Reply
For a quick storytime my brain connected to your teaching: I got a free 3 months of Apple Fitness+ and decided to try out some of the Dance workouts because I love to dance, but am both terrible at it and have zero training. I'm sure dance cardio is probably different from what you do, but in one of the beginner videos, the teacher said "there are no mistakes here, just accidental solos" and I found that really heartening. A good reminder not to beat myself up for making mistakes either as I'm learning
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