The Globe and Mail: Talk about a super-group.
This week, news leaked out that the Stratford Festival has commissioned a “meditation on Hamlet” that will feature music by Stars, bringing together Shakespeare with one of Canada’s biggest indie-pop bands.
Engineered by Stars front man (and sometimes actor) Torquil Campbell with Siminovitch Prize-nominated director Alisa Palmer, the metaphysical cabaret planned will mash-up the band’s existing songs – and perhaps some original ones – with words orchestrated by playwright and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald.
4 comments:
I think that indie rock can definitely save musical theatre. The entertainment industry is at a bit of a standstill right now, where the most popular musicians are the ones who do covers of songs and use electronic drums and auto-tuning to make their songs hits, and broadway is reliant on disney to pump out a musical based on a movie that they already released. So, where do we go from here? By using real musicians and theatre producers with lots of creativity. This really could save the artistic quality of musicals out there, and it could bring more attention to quality musicians as well and visa versa to quality actors and actresses who aren't doing big time shows. They used the example of Arcade Fire in this article, and I would most certainly attend a show based on music from Arcade Fire. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of other people out there who feel the same way.
I would not be pleased if this is the direction in which musical theater starts to go. It sounds pretty bad. But, that said, I agree with the article and the comment above. Indie rock is in right now and using that genre in musical theater could really broaden public interest. It definitely won't catch my interest.
"The changes wrought in the industry by online downloading mean musicians . .. have more in common , now – in that passion has to be the primary motivator."
Indie rock won't save musical theatre, theatre will continue to add edge and style to indie rock. I can't speak for Canadian musical theatre (what was the last great Canadian musical?) but American grandiose musical theatre is not dead. We here in the states aren't looking for any help on that end. Indie-rock, which in my opinion has been getting more theatrical in recent years anyway, perhaps because those artists embrace bohemianism, will continue to look for ways of sharing narratives with their audience. It makes sense for me for song-writers and musicians to turn to theater both as a muse and a training ground for better songs.
This isn't really a new thing, maybe more of an acknowledgement of the style. The music and theatre industries have been doing this for awhile it as Matt points out seems more prevelant now because of Indie musicians have made their shows more theatrical. For years groups have made albums that tell stories and used that to their advantage during concerts. Similarly theatre has adapted albums or song selections to create a production, the article calls out The Who's 'Tommy', but also look at 'Pump Boys and Dinettes, Marvelous Wonderettes, and more recently 'Once', and 'American Idiot'. This isn't the beginning, it's not the savior or, and certainly not the end of musical theatre as we have known or will know it, it's another artistic trend. Personally, one that I find very interesting. I've attended a good number of concerts that had very theatrical sets and themes, and I would very much like to see more plays and musical that can incorporate the music more.
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