Whisper House

Duncan Sheik's 2009 concept album was adapted to the stage in 2010. The Chicago premiere runs through February 15 at Black Button Eyes Productions. An Off Broadway production opens on March 12, 2020. Jarrow and Sheik discuss the musical in an interview here.

Zero Patience

"Tell the story. Clear my name.
Why do they need someone to blame?"
~ Zero Patience

Gaétan Dugas, a French-Canadian flight attendant, was falsely accused of spreading the AIDS virus across America. He was dubbed "Patient Zero." Evidence was found to clear his name but the myth persisted for years after. John Grayson's musical sends Zero's ghost on a journey to prove his innocence, debunking other myths about the virus along the way. The film is angry, funny, sexy and bittersweet. It's strange to watch now as it came at a time when people were still in crisis and much about the virus was still unknown. The film is hard to track down but clips are floating around. You can read a spoiler filled recap here.

Ghost Quartet

So... eight months. How's everybody doing? I'm not back back but I've a few more ideas for comics.

The success of Dave Malloy's The Great Comet has renewed attention to the earlier Ghost Quartet. My synopsis doesn't do it justice. Four artists take the stage to tell four intertwining ghost stories. The sisters at the center, Pearl and Rose, provoke a cycle of revenge that burns for seven centuries. Malloy says he was playing a board game with his friends and said "The four of us should make a show." The result is something that will confuse, impress and lodge itself in your mind.


The Chicago premiere runs July 12 - August 17. Details are here. 

The Addams Family

So producers ask you to write an Addams Family musical. What story do you tell? The films contrasted the Addam's with "normal" criminals who wanted to harm them. The stage show introduces a fiancee and conservative in-laws. The device has fueled many comedies including You Can't Take It With You, Auntie Mame and La Cage Aux Folles. So that's your spine. But what do you do with the details?

Who are the Addams's? Are they undead? If so are they zombies, ghosts or vampires? Are they just unusually morbid mortals? How much of their BDSM leanings can you mention in a family show? If you put them onstage do you use the personalities from the comics, cartoons, TV sitcom or films?

The stage show went through multiple rewrites before and after the Broadway engagement. The squid was cut for the tour. She certainly isn't in the school version. But the song about squid molestation was in the Chicago tryout and made it to Broadway.

Pete's Dragon

"It's not easy to find someone who cares.
It's not easy to find magic in pairs."

Okay so I stretched the truth a little on this one.

Pete's Dragon was no masterpiece. It stopped Disney from making live musicals for many years but it had some catchy songs. The 2016 remake cuts the songs and apparently improves upon everything else. Disney tends to base their heroes journey around dead parents. In the original film Pete is fleeing from an abusive family bringing things closer to a Roald Dahl narrative.

Today's artwork is loosely inspired by the game Undertale. 

High Spirits

Last night I saw the new Ghostbusters movie. I loved the cast and their banter. I was disappointed in the ghosts. The designs were generic and they behaved like bosses in a video game. If the franchise continues I'd like to see more interplay between the ghosts and mortals.

This made me think of the musical High Spirits. Noel Coward agreed to direct this adaption of his play Blithe Spirit though he eventually ceded control to Gower Champion. The supporting role of Madam Arcati, the medium, was expanded for comedienne Beatrice Lillie. Sadly Lillie was in ill health and would improvise large portions of her dialogue. This delighted audiences but enraged Coward.

Elvira, the ghostly wife, gets a fun establishing song: You Better Love Me While You May. The rest of the score is pleasant but forgettable. The play gets regular revivals while the musical is largely forgotten.

"As Coward surely meant it, however, it presents a homosexual whose closet marriage is destroyed by the reappearance of an old boy friend." ~ Ethan Mordden, Open a New Window

Even if “High Spirits” had no other attractions—and it has a stageful—it would be cause for celebration. It has brought back Beatrice Lillie. ~ Howard Taubman, New York Times.

