Rise

Stop me if you've heard this before. Inspirational teacher puts a hot jock and some minorities in a show where they learn to live and love and... oh you have? Well how about we give half the kids abusive families... and make the teacher a monster? No, not a funny monster. Just extremely unpleasant. Unpleasant enough to inspire hostile reviews and scare audiences away.

Ted Sutherland brings charm to his coming out storyline, though it gets about 5 minutes of screen time per episode. Stephanie Block brings gravitas to the potentially campy role of his loving conservative mother.

The choice of Spring Awakening was an interesting one. It's still considered edgy. Will age give it the same respect that West Side Story, Grease and even Rent have gained from most school boards? Skip to episode 9 and 10 if you want to see the talent young cast performing the songs. Hopefully there will be better shows in their futures.

Galavant

Galavant never clicked with me. The humor felt too broad and the characters too unpleasant. Ratings never competed with Smash at its best or Glee at its worst. Still it lasted two seasons and the folks who stuck with it adored it.

Some favorite songs include:

A New Season which has a nice Muppet Movie vibe to it.

Kylie Minogue singing Off With His Shirt

The falling out of hatred duet Maybe You're Not the Worst Thing Ever.

The challenge duet I Don't Like You

and the bouncy title song, How Long Can This Go On Galavant!

A Bronx Tale & Kid Victory

And now two musicals that tell dark stories with jaunty scores. The mobster loving teen of A Bronx Tale gets to sing. The teen protagonist of Kid Victory never does despite some critics' hopes that he'd find his voice by the finale.

A Bronx Tale. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Glenn Slater. Book by Chazz Palminteri. 2016 Broadway.

Kid Victory. Music by John Kander. Lyrics and Book by Greg Pierce. 2016 Off-Broadway.

300th post?!

Love Never Dies

More musical sequels this week now that the Tony Awards have passed.

One challenge in writing a sequel to Phantom of the Opera is that the Phantom had tarnished has chances as a love interest in Part 1 by going on a killing spree. In order to restore his romantic lead status in Part 2 they had to reboot other characters, retroactively undoing the arc of Part 1. Male ingenue Raul is now a drunken gambler who mistreats Christine. Confidante Meg Giry ("who is this new tutor?") has been turned into Carlotta 2.0 as a homicidally jealous burlesque singer. It's a bit jarring.

Stranger still is the revelation that the Phantom and Christine conceived a child. We saw the extent of their few interactions in Part 1. Did it happen on the boat while they sang the title song? In the bed after she passed out? On stage in front of an audience singing Point of No Return? 

Read the plot synopsis here.

And some reviews here.