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lucygold95 · 10 months

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POTO Busan review (centered on actors).

(*I wrote longer reviews in Korean on another SNS before. **It's a long review with bad English grammar, so if you're busy, I recommend you to read only keywords.)

0. I saw POTO Busan performances for the first time on April 30(Both matinée and evening performances). I had saw POTO World tour and London (+ JOJ concert in Korea😄) before and (as you all know) the POTO Korea set was the original version, not the world tour version or the London reopening version. The costumes were similar to the recent London costumes, but have more beads except Star Princess costume. The directing and choreography(except Masquerade) were Broadway versions before COVID.

I finished brief introduction, so I'll talk about actors now. (I know that POTO Korea video bootlegs exist, but most of them were recorded in very early days including previews. And some actors(particularly 조승우 and 송은혜) were sick at the beginning of the Busan run. So later performances were much better than those videos.)

1. Raoul actors

송원근's Raoul is gentle, romantic and mentally mature(He looks younger than his age, but he is actually 40). His Raoul resembles Steve Barton's Raoul in many ways. I think he's one of the standard ALW Raouls. (If you like the original London cast, I recommend 손지수 Christine and 송원근 Raoul pair.) His gentle voice, good romance acting and nice dance skills are his strengths.(He is now a famous musical actor, but long ago he was an unfamous idol/dance singer. He has also been a drama actor since 2013.) + Personally, his stifling acting at The Final Lair was very impressive.

황건하 has a very unique voice for Raoul. He has a very heavy tone. His deep voice color reminds me of Bengt Nordfors's Raoul. However, his Raoul is not as mature as Nordfors's. His Raoul is young(황건하 is 25 years old, so I think that's the reason.) and and full of enthusiasm like the Leroux Raoul. But his Raoul isn't fragile like the Leroux Raoul. His Raoul is weaker than Ramin and Hadley's, but it has a similar sense of mettle.

Doesn't 황건하's impression resemble that of Hadley and Ramin? +I think 황건하's strength is his nice singing skills.

2. Christine actresses

To be honest, Korean audiences gave 송은혜 a better rating than 손지수 on the reservation site during Busan run. On the contrary, I've seen many non-Korean old phans tend to prefer 손지수. If you want to know why, go to 2-4). (* I love both of them similarly.)

2-1) Voice color: Both Christines have quite different voice colors. 💙송은혜 Christine has a clear and very light voice color. Her voice is transparent and light like a shiny glass bead. Her voice color resembles previous Korean ALW Christines (Especially 김소현 Christine) voice colors.(+ Emmy Rossum's voice color a little bit too.) 🤍손지수 Christine has a light(but less lighter than 송은혜's voice), warm and very soft(<-->clear) voice. I think her voice color is very unique! Her voice reminds me of soft and warm angel wings.

2-2) Singing style: 💙송은혜 sang POTO numbers more like musical singing style than opera " .(She majored in opera, but worked as a popera singer/an ensemble in the musical Elisabeth.) I think her singing style resembles previous Korean Christines (Especially, 최현주 Christine's POTO Korea 1st revival run. *최현주's stage name in Japan was 'Sai Tamami'.) and Sierra Boggess (Particularly WYSHA) a lot. 송은혜 has a girlish voice and face(I think both Christines look younger than their age. 송은혜 is 30 years old and 손지수 is 33 years old.), but she is an independent and modern Christine 'compared to the other Christine'. But her voice is light and less powerful than Sierra's, so sometimes I think her singing resembles Amy Manford too(But less operatic way).

🤍손지수 sang POTO numbers in an operatic way. (She is an opera singer.) And her calm and classical singing style is very reminiscent of Sarah Brightman's singing style. (+ Rebecca Caine's West End run.) But warmer and softer than them(I think Caine and Brightman has cooler voice and more vivid voice).

I prefer 🤍손지수's WYSHA🤍 more than 송은혜's and I prefer 💙송은혜's TOM and POTO(I like her cadenza & high notes)💙 more than 손지수's. Personally, 손지수's WYSHA is one of the top five WYSHWs I've heard.

2-3) Character interpretation: 💙As I said above, 송은혜 Christine was an independent and modern Christine 'compared to the other Christine'. Also, her interpretation influenced a lot by 최현주(최현주's Korea run. But I think 송은혜's voice color and face resemble 김소현's.) and Sierra's. But I think her Christine is less stronger than Sierra's. + 송은혜 Christine's love for Phantom is more Erosive 'compared to the other Christine'. ++ I like 송은혜's Serafimo.

🤍In every way, 손지수's Christine evoked the nostalgia of Christines in the 80s and 90s. (Her special voice color that distinguishes it from others, operatic singing style and Leroux-like Christine interpretation.) She was a very soft and warm Christine. She respected and relied on Phantom, her teacher and guardian. And her love for the Phantom was close to the Virgin Mary's agape love for humanity. I really love her classical Christine interpretation!

2-4) Points to be improved: I really love 손지수's classical Christine, but she need to develop her dialogue acting and body acting. She is a native Korean and speaks Korean naturally in her daily life, but on stage, she spoke lines as if she were reading a textbook. She spoke strictly and exaggerated at the same time. I know POTO is a sung-through musical but her Little Lotte dialogue acting was not good. But if you are not a native Korean speaker, it will be hard to notice. (+ Interestingly, her songs contained a variety of emotions and her pronunciation was not strange when she sings.) I think this is why she is preferred by non-Korean phans over Korean audiences. If you want to know her strengths, read the keywords from 1-1) to 1-3).

송은혜's lines and body acting were okay, but often 손지수's facial expressions were better than her. (The interesting thing is that 송은혜 said she has been a phan for more than a decade, but the other Christine – who wasn't a phan – is preferred to her by a global phandom👀(I think it's because 송은혜 is a fan of Sierra and old phans tend to prefer classic POTO over 25th anniversary.)) And neither of them can do ballet professionally.

3. Phantom actors (* I didn't see 조승우

Phantom's performance in a good seat, and his condition was not good at that day, so I'll exclude him from this Busan review.)

전동석's Phantom was a romantic and soft phantom like Kopit's Phantom(* He played Kopit Phantom. But still, his ALW Phantom was stronger than his kopit Phantom). His Phantom seemed to have loved Christine for a long time. Not every performance, but he would often greet Christine (as if he were worshiping her) during the POTO number like the picture below.

And he carefully stroked her face when she fell asleep during The Music of the Night. His phantom reminds me of Earl Carpenter's phantom, who was also a soft phantom and liked to stroke Christine's hair.

* 전동석 sang POTO numbers by mixing musical and opera singing styles.(Although he majored in opera, he has worked as a musical actor for a long time, not an opera singer.) And he sang high notes well.

On the contrary, 김주택's Phantom was a very strict teacher and musician who wants to strongly control his student – Christine who will show his music to the world – 'at first'. He looked domineering and sometimes very dangerous villain. During STYDI, 전동석's Phantom seemed so sad and he couldn't hurt Christine, but 김주택's Phantom was very angry and seemed to strangle(but not kill) Christine if she was caught. But he got shocked and recognized his love to Christine when Christine handed over his mask during STYDI. After that 김주택 Phantom changed a lot. Even his voice changed a lot.

* At first, 김주택 Phantom's voice sounded very heavy and Phantom is in his mid-40s to early 50s, but after STYDI, his voice changed softly and Phantom is in his mid or late-30s except some scenes. (* 전동석 Phantom's voice sounded like he is in his mid-30s. And his voice color was lighter than 김주택's.) Also, 김주택 sang the numbers very operaically(It's natural that he is an opera singer(Baritone). *POTO is his musical debut).

I expected he still had a very scary side during AIAOY reprise 1, but I was surprised that he cried really a lot during AIAOY reprise 1. He broke my predictions several times and gave me fresh shocks as if I had never seen the Phantom of the Opera.

From here, I'm going to compare the two phantom actors. During PONR, 전동석's phantom was very sexy and I am sure his 'Don Juan Triumphant' must be loved by the audience. I saw the performance from the perspective of the Paris Opera audience who enjoyed the show. On the contrary, 김주택 Phantom's 'Don Juan Triumphant' seemed very dangerous. I felt a dangerous criminal go crazy and snuck in. I saw the performance from the perspective of the Paris Opera staff who were nervously watching the performance. And I love 김주택's AIAOY reprise 2.

At the final lair, 전동석 Phantom tended to recite that Christine was the only light to him after she left. I think his experience of Kopit Phantom was melted here. I like the way he emphasized Phantom's love to Christine. From beginning to end, the most important thing to him was Christine. Even during the 'Why So Silent', he thought that 'you' were Christine, not André and Firmin. Anyway, he let Christine go and cried, but he also smiled (like Ethan Freeman's Phantom) because his soul was saved by her kiss. 김주택 Phantom's final lair was scary and nervous. But Christine, especially soft and angelic 손지수 Christine, melted that dramatically with a warm heart and kisses. I think 김주택 Phantom and 손지수 Christine are a really good match for each other. They have similar singing styles(They are both opera singers and studied at the Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi di Milano.) and the height difference between 김주택(178cm) and 손지수(early 160s) is also appropriate. (*송은혜 is taller than 170cm and she wears Christine's heels on stage, so she has better chemistry with tall phantoms. **The phantom in the image below is 전동석, who is 186cm tall.)

Let's get back to the point. I think 손지수's interpretation of Christine goes well with all Korean Phantoms. But I think 손지수's soft and warm Christine goes best with 김주택's strict and scary phantom. It reminds me of a fairy tale that the goddess of spring softly melts the god of cold winter. + 김주택's Phantom also smiled (like Ethan Freeman's Phantom) at the end.

4. Carlottas, Piangi, Meg and André.

Both Carlotta actresses are young and are not much older than Christine actresses. For example, 한보라 – one of the Carlotta actresses, was born in 1988, and 손지수 – one of the Christine actresses, was born in 1989. So that reminded me of the relationship between Patti sisters(Adelina Patti/Carlotta Patti) and Christine Nilsson(*Both Adelina and Christine were born in 1843). 한보라, in particular, has a light tone like Adelina. (The other Carlotta – 이지영 has a calm voice.)

박회림 Piangi was really good at both singing and acting. The long extension of Hannibal high note at the end of the Busan run was very surprising.

조하린, who played Meg, has a sweet and girlish voice :) I like her Meg, though she sometimes struggled with the high notes. Her dance was great too.

Finally, I admired 윤영석's André. His André really loves music and art. It was really impressive that his eyes were shining when he saw arts. His André was as good as his Phantom in both singing and acting.

#the phantom of the opera #poto korea #poto busan #review #오페라의 유령

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operafantomet · 1 year

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POTO KRISTIANSTAD

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Kristianstad (Kricccchhhensta’) Teater, April 15, 2023

PHANTOM: John Martin Bengtsson CHRISTINE: Hanna Ulvan RAOUL: Jonathan Böiers CARLOTTA: Anna Hammarqvist FIRMIN: Sebastian Lamberth ANDRÈ: Anton Salvin MADAME GIRY: Hanna La Fleur MEG GIRY: Johanna Westholm PIANGI: Filip Barna

And now for something completely different… The speaker announced «Not Broadway’s… Not West End’s… but OUR version of The Phantom of the Opera». And it sure is. This was a production that played with much of the well-known iconography: blonde Christine in white robes, lots of candles, the iconic chandelier, a Phantom in the shadows, and scenes you might feel resemble something you’d seen before. Yet the total felt independent, fresh and creative.

Take the AUCTION SCENE. You’d think featuring a woman as the auctioneer was a gimmick, in the vein of «it’s always a man, therefore we feature a woman». But it worked very, very well. A business woman with authority, and no time for nonsense. The set had a bold original Phantom feel with the drapes and the veiled chandelier in front. The cast was standing around it. But once the Overture hit we got the first glimpse of creative thinking. Raoul stumbled around in the auction set, like a hellish nightmare scene, before it slowly transformed into his youth and Hannibal. I loved this so much. The chandelier rose with flickering light and an added sound effect of crystals shaking. Effective.

HANNIBAL gave the first glimpse of a quite versatile set. In some productions you may tire quickly of seeing the same modules or sets being used for all scenes. I never really got the feeling in this production; only towards the end did I realize they used the same set pieces twisted and turned. But in a clever and effective way. So also in Hannibal, where the main set was a staircase, columns and drapes. I neither loved nor hated the costumes, they went for a minimalistic antiquity look and it served the purpose. Bonus for printed elephants on the ballerina costumes, I guess. Both Filip Barna (Piangi) and Anna Hammarqvist (Carlotta) had impressive vocals. Carlotta’s rant after a sandbag nearly hit her was also A+. And this Lèfevre... He was heading for AUSTRALIA.

