"Carrying the Banner!"

I found this review from critic Ben Brantley in the New York Times regarding the musical Newsies. He is the chief theatre reviewer for the Times, and has been working for the paper since 1993. I was interested in what he would have to say about one of my favorite musicals.

Critics are important for the theatre. In the past, they were extremely influential on the audience, and could potentially be the death of a performance. Today, they're not as influential, but they still have very valuable knowledge and insights about the theatre that would be very beneficial for the theatergoer to broaden their perspective a bit and get the most out of the performance.

Newsies is a Broadway musical that is based on the 1992 Disney movie (which is based on actual events) with a score by famed Disney composer, Alan Menken. It takes place in 1899 New York City. Young newspaper boys, called "newsies", are on the streets everyday "pushing the papes" and trying to scrape a living off of what they sell. The newsies are mostly a group of orphans and runaways, and live in a sort of foster house. They get up early every morning, buy their share of newspapers to sell hot off the press, and work the streets, doing everything they can, from shouting to begging, trying to earn a penny a pape. The trouble arises when the newspaper king, Joseph Pulitzer, wants to charge the newsies more for the papers they buy to sell. And they're barely able to live off of what they make now. So, they decide to strike, and stand up for what's right. Everyone loves underdogs, and orphans, and Newsies includes both types of characters along with showstopping musical numbers enhanced with choreography.

There are a few criticisms that Ben Brantley expressed about the musical upon its opening on Broadway in March of last year. He felt that the numbers in the show were all "go,go,go!" and that the choreography was repetitive. He also felt that some of the actors playing the newsie boys looked a little too old to play orphans. He favored the few songs in the play that weren't so loud, that "provided a sorely needed oasis of relief from all that extra! extra! enthusiasm." (2-paraphrased)

As a critic, I of course respect his analysis of the performance, and I suppose there are a few times when a nice, slow number would be welcome. I think, though, that even he would agree that it is a good show.



Sources:

"Urchins With Punctuation: 'Newsies the Musical' by Alan Menken and Harvey Fierstein'. Theater Review. New York Times.com. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/theater/reviews/newsies-the-musical-by-alan-menken-and-harvey-fierstein.html?_r=0&pagewanted=2

Wilson, Edwin; Goldfarb, Alvin. Theatre: The Lively Art. Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print.

Bet You Never Thought About...

There is a bit more to theatre than the performance and technical aspect of it. One of the other--rather vital--aspects of theatre is the literary aspect: the script. And the playwrights are in charge of writing the script. Most people never really think about the playwrights and their great importance in the theatre. Their work is the foundation on which to build the entire production. They are very much like authors of books--they basically use the same structures when writing a story regarding plot, characters and setting.

There are some noticeable differences when one looks at an excerpt from a book as opposed to a script. You might have seen a script before, but if you haven't, here's what an excerpt from a book looks like:

"Then three men entered the room and made a beeline over to where I was sitting. One of them grabbed the front of my shirt, lowered his head till his face was inches from mine, and growled, 'Where's the key?'"

Now here's what the excerpt would look like in script form:

Enter three men. Man 1 walks toward boy and grabs his shirt.
Man 1: (growling) Where's the key?

This is just an example. I don't know if most people have seen scripts before--I like theatre and have been involved with it before, and I am familiar with its world so, I don't know how many people haven't. But as you can see, the two writing styles demonstrated above differ greatly. The first example, the kind of writing average authors use for books and such, tell the story by describing everything that's going on directly to the audience; whereas in a script, the story is more instructional. It's telling the actors what to do and how to act, so they can interpret the story for the audience.

This is basically what playwrights do. They write plays. Their work is the starting point; from there, the other departments that are working for the production can then set to work, taking what the playwrights have written, and bringing their visions to life. Without them, there is no story. And really, storytelling is what theatre is all about.

A Festival of Musicals

I saw this bit of news on Broadway.com about Broadway actress Sutton Foster coming to New York City to appear in an up-and-coming musical The Astonishing Return of...The Protagonists! I was immediately interested because I had seen her play ballet teacher Michelle Simms on the show Bunheads, and I had witnessed her awesome singing voice and theatrical flair. I should have guessed then that she was originally a Broadway actress. Apparently she has won two Tony awards, and has appeared in many popular shows, including Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes, Shrek the Musical, Little Women, Annie, Grease and Les Miserables. The play she will be performing in for this year's Festival of New Musicals, The Astonishing Return of...The Protagonists!, is a comedy about superheroes, and hopefully will be a big hit.

The Festival of New Musicals

Quite frankly, I freaked out when I discovered that there is a festival to showcase new musicals. I absolutely love musicals, and I am so glad that there is a whole event dedicated to bring about new ones to the Broadway and off-Broadway stage.

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre created this event in 1989, making this its 25th annual Festival. It is held every Fall for two days in New York City. According to the Alliance:

"The purpose of the Festival is to create a nurturing environment for discovery, development and advancement of the musical theatre art form. NAMT seeks to do this with a focus on quality, diversity and new voices.

