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stars-inthe-sky · 8 months

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Random ask! What was your favorite show(s) as a kid?

Ooh, well, it depends what you mean by "kid" and by "show" (i.e., TV or theatre), but Grease was a big fave in the latter category all through elementary school! I still know most of the songs that didn't make it into the movie ("All Choked Up"!) and even attempted to learn some of them on the guitar (I did not, but I tried). Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was another one that got a lot of play, and Fiddler on the Roof and Sound of Music were also big. My sisters and I also loved 1776!

If you meant TV shows, we didn't actually watch a ton of TV until my parents got cable when I was maybe in middle school. But I loved Bill Nye and the Magic School Bus reruns and VHS tapes, and later Lizzie McGuire and to a lesser extent Even Stevens (although I definitely know the songs from the musical episode!) once we started getting the Disney Channel. Boyfriend and I watched a really fun documentary during COVID called The Orange Years, and I was surprised how few of the Nickelodeon series highlighted in it were mainstays. Rugrats and Doug, sure, but I never watched any of those live-action ones besides All That, and both Rocko and Ren & Stimpy still weird me tf out as an adult.

#hondagirll #ask me ask me ask me #is this the real life?#MAUREEN I'M NOT A THEATRE PERSON #on the bill nye front: there was an ace of base parody song called 'just wash your hands' from a germ-related episode #that i spent much of 2020 being surprised wasn't getting more play #some of those songs were real bangers

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kitsparrow · 6 months

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Me, making dinner.

My Brain, apropos of absolutely nothing: "[JOANNE]

Maureen, I'm not a theatre person

[ROGER]

"The narration crackles and pops with

Incendiary wit"

[JOANNE]

Could never be a theatre person

[MARK]

Zoom in as they burn the past to the ground

[MARK & ROGER]

And feel the heat of the future's glow

[JOANNE, on phone]

Hello?

[MARK, on phone]

Hello? Maureen?

Your equipment won't work?

Okay, all right, I'll go!"

#adhd theater kid brain #rent #idk why

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meraki-yao · 12 days

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Rent the musical viewing thoughts list

(this is entirely out of order)

Two people in the cast led the musical theatre workshop I attended in March: one was Maureen, I previously saw her as Veronica in a 2022 production of Heathers the musical; one was supposed to be Joanne but fractured their leg, so instead they were ensemble and the soloist for Seasons of Love

The production company is "Hong Kong Singers" so everyone had a strong, really good voice, but the choreography was a bit lacking

I mouthed along to most of the songs because I know the show lmao

And for that very reason, I could tell when they made a mistake: Colins missed his "getting dizzy" line in Rent, and Mark fucking lost it and gave up during his solo part of La Vi Bohme

Cried during Another Day

Cried during Will I

Full on UGLY SOBBED the moment Angel died, all through I'll cover you reprise, to the point the person sitting next to me handed me a tissue, I couldn't fucking breathe

Colin's kissed Angel on his temple during Without I I BROKE

When they were leaving the stage after curtain call, Colin's picked up Angel and spun him around, it was the cutest shit

I always skip Over the Moon when I watch a production on YouTube or listen to the album because it makes me cringe: this is the first time I didn't, and laughed by fucking ass off instead

Every fucking body mooed along

Stand outs in the main cast: Colins, Mimi, Maureen, Joanne, Benny (holy shit the voice of whoever played Benny, so smooth and powerful)

Stand outs in the ensemble: Joanne's dad, Mark's Mom/Homeless Woman, Alexis Darling (is that her name? The buzzline woman)

Everyone with a solo in the cast speaks/sings English in an American/International accent, and then the drug dealer opens his mouth to sing and it's such a heavy Hong Kong accent lmao everyone laughed

Colins and Angel had the best chemistry out of the couples

Roger had a great voice but his acting was... Like, he was more like a sad teenager than a person who hates the whole world and themselves

I was squealing internally and squirming in my seat when the beginning notes of I'll Cover You started playing, so far it's my favourite musical love duet

Angel was holding an umbrella during I'll Cover You and I was wondering what was that for, but then when they kissed at the end of the song, they opened the umbrella and covered their faces with it: it was a rainbow umbrella. It was a gay umbrella.