THINK OF ME was the first real glimpse of Hanna Ulvan as Christine. The first think that struck me is how very enthusiastic, bubbly and outwards her Christine appeared. As I never saw her in the replica production in Stockholm, I don’t know if it’s the specific directing in this non-replica version, or her take on the role. But I rather liked it, as it made Christine a slightly different figure and in some ways I got Leroux vibes to the kind and giggly Christine described when she’s at the opera (but without the edge seen in the lair scenes).

Voice wise Think of Me didn’t quite do it for me. Ulvan has some glorious upper notes, a a good coloratura ring to it, and she appears to have a nice depth as well. But the mixed middle register, which this first aria has a sneaky amount of, appeared a bit muffled, and her voice sometimes has dominant overtones. At the other hand I know some Christines holds back a bit in the first act to also vocally show Christine progressing in the second act. It made me curious of what to come. Costume wise Christine herself ripped off the Hannibal costume, partly covered by other cast members, and they put on her a bronze robe more or less identical to Carlotta’s. Also got the first glimpse of Jonathan Böiers as a very sympathetic young Raoul.

ANGEL OF MUSIC gave RAH vibes. A set piece with a wall and mirror in the middle, a dressing table with the back turned to the audience to the right, imaginary door to the left. But with a nice twist: during Little Lotte it was Christine who was spinning around on the floor while Raoul sat down at the boudoir. Which very much underlined Ulvan’s bubbly Christine. She had nice chemistry with both Meg (Johanna Westholm) and Raoul (Jonathan Böiers).

Ya know how I rave about John Martin Bengtsson as the Phantom? Well. I had forgotten about just how amazing his vocals is. The second his voice boomed from behind the mirror I knew the next minutes of the show would be glorious. Such depth, such volume. As the mirror was down on the floor and not tilted, they had Christine sitting down on the floor for max effect. And that was beautiful - her reflection overlapped perfectly with the Phantom’s.

Now, for the TITLE SONG they used all the innovative tricks in the book and I loved it. For the first part a big gate went down in the middle of the scene. It gave an impression of a huge mirror - but this was in fact just doubles perfectly mimicking the leads; one pair crossing from right to left, and the other pair from left to right. This was one of my favourite set solutions in the whole show.

Then on to the boat, which basically was a mesh/cage structure rising from the floor. As the Phantom gondoled and Christine held the lantern, smoke and cliffs surfed past them, giving a sense of movement. The cage structure was then lowered into the floor, with a brief curtain down and the cadenza, and what had been the staircase structure for Hannibal was massively transformed into a labyrinth of stairs covered with masks, the monkey musical box, a creepy ballerina doll, a «cracked» backdrop, and a large organ to the right. During the song the ceiling was also covered with burning candles, Harry Potter/Restaged Tour style. Absolutely gorgeous.

Cue: MUSIC OF THE NIGHT. Which again was utterly vocal perfection. John Martin Bengtsson is tall, and this time in floor-length leather coat and half-mask covering the upper half of the face which created an iimposing figure opposite tiny Hanna Ulvan. The overall blocking felt like familiar terrain, with some poses resembling original Phantom. In this version I would have liked for the blocking to include more direct physical contact - or almost so - between the Phantom and Christine. Instead Christine got a bizarre dance with the creepy ballerina doll, which obviously made her faint… Gotta give props for a take on it I had never seen before, and also a foreshadowing to the Managers scenes where the Phantom is shows as the perfect puppet master. Yet… I’m not sure i loved it, I just enjoyed it on an intellectual level. If that makes sense.

STYDI… A more literal take on «music that burns», as Christine wakes up from the thunderous composing and is franatically covering her ears to make it stop. The Phantom, in the mean time, ha brought over some composing quirks from the Danish production. YES to that. You’d think this would not encourage her to approach the Phantom, but she does. The unmasking was a perfect balance between utter rage and a «pitiful creature», and beautiful acted by both of them. Yet I could not stop wondering why the Phantom didn’t snatch one of the 15 other masks he had laying around in the lair to cover his face… I get the symbolism, that it’s not really about the mask itself, rather that Christine revealed him and saw his face. But still. Dude, you have a lot of masks!

It appears non-replica versions really love to have Buquet sing MAGICAL LASSO from box five, or at least one of the boxes. They did the same in Hungary, in Romania/Norway/Greece, and also here. It works well as a foreshadowing, you know Buquet is messing hard with the Phantom when doing that. Using the theatre’s actual boxes was a nice detail as well. In this scene I noticed what a splendid voice Madame Giry (Hanna La Fleur) has. Beautiful upper register.

1ST MANAGERS… This set resembled the dressing room set, but this time with a «window» in the upper left side, a staircase next to it, and in front right a writing desk and chairs. The managers was very good; André (Anton Salvin) was less flamboyant than in the replica versions. Firmin (Sebastian Lamberth) had more comical relief moments. Interesting change. The «window» and the staircase introduced an ever-flowing new range of people until the scene was set for the Phantom.

The moment they started reading his letter he appeared in the «window», and I was like «Aha! Just like Hungary and RAH and stuff». But then they took it up a notch. The people in the office froze, the Phantom physically entered the room, and at one point he even started waltzing with Carlotta when casting her as the silent pageboy, much like Christine had been waltzing with the creepy ballerina doll in his lair. This was eerie, as all of them were frozen except the Phantom. A true puppet master. With him leaving they returned to normal. The rest of the scene felt very ordinary after this! Carlotta changed into the Il Muto costume on stage, as favoured by RAH and a long line of non-replica productions.

The IL MUTO costumes had a LOT more going on than what photos ever showed. They were all glittering in silvery gold and pink. Pretty. I didn’t quite understand the Il Muto set, it looked like a tiny box on a big stage. Why so cramped? The scene itself was fairly close to the replica version, or maybe more RAH as they sat on a chaiselongue. But the acting was much the same, as was the costume routine. Here (as well as in Hannibal) they made a big deal out of Carlotta using a mouth spray. I never liked that, as it covers up the Phantom’s ventricolist abilities. You’d think they rather underline that here, with their Phantom being such a puppet master after all. But ah well.

I gotta admit I did not like the choreography in this version at all, and especially so the Il Muto ballet. The choreography made them look like a beginners class in jazz ballet. The Il Muto ballet was possibly my least favourite scene in this production. By no fault of the dancers, mind you. But it didn’t help that there were only three dancers in the scene. Would probably have been cooler with just one primadonna and the others standing in the back. But… dead Buquet was a great effect. He (I.E. his dummy) had a bag over his head and was flung in from the left. Looked scary and realistic, it did.

In the ROOFTOP scene Christine kept her Serafimo costume, but with an added cloak. If I had been a bit hesitant to Hanna Ulvan’s vocals in TOM she sung the h*ll out of this scene. Her «sooooaaar» absolutely soared, with a phenomenal upper register. She and Böiers sounded so lovely together. The set itself had a staircase solution and with two angel sculptures in the back. As is proper the Phantom was later on introduced by a bit of thunder and lightning, looking like a dark shadow like the sculptures. Very cool. Another stellar vocal moment for JMB, especially him holding the «…yoooouuuuu» for eternity, until the curtain call and the chandelier started crashing. DAYM.

(INTERMISSION: Oh so you only accept cash for the brochure? Great… *runs across town for an ATM*)

MASQUERADE. It was a bit meeeh. Again because I absolutely did not like the choreography. Lots of robotic arm movements. Also few costumes that identified the leads well; only when Christine and Raoul sung to eachother did I realize who they were. I would have liked more defined figures, or a choreograpy singling them out more. But nice formations throughout. The backdrop looked like a giant cracked mirror and of course the Phantom came crashing through here as Red Death. Only proper.

Now, for those who saw BBC’s «Behind the Mask» documentary back in the days, original magic consultant Paul Daniels told about his original idea for Red Death. He never liked the very obvious trapdoor which Hal Prince favoured. He wanted Red Death to just dissolve into thin air, his costume falling to the floor. And guess what: that is exactly what they did in Kristianstad. And WHAT AN EFFECT. Amazing.

The BACKSTAGE encounter with Raoul and Madame Giry was fairly standard: them in front of the curtain, with a lantern, still in costume. Again I noticed just how lovely a voice this Giry sported.

2ND MANAGERS: same set as the first, obviously, and the Phantom back as even more of a puppet master. Each time he mentioned a person, they moved like a puppet on a string, to his commandments. Here Christine wore her blonde hair up, and a purplish green taffeta day dress. Cool combo. In this scene i also realized that a redhead Christine with her hair up (like previous Christine Sara Ollinen had) and a redhead Carlotta with her hair up would have looked maybe too similar. Again good chemistry between Raoul and Christine, I can’t pinpoint what I liked so much except everything made sense and they worked so well together.

SITZPROBE: When you take a fairly ornamental piano and paint it white AND turn its back towards the audience… it will look like something from the 1980s. But anyway… fairly standard scene, with the piano to the left and the cast to the right. Biggest «problem» was that Piangi sung too well all through the show, and didn’t sound particularly out of pitch in the sitzprobe. Could probably have exaggerated his dislike of the twelve-tone scale more. But that’s an absolutely minor detail. Oh, and «music that burns»? It did of course make the piano burn, again a feature seen in a handful of non-replica productions (at the top of my head the Restaged Tour and Romania/Norway/Greece).

MAUSOLEUM scene was another where I felt they had gone for originality, and in a good way. A cloaked Christine buying a red rose from a mysterious cloaked woman. A violin appearing in box five during the violin solo, a shadow of the past, Daddy Daaé. Then a low-key graveyard with small black crosses here and there; Daddy Daaé’ grave with a white cross however, where Christine put the role. In the middle a mausoleum. Hanna Ulvan absolutely nailed this scene. Amazing vocals, shifting effortlessly between belting /or mixed voice) and divine top notes. And intense acting. I loved it.

As Raoul appears to find his fiancé, so does the Phantom, emerging from the mausoleum. At the beginning Raoul can’t see him, as he is more in the back, but he can hear him. Christine walks as hypnotized towards the mausoleum, but it cut off by Raoul who now also spots the Phantom. Then… 2004 movie. Sword fight. WHY. Everything up until now had been so perfectly eerie, and then something as mundane as swords. Ugh. It’s not that it was not executed well, and both JMB and Böiers did some amazing swordmanship. But it’s the fact that the Phantom needs to use a physical tool, much like Carlotta’s mouth spray or the infamous gun in the Romanian/Norwegian/Greek production. He looses his magic. Anyhow… no-one really wins, and Raoul and Christine eventually runs off.

DON JUAN. What. Even. Is. This. Scene. ??? Stage with a staircase on each side. Two dancers laying lifeless in the middle of the stage. Dead? Poisoned? Drunk? Then a black-clad and masked cast enters, with spitroasts and fruit and holds this over the dancers. Ah. They… are… the… fire? The grill? Uhm, WHAT? My brain is trying so hard to get on board. Passarino is a woman. Or a woman in a pants role. OK. Christine appears, clad in a white lace robe. The cast greets her by… holding the spits with meat towards her…? Are they threatening her? Welcoming her to the feast? I am so lost. Then they disappear. Christine is back to her very bubbly, grand self. Acts the HELL out of Aminta, standing at the top of the left staircase. The until-now lifeless dancers starts to move. The Phantom sings from the top right staircase. Christine and the Phantom sings to eachother, at a great distance. The dancers get more and more erotic, at one point I could have sworn they simulated intercourse (separately, but still). Yet SUCH A DISTANCE BETWEEN THE PHANTOM AND CHRISTINE.

This is the weirdest Don Juan I have seen in my life. And frankly the least sensual one, despite the effort of the dancers. There seemed to be no connection between the two leads, mostly due to the blocking. When they are finally descending the stairs and moving towards eachother the scene is over anyway and it feels too late. Original, yes. But too conceptual for me. Way, way, WAY too conceptual for me.

Back in the lair, for the Final Lair. What a relief after Don Juan. I never wanna go back there. Same set as first lair, but the Phantom has some tricks up his sleeve. When Raoul enters, he carries a gun. You should have learned by now you don’t bring down the Phantom with a weapon. The Phantom heads up to his organ and locks the gate with a lever (understood by a rumling sound effect). But then… The Phantom use Christine as a human shield to avoid Raoul’s gun. YOU DID NOT. Absolutely not. Just no. Then he simply snatches Raoul’s gun and use it against him. Buys with toys, enough with the silly weapons. They are a mere distraction. Don’t. Also: you still refer to hanging Raoul. It makes no sense.

