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| re: My opinion will always be... | |
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rockfenris2005 10:34 am UTC 10/24/10 |
| In reply to: | re: My opinion will always be... - steven_stuart 06:35 pm UTC 10/23/10 |
> > You make an excellent point. The world would be much more > exciting if it was easier for people like you and Adam to > get the shows that you write produced. Jim and ALW were > lucky to be young and gifted in a different era. Exactly! And it's incredibly frustrating. Why, of all the eras I could have been born into, as a writer, why did it have to be this one? It was still hard back in the Golden Age when Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe reigned supreme and there were great musicals like "Carousel", "My Fair Lady", "West Side Story" and "Fiddler on the Roof". Then all of that was resuscitated and revived by the great trilogy of successful rock musicals, "Hair", "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "The Rocky Horror Show". Sondheim was still doing great work when Andrew Lloyd Webber and Boublil and Schonberg were on top of the world with "Phantom" and "Les Mis", then there was "Chess", "Miss Saigon" and "Aspects of Love". Come the 1990s and it starts to go down hill, though there are still many great scores from this era. I refer to "City of Angels", "Sunset Boulevard", "Beauty and the Beast" (Elitists do NOT TELL ME that is not a good score, it is one of the most beautiful animated films & stage productions of all time), "Titanic" and "The Scarlet Pimpernel", glorious scores, and "Ragtime", "Passion" and "Aida". And how could we forget "Tanz"????????????????? Then it all went wrong. Make no mistake, I love "The Producers" and I love the film and I love the stage-show, but musical theatre turned all happy and cheerful after that, and it didn't seem to be taking itself seriously. I don't even want to see "Hairspray" because I couldn't even get past the first scene of the film. And this is a shame because I think "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" is one of the best musicals of the last 15 years. "Wicked" was magnificent to watch in Melbourne, and very moving, and it was sold on me instantaneously because I love "Wizard of Oz", both the MGM film and the book series. That must be the strongest of all the musicals from this century, SO FAR, that has gone on to become a huge success. "The Little Mermaid" could have been truly magical, and "Love Never Dies" was quite frankly a disgrace. And it's become more and more difficult to mount anything because of how difficult the times are, so naturally the producers rely on something that's immediately going to sell. We have all these musicals based on famous movies, jukebox musicals with catalogues from legendary chart acts, and revival upon revival upon revival. AND IN AUSTRALIA, IT IS AGAINST POLICY for amateur theatre companies to produce new musicals WHEN SONDHEIM SAYS that new writers would have better luck getting their work seen REGIONALLY. It's such a challenge. It's such an uphill battle, even though I realize that's the way it's always been, but it's worse than ever, and "Spider-Man" could make it nay-on-impossible! Oh well, if something is good it will get out. | |
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