| re: On PASTICHE: is anyone trying to write a new 'Golden Age' musical these days? Would we pay to see one? | |
| Last Edit: GrumpyMorningBoy 04:57 pm EDT 08/26/19 | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 04:52 pm EDT 08/26/19 | |
| In reply to: re: On PASTICHE: is anyone trying to write a new 'Golden Age' musical these days? Would we pay to see one? - MattPhilly 04:09 pm EDT 08/26/19 | |
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| If there's any time when the moment is ripe, it's gotta be now, and it's especially the kind of thing we could do in America. We're all feeling pretty emotionally in-tune these days. But musicals are the perfect vehicle to explore those emotions, and the Golden Age's format plays right into our vulnerability. The reality is that the 'buy in' for an audience to suspend disbelief during a musical is the transition from spoken scene into song, and that transition was both an innovation and eventual convention of the American musical comedy / musical drama, popularized during our Golden Age. We are tremendously lucky -- as Americans, especially -- that we're so steeped in musicals now that huge masses of audience members will happily join in that journey to song, provided that the writers convince us that they know what they're doing. Our cultural adeptness in this area is breathtaking, really... even casual audiences who don't see a whole lot of musicals can instinctually feel when a song's coming on. And if it's good, they're on board. So I would LOVE to see writing that really feels like it might have been written during that period. It's an insanely high bar. Virtually no one is even attempting to put the focus on melody the way those writers did. Are there talented composers who might adapt their style for the work? Probably. The harder part would be finding a lyricist who could do it. Because if you really go back and look at those lyrics -- for the best of them -- there's a surprise rhyme or unexpected twist on nearly every stanza. Today's lyricists are rarely so ambitious; we're lucky if the lyrics even scan on the melody correctly and manage to sound like a unique character's voice. So that's what I'm dreaming of: great writing that honors and replicates the style of that era. And I'd love all the other conventions of the time: scenes 'in one,' any number of endless reprises of the best melodies, a full overture and entr'acte played by a full orchestra. And heck, If this could be matched with extended dance sequences and highly stylized choreography, that would be terrific, but that may be asking a bit too much! - GMB |
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| Next: | re: On PASTICHE: is anyone trying to write a new 'Golden Age' musical these days? Would we pay to see one? - keikekaze 07:34 pm EDT 08/26/19 |
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