Back and forth with the threatening Christine has luckilly had enough (and the Swedish translation of «…turns to tears of hate» is maybe even more powerful, as it means something like «NOW I WISH YOU DEAD», perfectly belted by Hanna Ulvan). As the chaos breaks down she eventually kisses the Phantom, once, twice, absolutely disarming him, if not physically then mentally. He opens the lever and orders them to leave. And it’s a broken Phantom we face at the end. Throughout the scene I almost got Frankenstein vibes, a tall and menancing figure with restrained bodice language. Like a wounded beast. Add booming voice - and it’s such an exclamation point of a character, demanding all attention. This is also why I think swords and guns are unnecessary. He already owns the room and commands all the other characters. But ah well. I halfway suspected the Phantom would just disappear into one of the staircase structure, as he was at one point curled up in one of the corners of it. But then he stood up and walked right through the backdrop, boldly lit up through the many cracks. Walking into the light and to redemption? Walking into the flames of hell? I’m not sure, but visually it looked very good.

In this production the whole goddamn mob enters the lair. But as per usual it is Meg who picks up the mask and holds it up as the light dims. Which objectively is beautiful. In the back of my head I was pondering on how Meg knew which mask was the right one, however. As this lair is decked with white masks. But that’s probably a nerdy or too literal point to make.Cue: thunderous applause.

OVERALL: a very interesting, clever and creative production, playing on familiar Phantom visuals as well as adding many of their own. Raoul stumbling around in the nightmare-ish Auction/Overture set, dreamlike title song and MOTN, a magical Red Death disappearance and a super strong WYWSHA stands out as favourites. Some outstanding leads throughout, with a extra shout-out to John Martin Bengtsson’s Phantom. He is world class. Period. I also really enjoyed Hanna Ulvan’s somewhat different take on Christine, Jonathan Böier’s abolutely solid Raoul and Madame Giry’ beautiful vocals. But frankly, all leads did very well. Energetic orchestra, falling chandelier, old and gorgeous theatre. This was Phantom allright.

So I traveled through three countries (and two train break-downs) to see this. It was the first live production I saw of POTO after the pandemic. It’s the second non-replica production I have seen live, and my second production where John Martin Bengtsson played the Phantom. I only had a vague idea of what to expect, but I very soon found out that photos doesn’t do this production justice at all. Scenes really needed to be watched in full to make sense. Many details were also much revamped for the 2023 run compared to the 2020 premiere. So I had to experience it live, and I am so grateful I was able to.

#phantom of the opera #poto kristianstad #poto sweden #john martin bengtsson #hanna ulvan #jonathan böiers #anna hammarqvist #sebastian lambert #anton salvin #hanna la fleur #johanna westholm #filip barna #non replica #operafantomen #kristianstad teater

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spaceasianmillennial · 23 days

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SUFFS Notes: So I've seen both the off-Broadway and Broadway version

2 years earlier, I experienced the Public version of Suffs (before Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai got producer credits). I even own two press scripts.

The Broadway Suffs opening is "Let Mother Vote" and oh I did fell in love with this opening because of how well it established the Carrie's conservative formation and showed us just how seductive it can be. I also kinda miss the older version that opened with woman and non-binary performers dressed as anti-suffrage men making all these awful anti-suffs slogans. By dressing up as the patriachy, these women and non-binary actors really own the story. The Broadway version has less emphasis on ensemble anti-suffs.

Anyone who has seen the Broadway version know that President Woodrow Wilson (Grace McLean) can't stop singing about "Ladies" and their proper domestic place. Now the off-Broadway run has an comedic ironic payoff to this. President Wilson suddenly gets a chest pain, a stroke, and it is a silly moment (I remember the entire theatre laughing hard). We see a few blackouts of him suffering, and SUDDENLY COSTUME CHANGE, Grace McLean is standing there in a black dress, now playing First Lady Edith Wilson, who took up "Stewardship" when her husband was disabled by his stroke. So Edith starts signing some of his paperwork, ("tariff reform, YOUR FAVORITE") and she runs into a paper that says, "Support for Ratification of the Suffrage Amendment." The stage direction indicates she might be on the "verge of epiphany," and she wonders if she should support it, but then she's like "Absolutely NO!" and rips it. It's a funny way of indicating that just because a First Lady has a Presidential role, that doesn't mean she has empathy for women's rights.

I can see why they cut from the Public, but I do miss the silly transformation sequence of President Wilson‘s stroke and Edith Wilson’s stewardship. (Just cause a First Lady got handed power, doesn’t mean she’s gonna save you.)

One striking change is more conspicuous racial stratification in the cast whereas Aisha de Haas, a Black actor, played the white socialite/Tennessee mother at the Public. Light-skinned BIPOC play white characters, and the Broadway script/direction nods a little more when a dark-skinned BIPOC is in a white role.

For example, in the Broadway version, a Black Tsilala Brock plays the white Irish Dudley and President Wilson utters the lines, "honest for an Irishman!" to bring deliberate attention to the race-bent casting.

Also, the Filipino actress Jaygee Macapugay plays the white Mollie Hay. When Wilson says, "The south will never let ladies vote, let alone colored ladies, thank God," he condescendingly takes Mollie Hay by the waist and Jaygee scrunches this deliberately astonished expression at "colored ladies."

The Broadway version cuts out verses of an anonymous Chinese American suffrage who brought her baby to a march. So I went to the Broadway SUFFS with a Black woman seatmate (who never caught the older version) and she felt the musical didn't directly address other suffrage ethnicities outside of white women and Black women. Yes, there is a diversity of BIPOC people playing white suffrages in both versions (and other backgrounders of color are somewhat suggestive of unnamed suffrages of color who did exist), but now there's no longer a direct acknowledgment of Asian suffrages.

The Broadway did some good work to add a sequence of Inez Milholland (Hannah Cruz) working herself to the bone and exhausting herself across states, with a succession of banners signaling another location, leading to her tragic death. It hits way harder than the off-Broadway version (where Phillipa Soo played Inez).

The Broadway version of Suffs tightened some of the numbers. For example, "When We Are Married/If We Are Married" were separate private moments. The Broadway version combined them and juxtaposition the kisses between the heterosexual Dudley and Doris Stevens ("When We Are Married") with the clandestine lesbian Mollie Hay and Carrie Chapman Catt ("IF We Were Married").

Mollie and Carrie did not kiss in the older iteration. So the script goes from Mollie and Carrie "They want to kiss, but there are people around" to "both couples kiss." A moment where Mollie tells Carrie, "Carrie, it's getting late. Come upstairs" (a major hint of their relationship) was also not in the off-Broadway version.

#suffs #musical #broadway #I like both but also feel complicated about it #alice paul #shaina taub #women's suffrage

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chthonic-cassandra · 4 months

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Recent books, non-fiction -

Samuel Delany, Of Solids and Surds - A compact little book of brief vignettes on the question "why do you write?" This wasn't particularly substantial, but I will read absolutely anything by Delany, and it was sweet and fun. Not a place to start with his non-fiction, but I would recommend it for fellow fans of his work.

Jessi Hempel, The Family Outing - Memoir of Hempel's journey to come out as lesbian alongside the rest of her immediate family also coming out with previously undisclosed pieces of their sexuality orientation, gender identity, or trauma histories. While the premise here might bring Fun Home to mind, this has nothing like that earlier book's wit, sharp gaze, and capacity to hold complexity. I found Hempel's book insipid, flat, and as blandly inoffensive as a self-promotional social media post. Nothing here felt vulnerable, or specific, or complex. Not recommended.

Ethan Mordden, Gays on Broadway - as a teenager I loved Modden's gossipy, encyclopedic series of musical theater history books by decade, so I was excited to see that he'd written this history of queer representation in NYC theater. This was filled with Mordden's typically delightful anecdotes, but it lacked a strong organizing thesis, and its focus frequently felt skewed in random ways (I know Mame is a gay icon, but how many pages do we need on both the play and musical versions of her story?). Only recommended for Mordden completionists, not a great way to learn about the topic.

Vivian Conan, Losing the Atmosphere - DID recovery memoir. Conan talks about having written this book over a period of decades, and you can tell - it's meticulously detailed, sometimes to the point of laboriousness (and she says she cut it down by several hundred pages!), but I did appreciate the rigor in the way she documented her journey; she's a particularly strong narrator of her different therapeutic relationships, and the book is an excellent account of what those arcs can look like. This book gave me a lot to think about, particularly around the intense attachment-focused work she did in her final, and what she considers to be her most successful, therapeutic engagement. While there was violence in Conan's childhood, the main sites of trauma she identifies were less about those experiences and much more around very early neglect and relational misattunement; this means that, though her final therapist seems to use some similar modalities to the ones I've been trained in, their work together and the way she engages with her own dissociation looks different in a couple of significant ways from what I do either for myself or with my clients as a therapist; I need to sit with some of my reactions to parts of that.

W. Scott Poole, Dark Carnivals: Modern Horrors and the Origins of American Empire - horror criticism. I found this extremely uninspired; a lot of critics have made many of these same points more cogently and interestingly.

#books

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in-newjersey · 3 months

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So here are my thoughts on my first time seeing a live BMC production!

Making this non-rebloggable, I am not a real theater critic and I do not want to draw any attention to this actual cast on an anonymous blog to strangers on the internet

For starters, casting!

I respect the variety going on here and the degree of diverging from famous character appearance-tropes. Tiny Latino Jeremy who's as fit as a gymnast and can (and does) do acrobatic spin kicks sometimes? Love it. Plus-size butch-esque Brooke? 10/10. Genderfuckery long-haired Michael who gesticulates with a huge fan through most conversations? Hell yeah. Pink-haired Nirvana-grunge-style trans guy Jake? Now we're talking. Christine a head taller than Jeremy? Awesome.

I will not get too into describing actual real people on here much more than that but in general it was wonderful to see a wide range of character-actor types inhabiting these roles. As someone involved in The Fandom, even though I have frequently expounded upon the mutability of character traits per the text, you do still absorb a general idea of what the characters "look" like; so it was a fun twist to have literally none of the performers fall into those tropes.

I will also say - and this is not a read - that I am no longer going to assume I'm too old to play any of these characters, because I guess that's the magic of community theater lol

On to Thoughts, which I will loosely group by characters:

Rich was fucking awesome. Like I was impressed by the singing skill across the board, but this guy fucking killed it at every turn. I looked at my friend I went with after The Squip Song and we both were like OH OK. Rich also wore mostly KISS T-shirts? Like the shitty glam rock band? But yknow, work. Excellent voice (if casting were a little more 'stereotypical,' he probably would be an excellent Michael). Emotionally, he was on the more explosive side while SQUIPped, melting toward just charmingly cute once in 'real Rich Goranski' mode.

The aforementioned Jake was an interesting take on the character. Definitely leaned more into the kind of douchey side of things, but did at least at one point seem genuinely into Christine (although the actor was very much leaning into the interpretation 'yeah he has multiple interests and he honestly likes them all in the moment but gets bored quickly, and that includes girlfriends'). Is that kind of shitty? Yes. Is that a realistic take on what a rich popular 17 year old might be like? Also yes. Nirvana-fan Jake was not a concept I thought of before but I was down for it (though I discovered later on the cast instagram page that the guy playing Jake said that his version of Jake thinks Nirvana is a clothing brand which, like, galaxy-brain take lol).

THE SQUIP!!!!! Actually cycled through Keanu Reeves costumes, which I loved. Started out in Bill & Ted, then Matrix, then POINT BREAK of all things, before landing on a pretty-impressive-for-the-budget version of the light-up circuitry priest robe thing from the Broadway style. He had the hair and beard pretty close to present-day Keanu too, which made him both line up with the resemblance and seem significantly older than the other characters; voice-wise, this guy was clearly a skilled baritone, which meant his delivery on some of the more rock-style songs was a bit unusual, but not bad. This SQUIP was suave at the right parts but did NOT shy away from being scary: the 'take me inside you' part with Brooke during Upgrade was staged very menacingly with regards to how he was physically moving around/behind Jeremy. The Play was delightfully sinister, leaning HARD into the SQUIP as literally puppeteering everyone: saying their lines and moving his hands like marionnettes throughout, keeping things very creepy and villainous.

