| re: On PASTICHE: is anyone trying to write a new 'Golden Age' musical these days? Would we pay to see one? | |
| Last Edit: keikekaze 07:37 pm EDT 08/26/19 | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 07:34 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? - GrumpyMorningBoy 04:52 pm EDT 08/26/19 | |
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| I too am extremely fond of the whole kit of "classic" musicals, from the full orchestras playing the six-minute overtures to the 32-voice choruses to the scenes and songs "in one." But it isn't really necessary to write Fifties pastiche to write a good musical--not even a good musical of the kind you're describing. What you want (I think) is the wit, the literacy, the daring, the cheek, the imagination and the satire so often applied to the contemporary world in Fifties musicals to be applied to the contemporary world of the 21st century--but melodically, and with lyrics that scan and rhyme properly. That's what I want, anyway. And actually, it's the melodic music and the cleverly, properly constructed and still character-driven lyrics that are the ***easy*** part. They're not as hard as all that to write, and there are always at least dozens of people working who are capable of doing it at a Broadway level. (If the writing were as hard as all that, there would not have been dozens of different people in the Forties and Fifties capable of doing it so well.) It doesn't require "genius"--just literacy, verbal dexterity, application, and the determination not to settle for the first thing that falls into your head. Right now, we've got Yazbek, Michael Korie, Scott Frankel, Jeffrey Stock, Susan Birkenhead and others already named in this thread, as well as many more people, no doubt, that I'm not aware of. Yes, I'd love to see that type of musical come back. It will come back, I think, when there's an audience that demands it. The audience in the Forties and Fifties didn't want to see the same old Shubert operettas anymore--or anybody else's operettas. That audience demanded new (more than anything), and if they also got ground-breaking and genre-expanding as well, then so much the better. We'll see the next big step forward in Broadway musicals when the audience demands it. That may happen when they get tired of the same old Lloyd Webber operettas, the pointless Disney/kiddie musical commodities, and the ancient song catalogues of decrepitating pop idols. |
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