Musicals made me do it

 You already know what Hamilton is. Maybe you haven't seen it, but you know it. Hamilton as a musical dominated Broadway in 2015, gaining enough traction to be professionally recorded and uploaded onto Disney+ in 2020. Fun fact, it was this recording that started my addiction with musicals, and I didn't even want to watch it. My dad had to force me to sit down for 3 hours and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the initial experience far more than I did. Neither of us knew just what a gateway it would be for me. Moving forward, I feel pretty confident in saying that Hamilton is one of the most famous musicals that is still running on Broadway today, and it's worth a watch. That being said, this article is not about Hamilton, it's about something much much worse. Feast your eyes on the utter beauty of Scamilton.  Scamilton refers to an unauthorized and altered performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton staged by The Door Christian Fellowship, a church in McAllen, Texas....

One thing for me that always made me enjoy musical theatre is it's representation. I have a theory that wherever movies and tv are in terms of representation, musical theatre is a decade ahead of them. From people of color to the LGBTQ+ community, musical theatre celebrates minorities and oppressed communities.  Today, musical theatre pioneering in diversity is beautiful, but it's origin is far darker. In the 1800’s, Irish immigrants faced mass waves of racism and xenophobia in the US. These immigrants faced heavy discrimination, and often didn’t receive any job opportunities. As a result, they were forced to find other ways to get money. Since upper-class citizens enjoyed theatre, but never wanted to demean themselves to acting, immigrants realized that singing and acting could be their way out of poverty. Very soon, numerous immigrants began performing acts of musical theatre.  One major example is Irving Berlin, a Russian immigrant who lived most of his life in poverty. How...

 The first two (or three) main figures in musical theatre are Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein the second. Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern were known for popularizing modern musical theatre through show boat (1927). However, Hammerstein is much more known for his work with Rodgers, the two becoming an unstoppable duo. From the sound of music to Oklahoma, their work will forever be remembered. Any theatre student worth their salt will know Rodgers and Hammerstein (see left), and further nerds(me) will even know that Richard Rodgers(my third favorite theatre) has a theatre named after him on Broadway, cementing his legacy. Jerome Kern is also a legend in his own right, but due to him largely working on movie musicals, he is not remembered in live theatre as much.  ALW!! Andrew Lloyd Webber is another major figure, known for creating successful musicals. From Cats to the Phantom of the opera, he is known for writing long running shows. Phantom ran for the longest, closing ...

If you've talked to me ever or read any article on this blog, you already know I LOVE TEAM STARKID. So naturally, when they announced that their new musical, Cinderella's Castle was coming out on YouTube on April 4th, you already know I was SAT. Cinderella's Castle is something very new for them, as for the past few years, they've been focusing most of their musicals on the fictional town of Hatchetfield, a town prone to disaster of the supernatural sort. While this lore was all well and good for me, I was getting a bit bored with it, so hearing that they were doing a dark reimagining of a beloved children's fairy tale excited me beyond belief.  I already knew from the fact that the Kickstarter for this project hit the second highest for any theatre project that this was going to be high budget but OH MY GOD I was not ready. The puppets, costumes, and sets in this show are incredible, without any spoilers, it's so beautiful to see how far they've come from ...

 This was supposed to be a happy one. I had typed up most of it in March, and left it for a while to marinate while I studied. Then, out of the blue, I found out that William Finn, beloved writer of A New Brain , The Marvin Trilogy, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee , and more was found dead. It's a truly tragic case when someone who's written work you love passes, and even sadder when much of their work centered around death. In the wise words of Whizzer brown, you gotta die sometime, but it's such a shame to lose such an incredible writer. With that out of the way, let's get into this article.  Rest in peace to this actual legend. Out of the many musicals that have consumed me, one of the most powerful has been Falsettos. It all started when I was 13, and having seen many posts about Falsettos online, I decided to give it a try. I pulled up the YouTube proshot, and sorta enjoyed it. I found it a little weird, but overall enjoyable. Then, as all my addictions ...