On the topic of the play, the fight choreography kicked ass. Mr. Reyes's ALL THE WAY TO BROADWAY rant was delivered while he yanked Jeremy off the ground by his shirtfront and then threw him furiously across the stage, genuinely concerning and upsetting to watch (especially as the SQUIP was miming the same actions and lines behind him, obviously in control of Reyes's body) (I literally said 'oh fuck' out loud when it happened and got a Look from the presumably-grandma in the row ahead lol). The fight choreography during Two Player Game Reprise was also solid: the guy playing Jeremy was FIT and did a lot of impressive acrobatic kicks and such, and the person playing Michael being a lot taller and larger worked well with letting him like bounce off, lift him up for spin kicks, etc.

And in general, I respected how much this production was willing to let certain moments be dark. The Play in general was pretty horror-movie-climax; I also respected that the costuming did indeed look like so-so high school mockups of a modern zombie movie. But the whole number was eerie, SQUIPPED character movements and voices became unnervingly smooth and robotic, and positioning the SQUIP as the puppetmaster in the middle, literally moving the characters around, just sold the whole thing wonderfully. Very appropriately leaning into the horror part of horror-comedy.

Similarly, Do You Wanna Hang? was scary. AS IT SHOULD BE. My friend who came with me compared it favorably to the car scene in the movie 8th Grade, where you're just On Edge the whole time you're watching. The actress playing Chloe did a good job with it, that's an uncomfortable thing to portray but she went for it and it paid off in the moment.

Chloe and Brooke had a fun dynamic: the styles of the costuming/performers did add some interesting dimensions. Chloe was, as usual, pink and perfect and feminine, head-cheerleader vibes; Brooke was short haired and dressed a lot more masculine. Brooke had a very earnest sense of vulnerability to her, and excellent comedic timing during Do You Wanna Ride and The Smartphone Hour, as well as just the minor background-acting moments. They leaned pretty hard into the 'Chloe will take things just because Brooke wanted them, because she likes that Brooke is always a little jealous of her, and thinks that that's friendship' and, like the portrayal of Jake: is that a shitty thing to do? Yes. Is that a realistic thing teenagers might do, especially poisoned by toxic ideas about femininity and power? Also yes.

Which is a good spot to add, the ensemble was small (4) but they were serving it. The band appeared to be octogenarian church volunteers (oh, yeah, this was at a church??? Wesleyan Methodists, so the cool liberal branch of American Christianity) so I will say that with what they had, they were making it work. It would have been served well by a second keyboardist and/or guitarist to do the trumpet parts (it was drums, bass, guitar, and piano). One of the ensemble members, a tall goth-femme person with hot pink hair, played the role of the theremin by doing the melodies in remarkable and ethereal bel canto. And honestly, work.

Jenna Rolan was fun: could belt for the gods, had some pretty-intense Crazy Eyes thing going on that really sold the comedic moments and made her appropriately frightening as the Final Boss in the squipped battle at the end, styled like an early 2000s-lesbian-coded-soft-goth best friend archetype. No notes, 11/10.

The actor playing Mr. Heere/Reyes/Stockboy did a fantastic job of making those three seem separate, and as I mentioned above, really made Mr. Reyes come to life in a dynamic way. Sidenote, this production changed all references to Hobby Lobby to Michaels, which I found both funny and appropriate. Fuck Hobby Lobby, we all hate Hobby Lobby.

Back to characterizations, Christine was sweet and straightforward. Not as quirky or dynamic as Stephanie or a lot of other actresses make her, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Very gentle and smooth voice, she just really likes theater and wants someone to like the real her. They went with ballet-style choreography to introduce her during More Than Survive, which is always a wonderful touch for the way the music swells. There were points where I think a little more creative movement or a wider emotional range might have worked well, but the take on the character was consistent.

I am going to keep that positive thread through the next sections: while I might not have agreed with the interpretation through the text, I do respect going in a starkly different direction to how most productions and fans usually take such things.

I have enormous respect for the performer playing Michael for radically making it their own. The cast bios had pronouns, and Michael's performer was they/she/he, which as a fellow they/she/he who would love to play Michael someday was rad to see. They kept the CREEPS shirt and a hoodie with a lot of patches (albeit a black one with red accents), but that was about it. Michael had light-up cat ear headphones and a huge black fan which he used throughout, alternated between baggy sweatpants or just a floor-length hippy skirt, usually high-heel ankle boots, and some kind of green bathrobe thing for The Pants Song? Characterization, again, respect for making such an iconic character so heavily different. This Michael was not....very emotional. He was usually snippy and sarcastic in a very erudite and matter-of-fact way, at pretty much all points in the show. Not a lot of emotional range going on: this is a Michael who is in some combination of 'doesn't give a shit' and 'not going to let this bother me,' which came off....interesting. The chemistry this created with Jeremy was a starkly different one than we usually see. The original productions - and most since, and the majority of fandom depictions - imagines a Michael and Jeremy who, at their core, love each other a lot. However that manifests of course varies, but you Usually get the impression that (even with a little bit of codependence), these two genuinely love each other and spending time together, which makes moments in the show either heartwarming or devastating to see happen between them.

Not these versions of the characters.

Which didn't make it bad, but it did shake things up. This Michael and Jeremy didn't give deep-love-friendship so much as they gave 'we sat next to each other in 1st grade and don't have other friends. so. I guess we're best friends, huh.'

Which is an INTERESTING and somewhat bleaker, but not unrealistic, take on them. That, sadly, summarizes a lot of friendships, especially at that age and with the sort of vacuum of suburbia on your social sphere (nevermind how a lot of society discourages boys from emotional connection with their friends; if anything, the fact that this Michael was definitely queer might suggest that Jeremy even pulled back emotionally because he didn't want to seem gay or give this Michael the wrong idea). It definitely sells Jeremy feeling lonely, even with his best friend hanging around. Two-Player Game came across a LOT better than I was prepared for - I have waxed about how it's a hard number to pull off - not in spite of, but almost because of this. Like, sure, they've played through this game a million times before, they know every beat, they love it like they love each other, right? even though they seem.....kind of bored. Or at least like they're waiting for something else to happen. College? Girlfriend? Different friends? Just wait two years. Whatever.

To get critical, I will say that this dynamic did not really help Michael in the Bathroom. The fight beforehand and the song itself did.....not really lend themselves to a not-very-emotional friendship between them. The singing was perfect, so not faulting that: it's THE big song of the show, so that's a lot of pressure and the performer had a splendid voice, but the snarky-not-caring-that-much attitude didn't quite do it for me - Michael didn't seem sad or upset so much as pissed off, but still fully keeping it together (despite the lyrics saying otherwise). Tonally, the 'wish I'd offed myself instead' just sounded sarcastic ("wow, SORRY I CARED AT ALL, could've just killed myself for all you seem to care" kind of vibes) THAT SAID, it was consistent with the rest of the characterization, so I admire it as a very specific acting choice. There were also characters on stage - presumably outside the bathroom door, listening in - that turned a good portion of MITB into a comedic number; as I have said before, not my personal take on how that should go, but the audience was laughing along with it! So that's the wonderful mutability of theater.

Strangely enough, this actually made Michael and Jeremy's relationship at the end of the story work out just fine? The SQUIP experience kind of sparked a "wow we really do care about each other, huh" realization from both of them. Again, mad respect for taking such a different approach to such a well-worn character relationship.

So, overall, I am very happy I got to see this. Love to support live theater, love to be surprised by a story that I thought I knew pretty well inside and out, came away with plenty to think and talk about. If you can, go support your local community theater!

#be more chill #soliloquy #michael mell #jeremy heere #christine canigula #jake dillinger #rich goranski #chloe valentine #brooke lohst #jenna rolan #the squip

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lightleckrereins · 1 year

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i imagine that if six had the broadway updates from the very beginning that we would’ve gotten so many more alternate costume designs 😪

like aragon skirts, the cleves reveal leotards etc

Love this hypotetical. Because a lot of things about the original costumes are the result of the circumstances. The original UK tour was still technically an indie show that expected a decent success but not to become a global hit. Budget was small, so a lot of thing couldn't happen even if the costume team wanted them to. Also they were literally figuring out how to make the costumes and how to work with the materials on the go which wouldn't translate into the super detailed current costumes.

Like. Cutouts are both an aesthetic choice and help add structure to materials. Most of the current skirt and sleeve shapes come from adding additional structure for every new set of costumes to stop them from collapsing, and costume team has said they had to figure out how to defy the laws of physics to make plastic so something it wasnt meant to. Stretch panels, underlayers, and separated costume pieces all appeared out of necesity: comfort, freedom of movement, easier cleaning and maintenance, extending costume's life, protecting the materials from wear. Custom boots happened because the show got the budget to afford them, but also specialized dance boots means its safer to dance and jump in them. And my favorite. Gabriella slade has said that she wanted both a full Cleves costume change and tall boots since the start but couldn't make it happen until the original broadway opening.

Aside from that, there is the question of how the alt costume system would have worked. Only principal costumes like bway and cruises means no alt costumes and no alt variations. Principal costumes plus alt costumes for alts and only alt costumes for swings like UK means completely different alt costume designs as those were created for the original WE covers. Only alt costumes depends entirely on covers and whether they had swings from the start or not. So a million variations.

So asuming alt costume systems evolved the same way but we got the super detailed costumes and massive budget from the start. I do have a list (and I might have called it costume fanfic multiple times already).

The bway still has only principal costumes and UK has principal costumes for the alts version.

Black: Lets say the first UK tour had pre update costumes and then update for WE; I don't think Grace would have all six variations for the tour but a main skirt plus cleves (in the original non cutouts version), shorts being worn for B and maybe pants. For WE she starts with S skirt and open skirt plus her tour C and pants as backup. Mallory debuts the Liv Boleyn skirt. Cruises give us updated closed jacket Cleves (I am asuming they still don't get the reveal) and Collette debuts the reveal. Natalie debuts updated pants (with cutouts and studs on the tabs). Since Grace had the open skirt for Howard maybe an Aragon variation with peplum happens on the cruises, or maybe Grace starts with the Karis variation and later Natalie debuts the main one in Bliss.

Teal: Dont know if Vicki has a Boleyn skirt from the start because Vicki B with shorts just makes sense. She does have a way more detailed version of the shorts and jacket. Think how principal Cleves went from solid red to cutouts, well teal square vinyl exists too. Also as alt Cleves she gets the reveal from the start. Nicole gets an Aragon skirt (I still stand by peplum and tabs teal Aragon) and pants with peplum. Bryony debuts the Boleyn and Seymour skirts (with no weird second top) and the Elizabeth Howard skirt. But Shannen does get the different squares on the Boleyn skirt and Jen has shorts for Boleyn (so it works for other queens). Current UK alts get either shorts or pants depending on what suits their interpretations better (instead of everyone having pants).

Orange: Courtney has an Aragon skirt and pants, both with peplum from the start and gets a Seymour skirt mid run after she and Grace switch first covers. There is still no time to make more alt costumes for the first US tour, but everyone says it sucks Shantel doesn't get the first orange reveal Cleves. For AUS Ella gets the Aragon skirt and debuts orange reveal Cleves. To this day we are still waiting for orange Boleyn and Howard. Current UK alts get mostly pants with an Aragon skirt appearing sometimes.

Pink: Shekinah does debut pink with only Aragon, Zara has only the main skirt, Courtney is treated as pink by the fandom but no time for costume to be made for the tour, Both Roxanne and Leah get only the main skirt. And then one random day we get a very blurry photo of the AUS cast featuring Cristina in a brand new pink costume with pants.

Silver: Costume appears for the first time when Natalie joins the UKT as swing with the original three variations. Esme still gets the Boleyn skirt after 2022 cast change and maybe has a Seymour skirt from the start. And then Madeline joins AUS with her cruise costumes only to get a silver with only the main skirt mid run.

The everyone still has alt costumes instead of principals version. And everyone gets a new costume.

Black: Stays the same. (And everyone is obsessed with knowing there were pants in progress for Mallory in 2020 and she never got to wear them).

Teal: Also the same but depending on which cover combo in the UK gets teal main variations change. If it's A/C its skirt and full C if its B/H they favor both skirts but the shorts make surprising appearances sometimes. UK keeps the Bryony skirt but US does the Shannen skirt (lets face it that would totally happen).

Orange: Same and still no Boleyn or Howard skirts.

Pink: This is where it gets fun. For Broadway opening in 2020 Courtney lets slip that since she is first cover Howard she gets pink instead of orange. For reopening she debuts the pants and Boleyn skirt. At WE 2021 cast change it depends on who gets pink if its Danielle she gets a Boleyn skirt, if its Paisley she gets Cleves reveal (Roxanne gets orange as S/P) and repeat for UKT. Cristina still gets a new costume with pants For the US tours pink is probably Erin and Taylor, nothing new in there. But bway cast change Holli' gets pink which means reveal Cleves appears if it didn't exist already.

