Monday, September 29, 2008
Making the Band, the Broadway Version, in the Musical ‘13’
NYTimes.com: "JASON ROBERT BROWN, the Tony Award-winning composer of the musical “Parade,” has been spending a lot of time with a bunch of teenagers. Day after day, at Carroll Studios, at the far end of West 55th Street near 12th Avenue in Manhattan, he has drilled them on the same piece of pop-rock music, pacing back and force with calm confidence, pointing out errors and occasionally plunking out a few piano notes of instruction, while his mop-headed charges hunch over their guitars and other instruments, receiving his wisdom through a seemingly bored air of I-don’t-care cool."
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7 comments:
i am so excited about this musical. firstly, i lovve jason robert browns' stuff, like love. he's so complex, and innovative. secondly, the line "which tracks the woes of a teenager whose life is turned upside down when his family moves from cosmopolitan Manhattan to rural Indiana" spoke directly to me because i moved from Houston, to Indiana....it's a HUGE difference. thirdly, i think the raw teenagers will bring a whole new energy/vibe to the stage, and bring a whole new crowd into the theatre. yeh! i really want to see this.
It's funny that this musical is still pushing forward for a Broadway run. I got to see it in LA while it was still being put through it's early paces at the Mark Taper Forum in LA before it closed down for renovations. It's fame like feel is fun and the kids air and vitality flys through the air. The band was on a 2nd story upstage center and in full view the whole time. It was pretty cool i must admit to see all these 13ish olds cranking out some really decent sounding tracks.
I am definitely excited to (hopefully) see this show soon. I think they made a good decision in putting all the young children in not only the cast, but the pit orchestra as well. This shows a fun level of commitment towards giving the show a youthful energy in many different ways. Hopefully, this show will be able to find a fanbase, because this is probably the thing that is going to be hardest for the show to do.
I cannot wait for this show! it just sounds so fresh and inspirational! As if a whole new concept has been born! I love Jason's work and his idea of having an 18 years and your (not older) cast and band is simply genius! To have that much energy on stage at one time sounds simply riveting and electrifying. Having that many kids full of so much passion seems incomprehensible in the never been done before sense! I can't wait to see it!
It seems that Jason Robert Brown has jumped on the teen marketing bandwagon. The concept of a teen driven show is very Disney. I wish this article would have talked more about why he wanted a teen driven show. The idea of not wanting 40 year old union musicians makes sense to me, but it doesn’t seem a good enough reason to base the premise of a show. It’s odd that 18 is the cut off age. Do the musicians loose their enthusiasm the day they become a legal adult?
I think that this musical would resonate quite nicely with our generation. However, I also feel that shows like Spring Awakening have forced shows like this to step up their game, as it were, to compete with the serious issues Spring Awakening attacks. This show, while sure to have the commerical succes that can be expected, might not be the hard-hitting musical that we need and expect.
I love JRB, dont get me wrong, but this show seems to be so much of a gimmicky ordeal. The simple fact that the entire cast and orchestra are made up of minors certainly gained 13 much media attention. It'll be interesting to see if the show's merit holds up to it's appeal to the press.
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