Roger and Mimi, Angel and Colins smooched during Curtin Call, everybody awed

Angel looked like Sharpy Evans during Happy New Year

The sorrow on Colins face during I'll Cover You reprise further broke me

The last thing Angel did before leaving the stage was wrap his arms around Colins and rest his head on his shoulder, I sobbed even more

I'd say the vast majority of the cast were non Chinese; no one in the main cast was Chinese: Benny was Black, the lesbians were both White, Mark, Mimi, Angel and Collins are ethically Filipino. The programme doesn't state Roger's nationality but his surname isn't a Chinese one. Theatre really is one of the most diversed and accepting communities here. But it also says a lot a out the locals attitude on musical theatre/contemporary theatre here.

Btw here's the QR code to the programme which has a details introduction to every cast member

All in all although I went alone, I'm kinda glad that I went alone so I could fully immerse myself into the show! It was a great performance and probably the closest we'll ever get to anything like Broadway over here

#Meraki rambles #Musical theatre #Rent #Rent the musical

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kivrin · 8 months

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Ok @paulinedorchester here you go.

Honeysuckle Weeks. Actress. Posh. You remember. Frightfully good as uptight Samantha Stewart in Foyle's War. Bit of a rackety personal life. Then she disappeared. Damn shame, really. But - look! - suddenly she's back. Every little bit of her.

"When I told my father I'd been cast in the musical version of Calendar Girls, his first response was

'We'll have to get you a tit job then!"" cries Weeks.

"I had to explain to him that it's not about showing off perfect bodies. It's more like the Japanese art of kintsugi where broken vases are mended with molten gold - and it's the cracks that make it truly beautiful and unique. At this stage in life aren't we all broken vases?"

Weeks, 44, is keenly aware of falling headlong into her own deep fissures, but we shall come to that shortly. Today lean and soigné, wearing a One Hundred Stars peignoir, she is casually elegant despite being worryingly hoarse after a cast night out at a Greek restaurant where there was dancing and plate smashing, washed down by liberal quantities of Retsina.

She is happily sharing a dressing room with two of her co-stars, Maureen Nolan (69) and Marti Webb (79), doyennes of musical theatre. And her sense of belonging is palpable.

This production, co-written by Gary Barlow and Tim Firth, is a tuneful retelling of the familiar and adored story of how the death of a much-loved husband saw a group of ordinary women in a small Yorkshire Women's Institute set about creating a nude calendar to raise money for charity. Weeks plays Cora, the church organist, a single mother and natural-born rebel.

"I was absolutely thrilled to be asked," says Weeks, who also happens to be a single mother and natural-born rebel. "Of course I said yes immediately, but it was a huge challenge. Not only do I have to sing and get my kit off, I have to do a Yorkshire accent and pretend to play the piano. I thought I might have to learn the organ as well but thank God I could cross that off one of my to-do list."

As far as the stripping goes, Weeks is relieved her character's proverbial coin landed on “tails rather than heads” which is to say no full frontal, but “I am butt naked on stage".

"Everyone is wonderfully supportive," she says. "We all look after one another and make sure nobody's too exposed. I'm not the best singer but I've taken lessons - at every performance the audience laughs uproariously and 99.9 per cent of the time we get a standing ovation, which feels magnificent."

#honeysuckle weeks #the telegraph #oct 2023

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theatre-kid-things · 9 months

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Hi!

I like helping people and I know things about theatre, so I thought I'd make a blog for that. Ask me questions about theatre basics (parts of a theatre, stage directions, terms/vocab ect.), recommendations (I've got some good ones!), audition help (tbh I suck at finding monolouges, but I'm pretty good with songs!), critiques, the whole shabang

My ask box is always open, if you wanna send in any questions (like I said above), I also answer personal questions, whether that be getting to know me better as a person or asking about my own theatre things (dream roles, current productions, past productions, theatre ask games, shit like that)

if you wanna send in a scene, song, whatever for critiques, you can tag me in a text post with it in it, of you can send it in the ask box (not sure if you can send video in the ask box, never tried to lol). Or if you want it to be more private you can send it in a dm

Some things about me!

-You can call me Maureen (not my actual name but I dont wanna give away my other account yet)

-my pronouns are She/Her but They/Them works with me

-I have 2 dogs

idk what else to put here lol

Some Musicals I like

-Falsettos

-In Trousers

-Cabaret

-Starlight Express

-Little Shop of Horrors

-Footloose

Typical DNI stuff, no homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, racists, trump supporters, ron desantis

idk what else to put in here but yeah that's me!