Silver: same as before but with Marilyn being universal alternate the US needs five alt costumes. There are arguments for her being both black and silver (I say silver because of logistics and Elisabeth says black because of covers). But if she is silver she gets all four variations. If she is black then silver is probably Cassie/Cecilia/Aubrey which means Cassie debuts the Boleyn skirt, maybe Cecilia gets a peplum variation of the main skirt and Aubrey debuts the Seymour skirt. Madeline does get silver with only one variation.

#ask #six the musical #six costumes

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acatinafancyhat · 8 months

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Doing my due diligence and watched 1993-5 Belgian Chess! It’s in dutch, but unfortunately the sound quality is not great so i could only guess at what they’re saying most of the time. The translations are quite different from the 2008 Dutch version i got that far... Fortunately it’s a boring London copy so there’s not that much going on anyway 🙃

And yet i had thoughts, therefore it is shouting into the void time! 🥳

Act 1

- Starting off with... statues sitting at a chessboard? Arbiter is here. People dance around the statues like they’re praying to the chess gods during Story of Chess. Real.

- This Arbiter looks so stressed and irritated already. The players haven’t even shown up yet u don’t know what’s coming your way my friend

- Merano folks have shown up in full lederhosen :)

- Real smoke to show Freddie’s train arriving that’s cool! Ohh and this Freddie’s going hard on the washed up rock star vibes. Not sure he looks like a Freddie to me though...

- Freddie walks out after Entrance, so Merano people start assaulting a random tourist guy instead. He looks confused. Then concerned. Then runs off-stage screaming. The Merano experience! :D

- Freddie and Florence Established Relationship but their chemistry is Off. Hmmm.

- This Freddie plays a chess computer (except. There is no computer. Only Disembodied Robot Voice and Freddie speaking his move into thin air.) and he also does push ups. Broadway influence?

- Commie Newspapers and Press Conference are both so slow...

- Wait no it’s speeding up for PC chorus but that’s Not Better. I don’t get this timing it sounds very wrong

- Punching a reporter, check!

- Anatoly and Molokov look like college professors but in different ways (Anatoly is your homeless depressed comp lit guy, Molokov teaches law and delights in assigning too much homework. the AU is real to me)

- Some guy is watching Anatoly do Where I Want to Be. Is he a bodyguard? Idk...

- Anatoly’s chess second also looks like a college professor what is this (Perpetually Anxious Uncomfortably Freud-Loving Psychology Professor vibe for him)

- “No one can deny what kind of times these are” I guess they are neither difficult and dangerous nor encouraging now. They are simply. A kind of times. You can’t deny it. 👍

- Lmao Walter and Molokov almost get in a fight at the end of Diplomats, Arbiter has to break them up

- Walter and Molokov are on Arbiter background dancer duty!!

- After doing Hymn, Arbiter calls Walter back. They both start laughing maniacally. Strange and disturbing...

- Anatoly and Freddie have both suited up for Chess

- There’s a group of background people behind them just kind of rhythmically swaying in place??

- Freddie fake flips the board it looks so silly. Don’t be a coward let him throw the actual board! Freddie board flipping rights!!!

- This Walter is so ready to fight everybody. Molokov, Freddie, his own camera crew. He’s a hands-on kind of spy.

- Side note I like this Florence actress much better for her than Dutch Florence

- Der Kleine Franz brings back the lederhosen

- Mountain Duet on an empty stage with Anatoly sitting on a chair and Florence standing across the stage. They haven’t even greeted each other. The Flonatoly is truly non-existent so far

- Awkwardly standing opposite each other now as they sing...

- He’s touching her and i cringe.

- This has so little going for it i’m sorry, worse Flonatoly development than RAH fr. Depressed professor Anatoly has no discernible personality he just Stands There. Florence actress does her best to look charmed but she has nothing to go on it is not working for me

- Freddie is SITTING ON A BENCH WATCHING THEM KISS the camera was zoomed in on Flo & Toly idk how long he’s been there 😶

- He loses the match, stalks off, angrily takes off his shirt and shoes and throws them at the wall... Goes to get a robe and a bottle of booze...

- Drunk Freddie during Florence Quits high key Worries me

- He’s so tense fr

- Punches a wall after she leaves

- Floor time even before PTC starts

- Oh okay there goes the robe. This is a weird time for him to be shirtless?

- Aaaaand more floor time for the Sad Man

- Florence comes back!!!!! And puts her coat over him djskskaldgsh What.

- And then we get Florence Someone Else’s Story while she’s sitting with him he’s sleeping(?) on the floor with his head on her knee and she’s like. petting his head. Wahh...

- Okay i mean it’s sweet i guess but they just did Florence Quits so is this really the time???

- Also uncomfortable Freudian vibes tbh

- Anatoly and the Press is slow. Anthem is fast. Make up your mind people >:(

- Toly looks distressed during Anthem. He asks Flo for a hug at the end aww (i'm still not into it)

Act 2

- Hey they translated ONIB i’ve not seen that before actually

- “we’ve barely recovered from those lederhosen” he says. me too buddy, me too

- I think this is the tamest ONIB Feddie i’ve come across so far. he’s just hanging out, the Bangkok people aren’t paying too much attention to him or he to them 🤔

- Reporter Freddie wears a flower blouse and he has a little paper notepad. he looks like he’s on vacation. Real Tourist Freddie :)

- Soviet Machine aka Socially Awkward People Having a Party

- Viigand sits quietly off to the side playing chess while everyone else gets super drunk and dances around, wins the social awkwardness contest

- Lol one guy does the high ooooooo and everyone is so startled and annoyed! Molokov smacks him in the head!

- Freddie looks hyped to do Interview the hard way

- Anatoly takes a step back when he sees him he looks very nervous hehe

- Whyyyyy is this one also slow???

- Oh nope awkward speedup again

- Florence and Svetlana both wearing red in The Deal hmmmmmm

- The Freddie/Anatoly part of The Deal happens over the phone? They’re standing on opposite sides of the stage :(

- Florence/Freddie is irl but for the “who’d ever guess it” verse they don’t look at each other they’re standing next to each other facing the audience i don’t like it :c (also another weird tempo change ugh)

- IKHSW direct translation not flipped!! (thank god) however i have no idea where they’re supposed to be right now

- They’re still both wearing red outfits but Florence’s is a suit and Svetlana’s is a dress the effect is Something. They look more alike than most Flo and Svetas it’s giving me Thoughts.

- They exchange a look at the end and Flo gives Sveta a little nod and then they walk off together i support this :)

- Everyone stands so far apart all the time in this production idk... and every time they get close to each other it’s uncomfortable... only Queens have any kind of chemistry.

- Fun fact instead of chanting the championship years in Endgame they say “first champion... second champion... third champion”

- Freddie and Sveta are off in a corner together watching the game??

- Freddie joins the party to point an accusing finger at Anatoly but we’ve had Talking Chess so i’m not sure what his issue is right now (lyrics are sadly unclear to me)

- Immediate Flonatoly hug after he wins. this Florence just can not make up her mind

- And now she’s telling him to leave

- Freddie is still here. watching them. again. O_O

- Walter tells Florence he’s not sure her father is alive, kisses her forehead and walks off. She should kill him.

- The End

So uh yeah okay that was a Chess. No regrets i will watch them all 🫡 but i hope you make better choices than i did.

Tl;dr on the off chance someone was on the fence about watching this (nah) please let me assure you that You Don’t Need To Do That! You will gain nothing and lose 2+ hours of your life :) Maaaaybe watch Florence Quits, Pity the Child and Someone Else’s Story if you’re a huge Florence/Freddie fan and have nothing better to do!

#chessposting #my random chess thoughts #chess the musical

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twistedtummies2 · 1 year

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Top 15 Portrayals of Christine Daae (ALW’s Phantom)

As many of you know, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” is an important show to me. As well as being my favorite adaptation of the classic novel, it is perhaps my second favorite musical of all time…and given how many musicals I love, that’s saying a lot. It’s certainly one of the most popular pieces of musical theatre ever created; it’s had numerous tours worldwide, many productions in non-English-speaking countries, has been running for decades straight on the West End in London…and, of course, it currently holds the record for the longest-running Broadway musical in existence, with 35 Years Onstage under its black belt.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. That long-running streak of shows is about to fade away: on April 16th - three days from now - the original run of the Phantom of the Opera will be closing on Broadway. While it is possible the show could return in a revival production, and of course the show itself won’t be disappearing entirely, it is sad that such a long-lasting fixture on the New York stage scene will be coming to an end. In honor of this celebrated musical, I thought it would be good to present a few lists naming some of my favorite actors who have played the key three roles in the show: Christine Daae, our main character; the dashing Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny; and, of course, the Phantom himself, known in the book as Erik. I’ll be naming my Top 15 Favorite Actors to play each part between now and closing day for the Broadway production. There are only two rules in order for performers to count. One, I obviously have to have seen or at least heard their work, and heard it in good quantity; if I’ve only heard or seen a performer do one song, I don’t think it’s fair to give them a heap of credit, because I don’t know what the rest of the performance is like. Two, I won’t be counting JUST Broadway performers: actors from the West End, Las Vegas, Canada, Australia, and many others will be included too, along with cast members from the 2004 movie and the 25th Anniversary production at Royal Albert Hall. HOWEVER, I will be counting ONLY English-speaking performers. Why, you may ask? Well, primarily, it’s because I simply and honestly just haven’t seen or heard that much from non-English versions of the show. The ones I have heard or seen have been great, but the ones who perform in my own native language are the ones I know the best. With all that said, let’s begin with Christine. Christine is a more interesting character than I think a lot of people give her credit for. Her heart, her mind, and her will itself are all put to the ultimate test in this show, as she has to figure out where her loyalties and love truly lie. For her, the events she lives through are equal parts traumatic and exhilarating. It’s not an easy journey, and while Christine never swings a sword or gives great commands, she’s a much stronger and more layered character than many likely realize. The best versions of Christine find solid ways to blend her innocence and her maturity, and all have voices that truly match that of a person whom the Phantom considers “His Angel of Music.” This will be a description-less list, as will be the other two to come: just names and pictures. This is mostly because analyzing some of these actors and performances is honestly really, REALLY hard to do, at least for me. Having said that, I think I’ve prattled here long enough: allow me to present my Top 15 Portrayals of Christine Daae from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera!

15. Jennifer Hope Wills.

14. Kelly Mathieson.

13. Claire Moore.

12. Rebecca Caine.

11. Ana Marina.

10. Emmy Rossum. (Not sure how popular or unpopular this opinion is, but I’m sticking to it.)

9. Lucy St. Louis.

8. Sandra Joseph.

7. Sara Jean Ford.

6. Anna O’Byrne. (I should point out I am NOT counting or considering “Love Never Dies” with these lists. However, when a performer has been in both shows, I do find it interesting.)

5. Katie Hall.

4. Sarah Lawrence.

3. Kristi Holden.

2. Gina Beck.

1. Sierra Boggess.

Tomorrow: My Top 15 Portrayals of Raoul!

#list #countdown #best #favorites #top 15 #actors #acting #theatre #musical theatre #broadway #west end #musicals #phantom of the opera #christine #christine daae #rip phantom on broadway

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obsessivelollipoplalala · 4 months

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Longtime follower here. You’ve gotten me curious about musicals but I don’t think I’ve ever watched one. Only thing close to a musical I’ve seen is ABBA (the film)? I did like that one (I do love ABBA) Does that count? Any recommendations for a newbie?

Oh, dear follower, you’ve unknowingly set me off.

The ABBA musical is Mamma Mia, a jukebox musical. I hate jukebox musicals. They’re cheap and lazy and appeal to the average person already knowing and liking the pre-written songs. I was just talking to one of my friends recently and he said he liked Mamma Mia, and I said, “No you don’t, you like ABBA.”

He thought about it and said, “…Oh yeah, you’re right. I thought the story was really stupid.”

The reason why jukebox musicals fail is because they’re pretty much antithetical to how a musical is supposed to work. In a good musical, each song is supposed to reveal something new about a character, move the plot forward, or both. A musical is an album telling a single story. Jukebox musicals inherently cannot do this, or at least not do it well, because the songs weren’t originally written to tell a larger story or be part of a character’s larger arc! Pop songs are always written to be standalone, so they cannot be squished together to tell a larger story in a coherent, well-thought-out way. The songs just weren’t designed for that. That’s why the stories of jukebox musicals are typically so threadbare and the songs are really forced.