Objectives and Goals:

• Showcase new musicals that are diverse in ethnicity, subject matter, style and concept
• Encourage future productions of new musicals
• Promote new work and new voices
• Nurture composers, lyricists and book writers
• Stimulate networking opportunities for NAMT Members and theatre professionals
• Provide a forum to spark new collaborations and ventures"

From what I've read, the Festival's audience can only consist of people who work in the theatre business, which is kind of a bummer. But it's those people who have the connections and abilities to further the works that the actors will showcase. During those two days in New York, the performers will do 45-minute readings of each performance. The audience will then decide what they want to do with what they've seen.

 

In the meantime, I can only presume that the Festival will be amazing. Many of the performers who have participated in this event in the past are accomplished on the Broadway scene and sometimes on television as well. I'll keep my eyes open in the future for any of the Festival's shows that might make it big on Broadway.

 

 

 

Sources:

 

"Tony Winner Sutton Foster to Be Astonishing at NAMT's Festival of New Musicals". Broadway Buzz. Broadway.com. Web. 11 Oct., 2013.

 

National Alliance for Musical Theatre. National Alliance for Musical Theatre. 2013. Web. 11 Oct., 2013.

 

http://namt.org/festival-overview.aspx

http://namt.org/festival-2013.aspx

"To Be or Not to Be"...It's Not a Question

Because I talked about the basics of singing in my last post, I thought I would be fair and talk a little about the basics of acting in this one. I read up on some interesting techniques that actors use to make realistic characters when acting on stage.

For probably as long as professional acting has been around, rookie actors and actresses have longed to unlock the secrets behind great acting. For a long time, it was an art that couldn't be taught; no structure to be handed down through the generations of actors to come. That is, until the 1800s, when a Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavski developed a system of techniques that taught people the basics of acting.

"The Stanislavski System"

Through the powers of observation, Stani noticed that all good actors possessed certain characteristics that were apparent when they performed, namely:

• Relaxation. For actors to effectively portray their characters, and thus create realistic scenarios and worlds on the stage, they need to be completely comfortable with where they are, and what they're doing. This enables them to have freedom of movement, and greatly helps to project and express themselves vocally as well. They can't be stiff or frozen while on stage; the consequences could be extremely awkward, and the whole performance would collapse.
• Concentration and Observation. Actors must maintain what Stanislavski called a "circle of attention". Actors must focus all of their energies and imagination on a single other person or thing, to imagine that it's only them and that other thing or person on stage. Once they've got this down, they can expand their circle to eventually include the rest of the stage. This helps to place them into the world they are playing in, to focus on whatever is happening and not so much on the audience, so they won't be so self-conscious.
• Importance of Specifics. An actor must truly know the character they are portraying. They can't act imprecisely. They need to know specifically the ins and outs of their character--their quirks, habits, temperament and even ticks. They need to know the play, and how their character would react within its context. Examples of this would be how a frustrated man would brush his hair, or how he would nervously tug at his collar; if a woman was really excited about something she couldn't express, would she tap her fingers or bite her nails?
• Inner Truth. Actors must perceive everything that happens onstage during a performance as truth. Not just the concrete truth of events, but the truth of the inner world of a character, how they think and feel. One of the means that Stanislavski developed to achieve this inner truth was what he called the "magic if". With the "if", people could effectively imagine how they would react in practically any setting. "If it was really cold out and I was lost..." "If I was really hungry..." "If I was extremely happy..." "If I really wanted to persuade someone...How would I react?" This is a great tool that works wonders for actors.
• Action Onstage: What? Why? How? This is similar to being attentive to the importance of  specifics for a character. "What, why and how should my character react?" For example, Charlie Bucket (the main character in the play "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"), is opening (what?) a candy bar. He opens it (why?) to see if there is a golden ticket inside. And he opens it (how?) slowly and deliberately, because if there is one in the candy bar, he would be able to achieve his dream of meeting Wonka and touring his factory--his life would change.
• Through Line of a Role. Actors have to have what Stani called a "superobjective" of a character. They need to know what the main objective, purpose or motivation of a character is. This could help with the inner truth and specifics of a character, and how they react to the circumstances throughout the play. It insures that a character will maintain consistency. This is also called the "spine".
• Ensemble Playing. Finally, more often than not, an actor will have an ensemble of other main characters and background players to act with. Their challenge is to not lose the through line of their character, to "stop acting", as it were, whenever another actor has the attention on stage. They need to stay in character and act to the other actors, not just with them.

I thought that these techniques were very fascinating, and it makes perfect sense that they would be so effective for actors. Looking back at not only theatrical performances but also on-screen acting, I could see how they would use these techniques to truly develop a believable character, thus telling a compelling story.



Source:

Wilson, Edwin; Goldfarb, Alvin. Theatre, The Lively Art. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print. (Pages 100-103).