#theatre-kid-things #musical theater kid #musical theatre #theatre kid #theatre #musical theater geek #stex #little shop of horrors #footloose musical #cabaret #in trousers #falsettos

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terrainofheartfelt · 11 months

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what’s the nichest gg fanfic idea you have (regardless of whether you actually intend to write it)?

ohhh oomph well, I may have to dig deep into my brain to accurately answer...

perhaps my orchestra au? but I have in fact written that. I did have this idea when I was making those mt playlists about the core four all being theatre majors but I don't have the spoons to write that. But have a few disjointed ideas: dan & nate & serena are housemates. dan and serena are in a summer stock prod of rent together (playing roger and maureen respectively); blair and dan get thrown in to costarring in Bridges of Madison County in the senior fall semester, and blair was counting on playing opposite nate, but he booked MC in cabaret at a local playhouse and was Unavailable. Showmance ensues. they fuck at the cast party.....also nate is gay. serenessa happens......serena and dan are the exes to best friends they deserved to be & do the last five years for nelly yuki's capstone directing project......i guess it's niche bc i'm the only person i know on the internet that cares about bridges of madison county the musical but it's GORGEOUS. and i already did write the last five years au. so.

I mean, I also have au ideas for ships other than dair -- there's a couple natessa aus I have in the works right now (the greys anatomy series has actually been really helpful in feeling out how to write them together so that's been good) i just know from experience that the fics i write that don't feature dair get considerably less eyes than the dair fics (we browse by ship tags, i get it!) but that does kinda get me to put niche ideas into two different categories. there's a niche idea w/ dair, and then ideas without dair that are niche by virtue of not being dair. does that make sense?

i did have a Thot for a serena x carter x dan thing over the weekend....

#asks #anon #gg au #I am not quite sure if i answered the question #but now i want to listen to those musical playlists #i half made one for jenny at one point....i'd forgotten bout that

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starrystevie · 1 year

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i'm listening to my musical theatre playlist while i clean and it has me thinking about the small and truly awful theatre company i used to do shows with when i was in college that, thankfully, is not a company anymore (brief mentions of sa, domestic violence and homophobia under the cut)

my first show with them was my dream show aka rent and i got to be my dream role aka maureen johnson. it was wonderful and if i could play her for the rest of my life, i would. but yikes the problems we had with that show...

the director/owner of the company was awful, cast himself as the starring role and was dating one of the main actresses in the show. turns out, he is now a registered sex offender for "dating" a bunch of underage girls that were in his shows which is just strike number one against him

he also asked out my bud who was playing joanne (an adult, at least) and they had some pretty.... tumultuous dates to say the least

our characters were supposed to kiss in the show and he was so grossed out by the fact that i'm gay/didn't like him that he wouldn't do something in the script (which looking back on it now, thank fucking god i never had to kiss him but at the time, it stung)

for some reason, i was the only main character that had to provide my own costume and he would accept anything i brought to him. my mom literally had to sew me a catsuit because it's iconic for maureen and he wouldn't buy me one. i ended up getting a bunch of other stuff at goodwill for everyone to look through and take what they needed cause he also didn't provide costumes for the supporting actors.

at auditions, we were told that it would be a paid show and after our run, he told us that if we really wanted the money, he'd still pay us but, in the same breath, told us that the company was doing badly and that he didn't want to pay us. well after having to provide my own costumes which cost a lot for a broke and struggling college student, i took the money i was rightfully promised. he was... unhappy with that to say the least

after rent, i did spring awakening with him and that's when things got........ bad

i got to be martha (which isn't the role i wanted but i still loved being able to be a part of the show cause it's another of my favs) and the rest of our cast was STAR STUDDED. like everyone in that show was insanely talented (one of them has gone to broadway and been in tv shows and stuff which is cool but he also abused his wife who was also in the show with us which is fucking awful)

one of the girlies in this show was 16 and the director was 29? i think? and she ended up going on "dates" with him cause she felt threatened by him and i didn't know any of it until he was caught once i was years out of the company and it breaks my fucking heart cause she is such a sweetie

this show was jam packed with drama between the cast and with the director and i don't even know the half of it cause i was dealing with big drama in my personal life

the director outright hated me, made fun of me, talked about me behind my back and to my face so much that the music director had to get involved and tell him how unprofessional he was being