I’m saying all of this to explain why I hate them lol, instead of giving a simplistic, “they’re not real musicals.” But they’re not, and that’s^ why. Even Queen has a jukebox musical, and I have no interest in it lol

So let’s talk about real musicals!

If you’ve never really sat down and watched one before, there are some I wouldn’t recommend right away, so let me see:

Sweeney Todd. It’s my favorite show of all time and one of the most complex musical scores in American theater. It’s dark, it’s sometimes comedic, it’s screwed up and presents everything in a very matter of fact way instead of an edgelord way. There are a lot of differences between the film and stage show—in summary, the film actually adapted the show into a movie while the stage show works as a Broadway show!—but I’m not going to go into all of that in this post. If it’s your first musical, watch the movie. It’s played much more straight and with faster pacing that makes it more accessible to a non-theater-going audience. This is a film about a man who returns to London after being wrongly imprisoned for 15 years and seeks revenge on the man who ruined his life, raped his wife, and stole his baby daughter, all the while his former landlady is in love with him and an accomplice to his serial killing, so be warned that the film is rated R. Bonus points for eventual implied cannibalism. Sweeney Todd is insane to talk about out of context lmao but trust me, give it a chance. It was written as a horror movie for the stage

Into the Woods. This is also by American theater god Stephen Sondheim, and yes there’s a movie, but it got the tone completely wrong. The entire Broadway production with the original cast is right on YouTube! It’s a satire on fairy tales, and it’s what happens when multiple fairy tale characters collide in pursuit of their wishes. Act One ends with happily ever after—and Act Two is when everything goes wrong and multiple people die! It’s a really funny show, but it’s genuinely moving and sad by the end. Like any good fairy tale, there’s a moral of the story. It’s among Sondheim’s greatest work.

Jesus Christ Superstar. This is by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. It’s a 1970s rock opera about the last week of Jesus’ life, heavily featuring Judas as a sympathetic character, a tortured soul. The 1973 film is the best version out there and there are many clips on YouTube. Listen: it’s a period piece. It’s hilariously, amazingly 1970s, but the music is genuinely great, it presents Christ as a troubled man and not a god, and Judas is a compelling character. Start with the song “Heaven on Their Minds” at the beginning of the show to see if you’re interested

Fiddler on the Roof. Oh man, this one gets me. The entire film is also on YouTube right now. It’s about a small, traditional Jewish village in Czarist Russia in about 1910, and centers around Tevye, a loud, devoutly religious man who believes in the Jewish traditions of his village, but has his ways directly challenged when his daughters each gradually step away from tradition with who they want to marry. There’s also political tensions with the Russian government growing gradually hostile to Jews, so the story is about a lot of things, a lot of different ways a person’s way of life, beliefs, and traditions are challenged in life. It’s another show that’s kind of hard to describe, but trust me, it’s a funny, beautiful, and well-written show and it makes me cry.

Hamilton. Yes, it really is that good. No, don’t listen to this insane website about it. It’s well-written, engaging, entertaining, and does highlight an important figure on American history while sending the message through the music and diverse casting that the story and founding “myth” of America is for everyone, even people who look very different from the way the actual Founding Fathers did, because one of the messages is that you have no control over who tells your story.

Les Misérables. It’s just a great story with a lot of universal themes, like oppression, poverty, faith, misery, unrequited love, rising up against corruption (and failing 🙃). It’s a long story in post-revolutionary France, but I think the movie tells it pretty coherently. The movie does have problems though, like Russel Crowe as Javert was a huge disappointment because that’s such a great part, but it might be the most accessible version of the show. I like the 10th anniversary concert a lot, but yeah, it’s in concert and not staged out like in an actual production

I’d say start with those and then get back to me if you want any more lol. If you have any questions, come back here

#thanks for the ask #I love talking about this lol #musicals #replies #Anonymous

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toonformers · 3 years

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Did I go overboard on designing characters related to canon characters? Probably

So anyway lemme tell you about Shockwave's brothers!

Let's go in order of like....birth or whatever. Meet Shockblast! This guy is Shockwave's twin brother, but Shocky didn't know about him for a large part of his life. In fact, Shockblast was the last brother that Shockwave met.

For those who don't know, in the Tooniverse, bots who are forges from the same mold are related, be it siblings, cousins, some very rare instances where one can be a parent to the other, but the most common one is siblings. Now for this biological connection to happen in forged bots is very rare, like VERY rare. But there are some protoform molds that are double sided; those molds have a higher chance of having blood relatives through forging. And Shockwave's mold turned out to be, in fact, double sided!

Shockwave and Shockblast were forged at the same time, but while Shockwave was fighting in the arena, Shockblast was a lab rat for Perceptor's synthetic energon experiments on live test subjects. He miraculously survived such experiments, but ended up very sick, mentally AND physically. His blood ended up being turned into synthetic energon, which caused both insanity and a deteriorating physical condition.

During the Cybertronian civil war, the Decepticons decided to take Shockblast for research purposes, being transported from one prison to another. His physical condition continued to deteriorate as he was taken to the DJD, once Centinela's peace movement had been established and Decepticons began to defect. He got so bad his arm was replaced with a very crude version of a portable life support, out of a canon. In summary he got a canon arm, and then was placed in a quarantine cell to extend his life for more research, before he escaped with Shockwave and his siblings, who had been captured in preparation for execution. Once back in Cybertron, Shockblast got the treatment needed to stabilize his blood and fix his insanity.

Shockblast loves hanging out with his brothers, and loves the idea of Shockwave being his twin. He's very perky and energetic, despite his age, and has a passion for the theater. He is currently on his way to being an amazing Broadway superstar.

Onto Scalpel now! Scalpel was forged with his twin Horizon, WAY after the war. He was the second one to meet Shockwave, and didn't meet him until he was over 800 years old!

Scalpel was part of an illegal forging scheme from the DJD. Their plan, after seeing all the Decepticons that defected upon hearing about the peace movement, was to create a weapon that could successfully infiltrate Cybertron and pose as a non-threatening huggable bot, and shut down its emotions and morality with a spoken code that only Tarn knows. Scalpel was considered a failed attempt, as he didn't have enough of a convincingly cuddly appearance and couldn't hold as many weapons as the DJD wanted inside him. So they knocked out the kid and made him live his life in a Cybertron as a regular bot. However, Scalpel's amnesia left him completely unaware that he was a bot who could shapeshift, so he remained in his smaller form for years, until Shockwave and Horizon stumbled upon him by pure chance; he was working as a medic in Fort Max! Some introduction and adaptation later, Scalpel grew to like the idea of a family.

Scalpel, as previously mentioned, is a medic. He works in Fortress Maximus and is very passionate about his job. He is precise, hardworking and neat. Unfortunately, he has also battled with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder his whole life. But his work has helped him with his compulsions, and he's got a nice support system with his brothers and his mentors, Syringe and Ratchet. (I'd explain about Syringe but that's @perytonpred 's OC, so it's best they explain about her uwu).

Last, but not least, Horizon! The youngest brother, but the first to meet Shockwave.

Little historian Horizon is Scalpel's twin, forged a couple hours after him. Just like Scalpel, he was another attempt in illegal forging, to make a weapon for the DJD. This time, Horizon was exactly what they wanted; a plastic, easy to compress frame with an adorable squishy appearance, who could shut down his morality in seconds upon hearing Tarn's activation code, making him the desired weapon, project Eclipse. He was going to be immediately shipped from Cybertron to the hidden location of the DJD, but the Elite Guard put a stop to the illegal forging scheme, unknowingly also detaining what could have been Cybertron's demise.

They took Horizon to Fortress Maximus for some medical evaluation, and he turned out to be fine. He was in fact, quite intelligent and wanted to be put to work immediately. Sentinel did as he requested, putting Horizon to work under Shockwave, whom had just met him. In all honesty, Shockwave didn't like Horizon. At all. He was envious of his sleek modern design and felt outdated because of it. It took some time before Shockwave opened up to the concept of having a younger brother. But once he did, both he and Horizon became very close.

Horizon is a very knowledgeable historian, and loves learning of every event that happened before him. He went as far as to write a book about the Cybertronian civil war, in which he analyzed every detail of the cultural, social and legal matters in that time from a completely neutral perspective, not siding with neither the Autobots, nor the Decepticons. He appears very shy at first, but once you get to know him, all you see is an adorably charismatic and kind soul.

And that's it! Those are the Shockwave brothers. Will I make more? Probably not. I think Shocky has had enough with these three. Hope this makes up for the lack of content these months, and I hope to post again soon! :D

#transformers animated #transformers #tfa au #tfa oc #tfa shockwave #decepticon justice division #tarn #tfa twinsies au #tfa twinsies au expanded #tfa tooniverse au

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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spaceorphan18 · 3 years

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have you ever read a detailed post about the glee cast’s singing voices? like all about their technique and stuff? reading your reaction to the ‘vocal coach reacts to glee’ video makes me want to know more!

Hmmmm, not really! Not from a professional vocalist POV, I don’t think. (That I’m aware of. This does remind me there was one vocal coach in fandom, and she hated Blaine, and I wasn’t too fond of her, or her analysis, so I won’t point you in that direction.)

My background is in music, but not in vocal performance. But I can give you a quick rundown of cast’s musical abilities if you like, though they won’t be huge on the technical side of it.

ETA: I started this a while ago before I started doing the music retrospective - I’ll probably try to explore a little more as I do those. If you guys want more conversation about one person in particular, let me know!

But for now...

Matthew Morrison: Is a classically trained musician with a very good voice. It’s a shame Will was such a tool, because Matthew Morrison was very talented, had the ability to do a lot of great things with his voice. People joke about his rapping -- but I think this stemmed from the issue that his background is in musical theater -- which teaches you a cleaner and more traditional way of singing -- opposed to a pop or rap style. He doesn’t have the grit that rap often has, which makes it a little too much like a Kid’s Bop version of something. When singing musical theater, though, he really shined.

A number that showcases ability: Make ‘Um Laugh

A number that isn’t so great: Ice Ice Baby

Lea Michele: Lea does have a very good and solid voice. She’s also been classically trained. The one drawback is that it hinders her a bit on pop music, she lacks some of the grittiness often needed on a lot of the pop songs. She also starts to lose some of her classic training as the show goes on (which I think is a shame) so that she can get some of the shine off her voice to make a transition to pop music.

She has one vocal tick that drives me crazy, though -- she has a tendency to slide into her notes instead of hitting them dead on, which gets worse as the show goes on, and it makes her sound a little screech-y at times. But for the most part -- she is really good.

A number that showcases ability: Don’t Rain on My Parade

A number that isn’t so great: Ooops...I Did It Again

Amber Riley: The cool thing about Amber is that you get to hear her grow as a musician as the show goes on. She had already started to get vocal lessons before the show started, but at the beginning, she was still a bit raw and unrefined in her technique. But you can tell she did practice, and her voice is developed beautifully as the show goes on. She was one of the best, well rounded vocalists on the show. She had a good handle on pop and R&B music, but she could sing musical theater rather clearly, too. She has great breath support - and can belt numbers out while still retaining the quality. Can’t say enough good thing about Amber’s voice.

A number that showcases ability: Someday We’ll Be Together

A number that isn’t so great: Sweet Transvestite (It’s not bad - but it’s my least favorite Mercedes solo.)

Cory Monteith: Cory wasn’t a vocalist. And, to be completely honest, I thought it was some kind of joke when they introduced him as some kind of hidden musical gem when Will hears him singing the showers. He did really well with classic rock that’s allows not only for a weaker voice - but is often not as technically hard. And I have to wonder if Cory got lessons, because he did get a lot better as the show went on, and I think his season 4 work is great!

I will say that sometimes they pushed his voice a little too far. A lot of times songs were either too high for his range and he often sounded like he was straining. (The most notable of which is A House is Not a Home - which is far too high for him.) That said - I think he did reasonably well along side Lea - mostly because often sang pop duets.

A number that showcases ability: I’ve Gotta Be Me

A number that isn’t so great: Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore

Chris Colfer: Chris is such an interesting study due to the uniqueness of his voice. He’s got a huge range both in terms of genre and literal range of voice. He can sing quite a few octaves. He’s got a great, clear sound, too, which is why he’s great with theater numbers. Interestingly, Chris’s voice did drop over the years, and while I know people love his higher range, he has a gorgeous lower range that wasn’t used as often (and is often my favorite.)

