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guardian.co.uk: The next version of King Kong will feature music by Elbow's Guy Garvey, Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja, the Avalanches and Sarah McLachlan. All have signed on as contributors to a new stage musical, premiering in Melbourne next year.
Reading this article, I can't even fully fathom the amount of technical work put into this show. A one ton animatronic gorilla, moving about onstage, probably with actors on it at the same time. I mean, the entire structure of the stage would have to be rebuilt to support something such as that. Plus, the communication between programers, electricians, and choreographers, to make sure that no one gets crushed underneath this machine, would have to be flawless. No movement of either the machine or people could be unaccounted for at any second in time. As an audience member, this music choices and the pure thrill of seeing this show sounds amazing. As someone who is familiar with technical theatre, it sounds like a big headache.
This is something I was looking forward to rwading on this blog. When I went to see the How to Train you Dragon Live Spectacular, I was speaking to M. Descombes about her summer intership where she was able to see a lot of the techincal components to show like this. And during this conversation she actually mentioned this show and was going into some of the specifics of the technical requirements of the King Kong puppet/anamatronic. I have always been a little bit skepitcal about large spectaculars like this because with modern CGI, it is far to easy for the advanced special effects to just look silly. However I was really excited to see that Sarah MacLauchlan would be providing some of the music for the show. I have always thought her songs present a intense emotional reaction. I cannot wait to see this show come to America.ofignsup 47
An interesting turn of events here, getting multiple music artists writing songs for specific characters or only certain parts of a show rather than an entire musical production; something we certainly don't see very often, if we've seen it at all yet. One complaint I've often heard about musicians writing for theatre rather than albums is their inability to meld songs together in a workable narrative. While this criticism certainly has a sliding scale [ranging from something like Spring Awakening to Spider-Man], it's fascinating to see producers trying different formulas to make a musical work.
I'm also curious to see how long it takes until we see this same show in the US. Cause if it works, that can't be far off.
...in other news, Kong will be powered entirely by Arduino. Thank you.
I think that I have seen almost every King Kong movie ever made. Even the tacky old ones.
That's an interesting musical team that they combined for this. After a Google search to gain more information on the launch I came across a recording of it where some of the lead actors sang songs to be featured in the show. The orchestra sounded fantastic and the arrangements were as dramatic as ever! And here's the link: http://kingkongliveonstage.com
The video also showed prototypes of the King Kong Puppet and they are actually quite impressive thus far. King Kong is massive and will be such an integral part of the set. The creature designer's work is just amazing. I hope that the final product will also be impressive and that King Kong doesn't look fake and silly.
This really is a huge undertaking, but a welcomed one... we need new shows. The same old, same old is getting very boring. Wish I was in Australia to see it.
This is what happens when Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark starts to make money. I believe we are in a for a huge run of large spectacle shows as long as they remain profitable. This is good for Broadway and good for me (as a career choice) but the nostalgist in me wants Broadway to be the way it used to be. However, I can/should not fight it. Broadway has always been about spectacle and will continue to do so. I just hope this new King Kong gives us a good story with compelling characters and crafted songs. Something I will want to go see twice. (Guess how many times I am planning on seeing Spiderman?)
So awesome King Kong the musical. Truly when Spiderman became a musical they can make anything into a musical. I would love to see it and as a TD I would LOVE to work on Kong. That will be one amazing piece of technology to produce the ape on stage. I would love to see it, if the tickets are not over 100 dollars. Just wish the produces the best of luck turning kong into a musical. I do agree with Dale that I hope it gives us a good story and not just a large ape.
6 comments:
Reading this article, I can't even fully fathom the amount of technical work put into this show. A one ton animatronic gorilla, moving about onstage, probably with actors on it at the same time. I mean, the entire structure of the stage would have to be rebuilt to support something such as that. Plus, the communication between programers, electricians, and choreographers, to make sure that no one gets crushed underneath this machine, would have to be flawless. No movement of either the machine or people could be unaccounted for at any second in time. As an audience member, this music choices and the pure thrill of seeing this show sounds amazing. As someone who is familiar with technical theatre, it sounds like a big headache.
This is something I was looking forward to rwading on this blog. When I went to see the How to Train you Dragon Live Spectacular, I was speaking to M. Descombes about her summer intership where she was able to see a lot of the techincal components to show like this. And during this conversation she actually mentioned this show and was going into some of the specifics of the technical requirements of the King Kong puppet/anamatronic. I have always been a little bit skepitcal about large spectaculars like this because with modern CGI, it is far to easy for the advanced special effects to just look silly. However I was really excited to see that Sarah MacLauchlan would be providing some of the music for the show. I have always thought her songs present a intense emotional reaction. I cannot wait to see this show come to America.ofignsup 47
An interesting turn of events here, getting multiple music artists writing songs for specific characters or only certain parts of a show rather than an entire musical production; something we certainly don't see very often, if we've seen it at all yet. One complaint I've often heard about musicians writing for theatre rather than albums is their inability to meld songs together in a workable narrative. While this criticism certainly has a sliding scale [ranging from something like Spring Awakening to Spider-Man], it's fascinating to see producers trying different formulas to make a musical work.
I'm also curious to see how long it takes until we see this same show in the US. Cause if it works, that can't be far off.
...in other news, Kong will be powered entirely by Arduino. Thank you.
I think that I have seen almost every King Kong movie ever made. Even the tacky old ones.
That's an interesting musical team that they combined for this. After a Google search to gain more information on the launch I came across a recording of it where some of the lead actors sang songs to be featured in the show. The orchestra sounded fantastic and the arrangements were as dramatic as ever! And here's the link: http://kingkongliveonstage.com
The video also showed prototypes of the King Kong Puppet and they are actually quite impressive thus far. King Kong is massive and will be such an integral part of the set. The creature designer's work is just amazing. I hope that the final product will also be impressive and that King Kong doesn't look fake and silly.
This really is a huge undertaking, but a welcomed one... we need new shows. The same old, same old is getting very boring. Wish I was in Australia to see it.
This is what happens when Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark starts to make money. I believe we are in a for a huge run of large spectacle shows as long as they remain profitable. This is good for Broadway and good for me (as a career choice) but the nostalgist in me wants Broadway to be the way it used to be. However, I can/should not fight it. Broadway has always been about spectacle and will continue to do so. I just hope this new King Kong gives us a good story with compelling characters and crafted songs. Something I will want to go see twice. (Guess how many times I am planning on seeing Spiderman?)
So awesome King Kong the musical. Truly when Spiderman became a musical they can make anything into a musical. I would love to see it and as a TD I would LOVE to work on Kong. That will be one amazing piece of technology to produce the ape on stage. I would love to see it, if the tickets are not over 100 dollars. Just wish the produces the best of luck turning kong into a musical. I do agree with Dale that I hope it gives us a good story and not just a large ape.
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