he made me sing the tenor part (which is fine cause i know i can sing pretty low) but then would cut off my mic for all group numbers. and sure, i can project really well but not when i sing tenor so that always felt like a slight to me but idk. like he always made it a point to tell me to shut up or stop singing because i was too loud or flat or something and i knew it wasn't the case cause the music director had to tell him yet again that he was wrong

there was one day that we were all sitting around and singing next to normal songs and everyone agreed i should play yet another dream role of mine aka natalie (because the company was going to be doing ntn the following year) and the director outright said he'd never hire me to play natalie which yeah that was fun to hear and made it so that i didn't even audition for the show

after the dumpster fire that was spring awakening (i loved the cast though, we had so much fun), i didn't actually do another show with them but have some more anecdotes!

i auditioned for the next show they did which was les mis and was told that i was a shoe in for eponine (the dreamest of roles) but that he wouldn't hire. me as a main in the show because i was fat and could believably be in poverty in that time period

our rehearsal space was an old warehouse that had no heating and no air conditioning so it was miserable to work in

i wish the company didn't suck cause they were the only company putting on all the shows i dream of being in (grease, chicago, les mis, next to normal, etc) but i couldn't get over how awful the director was

it was like 6 years after i had finished with them that it was found out that the owner/director was arrested for 5 counts of statutory which is SO fucking gross

he wasn't able to keep a reoccurring cast like most local companies can because he ran them all off by being an asshole and making us work in extreme conditions without even ofering us water in the dead of summer

anyway long story short, if you get bad vibes from something from the get go, just leave cause it's not worth it

#this is not important at all but man i really put up with a bunch from that guy...#thinking about it now is funny cause there's no way i'd have stuck around as long as i did now #like i was only with them for like 2 years but much damage was done #bee speaks

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peejy-like-a-squeegie · 5 years

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So Rent Live was fascinating. I don't have much of a history with Rent but there's no denying its appeal, heart, cultural relevance and legacy. The "live musical" medium is still new to me and still somewhat difficult to get used to but I had a good time.

The cast did great. Some highlights:

Jordan Fisher brought an almost childlike quality to the audience surrogate Mark, but also feels more like part of the group than typical of the role. I'll talk more about Mark's character in general sometime.

Kiersey Clemons killed it in "We're Okay" 📞 She was incredibly consistent throughout the show.

Vanessa Hudgens looked like she was having a blast as Maureen, and "Over the Moon" was more fun than I expected. In my opinion, more accessible than Idina Menzel.

Tinashe getting VERY into it in "Out Tonight"

Brennin Hunt "gives off Daughtry vibes". It was heartwarming to see him in Act 2 performing even with a bad leg.

Valentina is an EXCELLENT performer!

BVD is a theatre gem. Hot off the heels of JCS Live, he shows off his ability to absorb any role he's in.

If you took a warm, loving hug and made it a spinto soprano you would get Keala Settle

J Elaine Marcos as Alexi Darling (the Buzzline woman on the phone) is so into it. Another gem.

Other thoughts:

The sound mixing in some parts needed... help.

Swirly-wirly cameras. So many too! I'm impressed we never actually see a cameraman; are their paths that well planned out that they never intersect?

The overhead shots are GORGEOUS

Jordan and Brennin's crowd surf

Valentina and Brendon on the merry-go-round

The PARENTS

I really wish I could've seen the ensemble more. They were one of the best parts of Jesus Christ Superstar Live.

Tbh this show must've been overwhelming in person

The late 90's aesthetic! Phones with antennas!!

I never thought of 1990's AIDS-crisis NYC as dystopia but Rent does I really, really well.

"Take Me or Leave Me". Incredible.

"Seasons of Love" is always amazing, but with the 1996 cast too? UNREAL.

Loneliness is a huge theme in Rent and I don't know how to say it but Rent Live does it a bit too well. Making big ensemble pieces -- specifically ones where the whole cast bonds like "La Vie Boheme" and "I'll Cover You (reprise)" -- almost cathartic.

And speaking of "I'll Cover You (reprise)": powerful. Just powerful. The emotions, the shared grief, the heart... This, THIS, is why I love musical theatre.

#rent #rent live #jordan fisher #valentina #tinashe #vanessa hudgens #brandon victor dixon #brennin hunt #kiersey clemons #rent on fox #pj talks about musicals #j elaine marcos #keala settle

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