If you’ve never been involved in a cappella music, the first 20 or so minutes of Pitch Perfect might be rough chop to to sail through. There are a lot of jokes in a faux-Diablo Cody wins the Oscar for…
The Devil’s Carnival is a macabre music hall vision of hell. A grieving father, a bad boy-obsessed teenage girl, and a jewel-hungry egomaniac become the star attractions in a nightly circus of terror and punishment. Guided by Aesop’s fables and…
Allegiance is an original musical with Broadway ambitions. They even called it Allegiance, A New Broadway Musical in some press releases earlier this year. It’s now more humbly subtitled A New American Musical but you just know they want to…
Getting just the right look for the leading lady didn’t stop Old Hollywood from casting non-singers as leads in big budget musicals. That’s where dubbers come in. They’re still used today to mask less than great singers on the silver screen. Before vocals were mixed to sweeten a singer, they were swapped out entirely in post production.
One of the most prolific dubbers was Martha Mears. She filled in lead vocals for Lucille Ball (The Big Street), Marjorie Reynolds (Holiday Inn), and Hedy Lamarr (My Favorite Spy). More impressive is how varied her vocal range and type can be.
Lost Vocals on YouTube put together a 13 minute video of Martha Mears’ dubbing work in Hollywood. She performed over 50 voice over roles in 12 years. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible.
Jayne Houdyshell was nominated for Featured Actress in a Musical at the Tony Awards for her performance as Hattie Walker in the Follies revival. That character gets to perform one of the more cheerful and upbeat numbers in the show,…
There’s been rumblings about a revised Side Show for a couple years. The cult musical about Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twin side show performers, has a beautiful score. It’s a rare school year if a few of my theater…
There’s an odd trend popping up on Broadway that I’m getting a kick out of. Shows that recently closed on Broadway are coming back a year or two later for limited sit down engagements. This is not to be confused…
The 66th Annual Tony Awards were held last night and it was a great night if you were connected to Once or Peter and the Starcatcher. These two shows picked up the lion’s share of the statues last night. Once…
Seeing Taboo was one of those theater experiences I will never forget. Though the crowd was already dwindling by the time I caught it, the attendees were very enthusiastic. Taboo is a show that has a strong identity and will…
The good people over at Pajiba put together a collection of their favorite movie musical moments in honor of the amazing Les Miserables trailer. It’s a cool little collection that can’t possibly please everyone. For one thing, there’s no Oliver…
I often get lost on YouTube. The more information I can take in before writing about a topic or working on a score, the better. Today, by chance, I wound up in a cycle that kept leading me to a…
Good news for theater fans in California. The Scottsboro Boys is currently engaged in its West Coast premiere. This is Kander & Ebb’s musical that subverts the conventions of the minstrel show to tell the story of nine black teenagers…
The 66th Annual Tony Award Nominations were announced a few minutes ago and they’re filled with surprises. It seems that shows that closed were remembered fondly and shows that are still running but not so good were mostly ignored. Even…
Two really strange but believable theater news stories popped up over the weekend as jokes on Internet theater and geek culture fans. The problem? Unlike the pranks at a site like XKCD or Film School Rejects, there really weren’t any…