The one (nitpicky) issue was that Chris’s voice ended up getting pigeon-holed. I know singing Diva-Broadway songs was his schtick - but it would have been nice to hear him sing a bigger variety of songs. He wasn’t the strongest on non-ballad pop music, but they also didn’t give him that very often.

There’s also the fascinating unusualness in that, Chris could really sing duets very well with people -- but in group numbers, his voice sticks out like a sore thumb, and he was often left out of some of the more general songs because of it. His voice just doesn’t texture very well - which is why I get why they did what they did.

A number that showcases ability: Being Alive

A number that isn’t so great: I’ll Remember

Kevin McHale: I feel like people are often surprised when they sit down and think about it, but Kevin has a great voice. He has a solid range, and he’s able to do pop music very well (I believe it helps that he was in a professional boy band for years.) Not sure if people noticed - but he’s often the lead on group numbers that don’t need to be related to specific story or character points. Which is a bummer for Artie’s story - but if you’re a fan of Kevin’s voice, you get a lot to choose from.

Kevin was also able to handle a lot of the musical demands that I think some of the other males weren’t? He’s a much better singer than Cory - and could handle leading a full number. His voice isn’t as unique as Chris’s and can texture really well. In addition he was fairly versatile. He might have been the best rapper the show had, lol.

A number that showcases ability: For Once In My Life

A number that isn’t so great: Addicted to Love (personal taste choice - I just don’t like the song.)

Jenna Ushkowitz: Jenna is another one who is classically trained. She has a strong, solid voice, which was unfortunately not showcased all that well on the show, and because of that, I’m not sure how she does on a wide variety of music. I do think she sounds a little generic - but not helping is lack of being featured.

A number that showcases ability: I Don’t Know How To Love Him

A number that isn’t so great: Gangum Style (She does fine - but the fact that they made her do it in the first place...)

Dianna Agron: The interesting thing about Dianna is that she has a really nice low female voice. The fact that they never gave her any punk or harder rock was really a shame, because I think she would have done really well with that. The funny thing is that, more so in the beginning, they show tried to make her sing songs that fit her character - but weren’t necessarily great for her voice. I feel like it wasn’t until late season 2 did they start really using her voice for the better.

A number that showcases ability: Never Can Say Goodbye

A number that isn’t so great: It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World

Mark Salling: Mark had a really solid voice - that often lent itself well to folk and acoustic really well. He was good with softer pop and classic rock, and the show showcased that pretty well. I think, in general, Mark was a much better vocalist than actor, and the show often picked good music for him to sing - which helped with his character. I don’t have a whole lot to say, only that I think he was underrated as a vocalist, but I get it - with all the other baggage that comes with talking about Mark.

A number that showcases ability: No Surrender

A number that isn’t so great: Fight For Your Right (to Party) (I don’t think it’s bad - I just hate this song.)

Naya Rivera: Naya is a little tricky. I think she has a good, smoky sound to her voice that makes her excellent at things like pop and R and B. (Shame she didn’t have a good jazz number to do on the show - she would have been great at that.) I think she was really versatile, though, and handled her Broadway numbers really well. I do think she was somewhat pinched and nasal at times - and while I do think this was a stylistic choice, to me it’s not my favorite type of vocal sound. But I do think she was really good at the numbers she was given, and was one of the most talented female vocalists on the show.

A number that showcases ability: Back to Black

A number that isn’t so great: Alfie (I think I may dislike the song more than her singing on it.)

Heather Morris: Heather wasn’t a singer, and I do think it showed at times. She often had to have her voice autotuned more than anyone else on the show. That said - she did do Britney Spears really well, and I think she deserves credit for that.

A number that showcases ability: I’m a Slave 4 U

A number that isn’t so great: Dinosaur

Chord Overstreet: Chord’s background is in country - and that shows a bit through his singing - he’s got a bit of twang in his voice, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. He’s a fun singer. I don’t think the show knew exactly what to do with him (voice or character) but there’s a lightness to his singing that makes him easily adaptable to pretty much anything you throw at him.

A number that showcases ability: Red Solo Cup (You think I’m joking - but I think this is the most fun Chord has singing a song.)

A number that isn’t so great: Girls on Film (I think just by default of me liking everything else better.)

Darren Criss: Ah, Darren, where to even start. The thing about Darren is that he may not be the strongest singer, his voice is a little wobbly at times, and his range is somewhat limited, but his showmanship is just completely beyond nearly everyone else. Darren has the unique ability to draw you in with his singing and hold you captive. There are technically better singers on the show - but Darren just has this amazing ability to really sell a performance. And I do love his voice, even if there are some limitations to it. I really could gush about Darren’s performance abilities, but I’ll refrain...

A number that showcases ability: Teenage Dream (Both Versions)

A number that isn’t so great: Piano Man (Which isn’t bad - I just think the show had done it better, and it’s a rare time that felt like Darren was kind of phoning it in.)

A quick run down of others, but first a quick aside - as they started adding people in, vocal ability starts being a factor. I think a lot of the newer characters could sing better than they could act, which was both helpful and a hinderance. I think we began to get more solid musical numbers as the show went on, but sometimes acting wasn’t always top notch - and across the board, old and new, hitting a combo of acting and singing ability didn’t always happen.

Harry Shum Jr.: Not really a singer - but the show often played to his strengths, and his few songs played off the fact that he wasn’t a great singer to great aplomb.

Jane Lynch: Can hold a tune, even if her voice isn’t the best - is really great at musical comedy.

Jayma Mays: She has more singing ability than the show allowed to showcase, however, she’s another one whose voice was really unique, and doesn’t texture very well.

Damien McGinty: Is actually a very good singer. However, he’s very generic, too - which makes him a little on the bland side.

Sam Larsen: I think he was fine - I don’t think he sang enough on the show for me to make much of an impression one way or the other.

Alex Newel: Fucking Fantastic! Alex might be one of the strongest vocalists on the show - has great range, energy, and vocal control.

Melissa Benoist: Her voice tends to lean on the pop-ier side, but it’s a solid voice, and her work on the show was pretty good.

Jacob Artist: Has a strong voice, and could sing genres that weren’t often featured on the show (like hip-hop and R&B).

Blake Jenner: His voice is fine, but like Damien McGinty, it’s generic and a little bland.

Becca Tobin: She has a very quirky voice that brings in a different and unique sound. They didn’t use her much, though, so it’s hard to comment.

Noah Guthrie: An amazing singer, has a really unique sound, but is able to do blend in well with others.

Samantha Ware: Another amazing singer. She’s in full control and can do really great things with it.

Billy Lewis Jr: Has a good, solid voice. Not as strong as Guthrie, or some of the other guys, but he’s a lot of fun to watch.

Laura Dreyfuss: Like Becca Tobin - has a uniqueness to her vocal quality that makes it stand out a little, but she’s still a solid singer.

Marshall Williams: His vocal ability is okay. It’s better than his acting ability. I’m slightly confused how this dude got cast, tbh.

#Anonymous #if you guys want to me to elaborate on someone - please let me know!#it's hard to do everyone since there are so many #this post took forever to write up #that's how s.o. sees it

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emptymasks · 3 years

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I’ve seen a lot about your thoughts on Elisabeth and Tanz der Vampire, and they’ve been really helpful getting into those musicals! But you have a huge list of other musicals that people can get into…

So I was wondering if you had any musicals you hadn’t mentioned in a while that you really like or would like to talk about??? (preferably something from your lists that has a blue heart please?)

Oh if only you knew how long the list of European musicals really is... I however have only seen 9 (if I counted right) and I have a lot more that I still need to watch. Oh also, I only put the blue hearts on any musicals that I was providing multiple links for so people could see which version I reccoment the most highly. If a musical only had one link and didn't have a blue heart it doesn't mean I didn't like it.

I've watched: Mozart das Musical, Elisabeth das Musical, Tanz der Vampire, 3 Musketiers, Mozart L'Opéra Rock, Dracula (the Graz production), Rebecca das Musical, Roméo et Juliette and Schikaneder.

If you enjoyed those two you're likely to enjoy Rebecca! It's written by the same composer/lyricist team as Elisabeth and Mozart (and same lyricist as Tanz der Vampire - though if you're listening to any German musical, original or translated, 90% of the time the lyrics will have been done by Michael Kunze that man is everywhere). The Stuttgart production has my favourite set design of any musical! Well... Actually probably. There are so many big set pieces it's insane, way more than I've seen in some Broadway and West End musicals. You can tell so much work went into it and the visual effects that I won't spoil if you don't know the plot but if you know the plot you know what I mean by the effects at the end are so good and I didn't expect them at all and I freaked out so much the first time I watched it. Jan Ammann as Maxim in the Stuttgart production is the best Maxim. No I won't take any argument. Other actors feel a bit one-dimensional to me, but the way Maxim acts at times comes from trauma and some actors and productions seem to forget that, but Jan really goes for it and his Maxim is a lot more sympathetic and I just want to give him a hug. Pia Douwes as Mrs Danvers, if you've seen her in Elisabeth what more do I need to say, she's amazing. A musical goddess. Her Danny is a bit more wild than some, but she kills it. My favourite video, which I put the blue heart next to, has understudy Christina Patten as Ich/I, but I adore her she's my favourite. She adds some spunk to Ich in act 2 and her voice is so pretty and aaaa. I just love these three actors together in these roles.

Roméo et Juliette is another favourite of mine! It's hard to choose which one to recommend, but it has to be the original 2000/2001 production because of the sweetness and chemistry and voices of Damien Sargue and Cecilia Cara as Romeo and Juliet. They're so pretty and work together so well. The only reason I say it's hard to pick is Mercutio. I adore him, but in the original production they cut out a song they had planned for him and he doesn't really do much at all? In the 2010 revival they gave him two more songs and you care about him so much more and John Eyzen plays such a good Mercutio. So I'd recommend the original but if you want to like Mercutio more, which you should he's amazing, I'd recommend watching at least clips of John's. It's an interesting musical because all productions are non-replica and also change around the order of songs, add or take away characters, all sorts. The Hungarian production is also very popular and I'm sure it's great, I just haven't' gotten around to watching it yet.

Mozart das Musical was the first non-English language musicals I watched so I have a fondness for it, but it's not my favourite. However, I do realise I have forgotten most of the songs and the few I've gone back and listened to are better than I remember.

Dracula isn't super popular and I understand why, I don't love the plot of the Dracula/Mina romance in it, however. I do love this musical because despite how I find the plot lacking, the songs are so good! At least, I love them. And the actors are all doing a great job. And it's one of the few Dracula adaptions to keep Quincy Morris so they get bonus points for that.

Mozart L'Opéra Rock and modern French musicals... This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they're often more like pop-rock operas now. So if you're not into musicals with that style of music it might not be for you, but I still enjoyed it even though I didn't think I would because of the style of music. Mozart and Salieri's chemistry is very good, Salieri's bisexual crisis song is iconic, actually all of Salieri's songs are iconic.

Schikaneder... eh. I didn't like it that much and I didn't really like any of the songs. There's no English subtitles, but someone sent me the entire English synopsis and I watched it with a German friend so I had double the help of understanding it. Doesn't mean others might not like it, just none of the songs stood out to me and I had no desire to listen to any of them again. It's by Steven Scharwz of Wicked fame and I love Wicked, but I didn't love this.

3 Musketiers!! God it's so underrated and not spoken about within the European musical fandom that I even forget about it and literally forgot to write about it earlier in this post. It's a Dutch musical (though did also have a German production) and it's really good!? Faces you might know are Pia Douwes as Milady de Winter, Stanley Burlseon as Cardinal Richeliu (Netherlands Der Tod in Elisabeth), Henk Poort as Athos (Netherlands Phantom and Jean Valjean). The dialgoue is funny, the songs are good, some of the set pieces have no right to exist in this tiny musical?? They made this giant boat and pelt the actors with rain just for one 5 minute song and then we never see the boat again? And while I recommend the Dutch one because Dutch musicals deserve more love and it has official English subtitles!! Official ones, not fanmade! I have the DVD and it comes with English subtitles (and Dutch and German subtitles) which is so nice. The German version is also good, good cast, Pia came back and Uwe Kroger as Richeliu and omg they rearranged the songs and the German arrangement of Nicht Aus Stein is insane and amazing and frankly iconic.

That's all of the ones I have watched. Next on my list to watch are Rudolf and Notre Dame de Paris, both of which I have listened to some songs from and already love (I've listened to way too much of Notre Dame de Paris and am so in love).