Death Takes a Holiday

In 1924 La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella may have resonated with an audience recovering from a war. The film adaptation in 1934 was a hit. The musical had less success in 2011. Dreamy leading man Julian Ovenden had to withdraw due to throat illness and the audience was quick to guess the stories few surprises. Pop culture has been telling us for decades that chicks dig dead guys as long as they're super cute.

Ride the Cyclone

Jacob Richmond: The inspiration for the project came from how we read every day in the newspaper that forty people died in a tragedy the idea of someone being a statistic in a mass tragedy—and how hard it is to wrap your head around what their individual lives meant. It’s about humanizing the idea of a mass tragedy, which in truth contains hundreds of stories that are interrupted. We wanted to have each individual be reflected in their own music. There’s a thematic reason for why there’s a tribute to David Bowie, why there’s kind of garage band in there, and French cabaret, hip hop, pop, New Orleans swing.

Steel Pier

In 1997 Kander and Ebb were put in the unusual position of competing with themselves on Broadway. Their sincere new musical Steel Pier was overshadowed by the hit revival of their cynical musical Chicago. 

Karen Ziemba's heroine is a con-artist but she's no Roxie Hart. She's being dragged into crime by her sleazy boyfriend. Her spectral dance partner quickly reforms her, drawing some to compare the book to Touched by an Angel or Quantum Leap. A far cry from the nastiness of the dance marathon film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

The fun is relegated to a thin subplot with Debra Monk and Kristin Chenoweth as competing divas in the marathon's talent show. The book doesn't give them much but Debra got her signature song, "Everybodies Girl", and Kristin's next show launched her to stardom.

The Woman in White

After exploring some new territory, Andrew Lloyd Webber returned to gothic novel adaptation with Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. The magic of Phantom was not recaptured. The show ran 19 months in London and 3 months on Broadway despite the efforts of leading lady Maria Friedman and a series of guest stars in the role of supporting villain Count Fosco (Michael Crawford, Michael Ball, Simon Callow).

• Maria Friedman singing the belty All For Laura.
• Count Fosco's duet with a misbehaving live rat.
• Guardian 2004 Review - "It's a pity Jones's book isn't better because the show has a lot going for it. Lloyd Webber has written a particularly good score...  in trying to ... show all Victorian women as social victims, she actually deprives Marian of much of her odd, independent quirkiness that makes her one of the most original characters in fiction."
• NYT 2005 Review - "It's not a terrible show, but it's an awfully pallid one. The difference between it and "Sweeney Todd" is the difference between water and blood."
• Broadway Abridged's Recap - "I'm so glad I found you!  I've come back to again mention I have some vague secret, then to sing in very poorly-written ballads, and to shriek enough for the audience to cover their  ears."

This is my 50th comic! Thanks for reading everyone!

Brigadoon

Run an' get 'im! Get 'im!

Run an' get 'im! Get 'im!

Run, ye men, or ye will never see another morning'.

Harry Beaton’s unhappy subplot sends the fairy tale romance of Brigadoon into dark and creepy territory. The town minister “enchanted” the town to protect it from “witches.” The town “wakes” for one day every 100 years and vanishes while the townsfolk sleep. If a local leaves the enchantment is broken and Brigadoon vanishes permanently... So the townsfolk can't let Harry leave...

Chicago’s Goodman Theatre is opening a revised Brigadoon this week. Director Rachel Rockwell discussed the project with New City Stage. The discussion suggests that Brigadoon will now be escaping the Scottish/English wars rather than witches. Time will tell if the revisions minimize the town’s fascist tendencies or embrace the stories darkness.

Meanwhile check out Tom and Lorenzo’s hysterical recap of the film:

Unfortunately, Gene wakes up the next day and, realizing that everyone he’s ever known or loved has been dead for 50 years, spends most of the day crying. The day after that, he wakes up and the town has materialized in the middle of a high-speed rail line, killing half the town’s inhabitants. The day after that, they’re all killed by aliens.

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