This week we celebrate the birthdays of a couple creators I really love: Mx. William Wellman of Hello from the Hallowoods and Rae Lundberg of The Night Post! In honor of their birthdays, allow me to convince you to listen to their shows—
The Night Post is a liminal horror story about boundaries. What counts as alive and dead? What counts as rural and urban? What counts as wilderness and civilization? In Gilt City, three night shift postal workers, cursed to pick up the mantle when loved ones who were their next of kin died doing it, are constantly confronted with these questions, as well as one more: can they even do anything to help themselves?
I love The Night Post for its working-class despair (a common trope in audio drama but one that’s very close to the core in this show), and for its message: you have to help anyway. Even the curse you bear puts you in a position to do something good, and if you don’t, who will? If you like found family, Southern gothic sensibilities, and the horror of being a person who is alive, you’ll love The Night Post.
Hello from the Hallowoods hits some similar notes—if you like one you’re likely to like another—but is structured in a very different way. Hello from the Hallowoods tells the multiplicitous interconnected stories of the people who live in a post-apocalypse. And listen, the black water of the ended world may be trying to kill you, and in some cases is already has, but people still need love.
And this is the beauty of Hallowoods. The world has ended, but you are still alive, and the things you do matter.
Support these artists, support their shows, and enjoy some incredible stories!
You mentioned Six Korea was a replica production, what exactly does that mean with reference to the other productions?
Hey! Yes, my apologies for not defining that! “Replica production” is basically used to describe any production using the same designs and choreography (usually in tandem with any directing/cut song/etc directions) as a prior or pre-existing production of that show. For example:
- if a Broadway show opens an associated national tour, that tour is almost always a replica of the Bway production
- sometimes we see revivals that are replicas of an earlier production (this usually happens because a production closed and then reopened because that initial production had gained significant interest since, like Beetlejuice, or because the original production is just too iconic to change, like A Chorus Line)
- international productions that keep the same base design/choreography/etc as original Bway/WE would be categorized as replica
Note that all replica productions aren’t exactly identical. There’s often some variance or changes. Sometimes that’s in materials, based on differing budgets and/or supply. @operafantomet does a fantastic job of cataloguing a lot of the changes in replica, semi-replica, and non-replica Phantom productions (here’s a post showing some of the variance in replica Star Princess bodices). Sometimes it’s in choreography or blocking, with some slight changes made to adapt a show to a different stage and all the changed technical aspects that exist there (different dimensions or set-ups). The musical Fun Home was built to be performed in-the-round, so when they switched to a national tour they had to re-block the production to work in typical proscenium theaters. Even Six has some of these changes - all current productions are technically replicas, but of course many of the productions use different materials and have some changed staging!
On the other hand, non-replica productions are new productions that don’t take heavily to the point of near-replication from prior productions, often with a different creative team. Nearly every revival is non-replica. Some international are as well; take this as an example of Anya’s red and gold dress from Anastasia as an example:
Left is Veronica Stern, currently Anya in the replica 2nd US Tour. Right is Pia Piltz, recently Anya in the non-replica Finnish production. The Finnish designers did take some loose inspiration with the color scheme, updo, and silhouette, but it’s obviously not anywhere near identical, is designed by someone else, and is part of a non-replica production.
Or with regards to recent UK productions, the current Newsies production very notably doesn’t use the initial choreography/staging/design of the initial Bway/US Tours and would be referred to as non-replica as well (it’s adapted brilliantly actually, I’ll talk about that sometime).
You also may sometimes hear the term “semi-replica.” It’s not half as common and not really an official term in the same way that replica and non-replica are, but people sometimes use it to describe productions with both replica elements and entirely original elements. Phantom has had a few productions that people will sometimes describe as semi-replica; the pared-down production that opened on the West End post-lockdown would be one example (again, if anyone is interested in examples I’ll refer you to @operafantomet).
does anyone have male reader requests? It can be from jjk, blue lock, demon slayer, spiderman etc.!! There isn't many x male reader fics out here, and I want to be able to serve you guys :) (I write nsfw too)
( I need you all to know this exists and Brian Bell exists cause he’s the new blorbo scrunkly of the month
He also happens to be voiced by Melvin’s VA, is a cyborg, was made by a cat that sounds like doctor fitzgibbons, has the same hair cut/style, does about the same thing, invents, has no clue how to actually socially interact and I want to protect him with my entire life. )