I want to start organising streams where I'll host the musical either by getting the video from Youtube or my own files and anyone who wants to join can come along and watch with us, chat with us if you want or just watch there's no pressure to chat. I thought about doing weekly streams? This would also make me finally watch some of the ones I've been meaning to for ages. But I keep wondering about time zones. I'm in the UK and would want to stream at about 11pm at the latest (11pm BST/GMT+1 as we’re in daylight savings at the moment, if the streams continue past the end of October which would be wild then I’ll make a note of the time change that would be to 11pm GMT), which I know can work for other UK and Europeans, but for any Americans would be in the afternoon. So, I wondered if doing it on a weekend would be better? Then it doesn't matter if it's in the afternoon? Maybe Saturday evenings then? It would either be Saturday evenings UK time or Friday evenings UK time. What do you guys think? If people are down then I'll make a separate post with a list of what we'll be watching each week and if anything happens to me that means I can't stream one week then everything will just get pushed back a week, but I don't see that as likely to happen. And I'll only be streaming those that have English subtitles, so don't worry about not being able to understand anything.

edit: am also open to 10pm bst if others want that, im just trying to think of what time works best for everyone so sorry if 11pm is a little late for europeans, i know 10pm could be a little early for americans. also in case it sounded like these are the only musicals i will be streaming, thats not so, ive got more than just the ones mentioned on this list!

(Tagging some people who I know are or might be interested in streams to see what you think of that plan: @sirona-art @ringwraith100 @tanz-der-trash @smilingwoland @the-weird-dane @witchgaye @ami-fidele @kisstheghouls @looking-4-happiness @ladysapphire928 @sloanedestler @tinywound @persephonaae @phoenixdewinter @uwucoffee @freshbloodandgothicism )

#european musicals #mozart das musical #3 musketiers #dracula the musical #retj #romeo et juliette #mozart l'opera rock #mozart l'opéra rock #musical theatre #musicals #broadway #musicaledit #rebecca das musical #rebecca the musical #answeredasks #non english language musicals

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annarendellsa · 3 years

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my heathers headcanons

it's the way i see them and draw them, you don't have to agree! this is based on both the musical and the movie

CW: mention of suic*de and e*ting disorders (bulimia) as well as various mental illnesses

Heather Duke

• heather duke is aromantic and yes its because she wears green, have you seen her socks in the off broadway musical? /hj

• more seriously, she IS aromantic but it took some time for her to figure out. she is allo but she doesn't label her sexuality, and she was always confused and frustrated to experience sexual attraction but never romantic attraction; she had a hard time accepting this part of herself.

• post heathers: maybe she discovers about non binary identities and asks her girlfriends to test out they/them pronouns on her? idk? aro-agender duke?

• she also struggles with empathy as she is naturally apathic

• and she's putting this image of a cold mean girl because she believes she can only be that given she's aro and ND

• post musical: she had no idea mcnamara actually tried to commit suic*de and when veronica tells her she breaks down in tears and spend a few days writing an apology letter to mcnamara

• post musical: mcnamara helps her to develop her compassion, knowing it's not her fault she's incapable of empathy. she didn't have to forgive her, but they did, and it really motivates duke to become a better person and be as nice as her

• post musical: she sees a doctor! she eventually recovers from her bulimia. veronica and mac are 100% supportive of her recovery, and very proud

• she gets bigger as part of her recovery and learns to embrace it

• duke is very pale with really dark and thick hair and eyebrows, soft features and quite a lot of body hair

• you know the bootleg where duke has blonde hair? when she's on the tv she speaks german and i vibe with german duke now

• duke Cannot say fuck and if someone is prude/innocent/idk it's her. the why are you pulling my dick was just to fluster veronica i think

Heather McNamara

• they use she/they pronouns!! just because. she still identifies as a girl though

• mac is autistic of course, it's like semi canon in the musical

• since she's very tall (movie) she stims while standing like being on the tip of her toes or rocking back and forth and the others can be quite annoyed because she moves a lot but they never snap at her

• post musical: veronica finds her stimming endearing and they know it's safe to stim around her, especially since veronica stims herself

• post musical: mac hums as a stim too and you can often find macnamawyer snuggling on the floor while humming in harmonies together

• she used to mask a LOT and it played a big part in her depression. she knows they had to stop themselves from stimming when she was a heather, she had been the weird kid in middle school but now that chandler took her under her wing, she has to pretend to be NT in order to stay in the lifeboat (😭)

• she's a lesbian!! of course she is

• she knows it since she is in middle school and has been """gal pals"""" with chandler since them but she still struggles with it she has comphet yk, but still less than chandler

• chanamara definitely practiced kissing together "to be ready when we'll have to kiss boys" 👀👀👀

• chandler always had a soft spot for mac and tried to hide it by being cruel to duke

• post musical: it took mac some time to understand that duke had nothing against her personally. she was chill with them until chandler died. from that moment she had to prove herself as the new queen bee and mac was a collateral victim

• duke definetely gave her trauma though and mac is in the process of trusting her again

• mac themselves is not a cinnamon roll just yet and she still has to make up for what they've done to others

• mcnamara has nicknames like mcNcheese or macaroni (veronica came up with those)

• they're also a vegetarian and she loves yellow food

• like she ever only eats yellow food actually (autistic thing). that girl is deficient! part of why she looks that fragile and thin

• also i see mcnamara as mixed race with golden/light brown skin and they have this type of curly curly hair but she straightens it all the time so it's only just wavy (once again, to blend in with the heathers)

• her natural hair colour is actually a dark strawberry blonde? her dad is irish and he's a redhead that's why (stole this from @cam-eats-candles hehe) but she dyes it so it's lighter

• post musical: she starts wearing her natural hair!! and goes with her mom to the afro hairdresser to start to get her curls done right (cornrows mac!!)

• their parents divorced (movie) and it's for the best. mac has daddy issues and only goes to her dad to get cute jewellery for their girlfriends 💖 (he doesn't just sell engagement rings. a lot of regular expensive rings, really)

• she's not a baby, she's not weak nor completely innocent and pure!! the girl is a head cheerleader, she's strong and flexible as hell.

Heather Chandler

• heather chandler is Also a lesbian BUT she is on the ace spectrum like demisexual? so yeah she's double disgusted when she "sleeps" with men

• as a queen bee she's also convinced that the only way to exist is through male validation :(

• chandler is taller than duke and veronica but shorter than mac

• chandler's skin is like rosy and it freckles very easily. i see her with the same cloudylike hair she has in the movie, dark blonde, with the red scrunchie only holding back some of her hair

• she is Buff and is genuinely into sports (lesbian jock like regina george)

• she has a sharp hourglass shape her shoulders are broad and her legs long and strong. she could lift veronica against a wall easily. and she did

Veronica Sawyer

• ADHD!! she's been diagnosed for a while but only became medicated post musical

• bisexual!! so bisexual!! without a preference. she's always been open and proud about it and her parents are supportive

• for me veronica is brown, with thick and dark hair and dark brown eyes, midsize, average height

Martha Dunnstock

• that's canon i know, but she's fat, and not the socially acceptable-hourglass kind of fat. big arms! big tummy! double chin! (i see fanart of her just being chubby quite often and it's ANNOYING like that's a big part of her character)

• she's perfectly healthy like this as are many fat people :))

• i also like the hc that her attempt at sewer slide made her permanently disabled and that she keeps using a wheelchair! because it happens, it's important to show it, and it gives me a lot of ideas for cute kindergarten girlfriends prompts 💓💓

• of course realistically being fat AND physically disabled in the 80's was and is not an easy thing to go through but it's in my head so

• she's also a tiny bit taller than veronica

• i don't hate the outfit she wears in the off broadway show, but I like her west end outfit better!! it's a lot more 80's inspired and i totally see her in kidcore/clowncore etc, even if pastels are cool too

• in the current west end version, martha is played by a black woman and she looks amazing! however I've been drawing and imagining martha as east/south east asian, for no reason really?? also idk kinda rubs me the wrong way that in the more official versions of heathers it's always duke that is black, or martha? not the others? hmm

• i'm not comfortable with hcs that exclusively babyfy her or patronise her like a bunny rabbit just bc she's a fat outcast who likes unicorns!! she's not just cute and giggly! martha can and does swear and she Fucks, like mcnamara

• big round glasses + big nose + long brown hair

• taking inspiration from the princess bride line but she's a huge movie nerd. yes she loves happy endings but she also loves horror movies, as long as they have a happy ending

• she never gets a makeover omg y'all just hate people with glasses and a childish aesthetic istg

• she takes this aesthetic further though and

• post musical and high school: she doesn't just wear baggy clothes anymore as she only did that to prevent more bullying. she develops an unique style with a lot of pink and glitter and she's awesome

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ok this is getting long ill probably do more!! tell me what you think <3

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six-costume-refs · 3 years

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Costume Info from Gabriella Slade’s Webinar (7 Sep 2021)

Hey y’all! Today the Victoria and Albert Museum hosted a talk with Gabriella Slade to discuss her work on SIX as the costume designer. @lightleckrereins and I attended and wrote up two posts about it. This post includes all of the information about the costumes and their creation, and you can head over here to find a liveblog with some of our fun comments and memes!

Non-Six stuff:

First West End show she had ever seen was Beauty and the Beast, but had seen local theater before

Drew photos of wedding dresses and fashion etc

Did a standard year in college and then specialized in design for 2nd/3rd years

From Six learned the int’l process, movement, necessity for the right fabrics under lighting

Upcoming and current shows include Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Cher Show

Advice for aspiring costume designers is to build a website/portfolio and you have to be quite bold about contacting directors

Six stuff, non-costume about the early process:

Met writers/directors/producers to discuss the show before seeing it

She wanted the job because of the concept

worked off of Emma Bailey’s set designs when designing the costumes

Misc:

The official name for the mic holders is mic holsters

Next we moved on to a slideshow:

Taking inspiration from the queens’ historical portraits:

She wanted to see how the queens were depicted during their time first

Get familiar with the time and understand the historical wives before even the first sketch

Aragon - black and gold

Cleves - stripe elements

Parr - high neck

Photos of other period clothes:

Details in fabric, lace-ups, embellishments, lattice work

Also looked at menswear, specifically mentioning tabs and sleeves as inspired by men’s fashion at the time

Slide with fashions of contemporary inspirations (Gareth Pugh, Bellmine, etc)

Modern fashion takes a lot of inspiration from the tudor era

Powerful silhouettes

She wanted to give each queen a distinct silhouette that was both powerful and delicate at the same time

Slide with costume close ups and details:

Some photos we had seen before and some we hadn’t

Two new Aragon samples that we hadn’t seen, one close to the final product with a few different patterns, one completely new

What looks like a Cleves test with a different mesh design

Photos are mostly Broadway with some from other productions

Cast photo with other info:

They talked about how the costume designs are tied together

FABRIC!!

Sequin, mesh, studded trim, materials are the elements in common

Wanted to make the studded trim the main element

The Broadway designs are now the designs for all productions (no word on which Cleves version will be standard)

Questions and Answers were next:

Asked what it was like to work on her first SIX production:

Didn’t say much other than very excited during og fittings

First time the queens were in costume for the first UK tour everyone was really excited.

The way they walked changed after trying on the costumes

How she decided what to change and some examples of what changed:

Once she saw under the lights could see that she wanted to change the sleeves or add more detail etc

Construction and longevity of wear led to some diff things

originally were all one piece now several so they can wash, better maintain (studs fall off), how they keep form, etc.

Mentioned Cleves going from silver to red

The choreography and the way the queens move with the costumes led to construction changes

Parr pants were pleather (first UK tour original pants), now printed lycra (went with regular lycra until before Broadway)

Skirts used to collapse before new materials and more structure got implemented

Plays around with fabrics on the stand prior to construction to figure out how it works (This is an important step of costume making in general, and even more so for SIX when the materials they use don’t behave like regular fabric)

Suede base on Bway boots with lattice on top

Miscellaneous info from answers:

Broadway boots and earrings were implied to be exclusive to that production

She loves cosplay and fanart!

Advice for Boleyn specifically: you need a good base fabric

Not allowed to say much about construction

Headpieces use crin (a.k.a. horsehair braid or crinoline)

Cleves costume - strength

Timeframe for construction is about six weeks - usually 4-5 fittings each but there’s some variance depending on costumes

Aragon tends to have more fittings

Costumes last to varying degrees of time

Main concern is about keeping form and shape

Costumes last until they don’t look great onstage (so far its been about 8-10 months), because of materials mending is impossible and alterations hard

Doesn’t have a favorite costume, but would wear Parr if she could choose one to wear

#gabriella slade #six the musical #six the musical cosplay #six musical #six costumes #six broadway #costume design

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