Top 5 Musicals

If you're familiar with this blog or with me in general, you're probably very aware of my love for musical theatre. This list is not ranked from 5th favourite to 1st favourite as most of my other lists have been, but rather in the order they "happened" to me.

5. Les Misérables - Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg

Ah, my first love. I associate Les Mis with a lot of "firsts". It was the first stage musical I was introduced to, the first ticket I bought with my own money... I sung "On My Own" in my first singing lesson, "I Dreamed a Dream" in my first public performance, and later got to play Fantine in my first lead role. It might be a little populist, but I think every musical theatre fan still loves Les Mis deep down, often because they've enjoyed performing it so much!

4. Sweeney Todd - Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler

Sweeney kind of goes here, and kind of goes in the number 1 position. It was the first Sondheim show I got into, largely thanks to the Tim Burton film (my opinion of which as an adaptation I will keep to myself...) and got me interested in Sondheim's other works (see the rest of this list), but right now Sweeney is also at the top of my list: I'm producing a performance of it for March this year. It's such a wonderful, funny, dark, romantic show that it's perfect for a student production.

3. Into the Woods - Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

One of the next Sondheim shows I discovered, and my all-time favourite book of a musical. In my opinion, Into the Woods is about the most perfect story, or collection of stories, ever set to stage. It all looks as though it's going to be horribly childish and moralistic, and then... act two happens. Into the Woods is right at the top of the list of musicals I need to perform in before I die.

2. West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim

I've never seen West Side performed live, I've only seen the film and heard a couple of cast recordings, but the reason this hits so high on the list is because it is completely badass. The incredible, complex score, the innovative use of movement and dance, and the beautiful, tragic story at it's core has made West Side Story a classic, a pivotal point in the history of musical theatre, and the platform on which the world was delivered a very young Stephen Sondheim.

1. Sunday in the Park With George - Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

This is my favourite musical. This is my favourite work of art. The team from Into the Woods perfect the artform with Sunday. It's so perfectly romantic and sad, it makes me cry and cry and cry every time I listen or watch it. I've never seen it performed, but I am on my toes waiting for a production to hit Sydney or Melbourne so I can go see it. And oh my goodness, I would die to play Dot. Or direct it. Or just listen to the original Broadway recording every day until I die.

So... that's a snippet of my musical theatre journey. A journey which, thanks to Sweeney and all the things that I'm sure will come after it, is far from over.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

I've just spent the last three months of my life rehearsing and performing a great little (big) show called The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

It won the Tony Award for Best Musical (the benchmark for achievement in musical theatre) in 1986, an award which in the next two years was awarded to Les Misérables, and Phantom of the Opera, although it has pretty much slipped from the canon of musical theatre repetoire since then.

This is, I believe, largely owing to how difficult it is to stage. The thing about Drood is that it has a different ending every night - there are over 600 endings!

The musical is based on the novel Charles Dickens never finished. When he died in 1870, he was twenty chapters in to a serialised murder mystery, leaving 20 chapters and the resolution of the mystery unwritten and, well, ... a mystery.

Many academics and writers have attempted to "solve" The Mystery of Edwin Drood, including a psychic who apparently just asked Dickens' ghost what happened, but I think Rupert Holmes was the cleverest about it.

Holmes' musical adaptation of Drood is a camp nod to amateur theatre and the vaudeville tradition of the late nineteenth century, a play-within-a-play in which every actor is playing an actor playing one of Dickens' characters. Half way through Act II, the Dickens plotline falls apart and the audience is called upon to vote for an ending.

Four "ballots" are held over the next half hour or so: Who is the Disguised Detective, Dick Datchery? (don't you love the aliteration?) Who Murdered Edwin Drood? and then, at the conclusion of the first two revelations, Which Two Characters Will Fall in Love?

There are five possible Datcherys, eight possible Murderers, and eleven possible lovers (three female, eight male) which add up to over six hundred combinations of endings. A pretty epic task for a young amateur cast.

I played Miss Janet Conover, an experienced Actress, who plays Helena Landless, a Ceylonese noblewoman who accompanies her twin brother Neville to England in order to escape a shady past.

During the run, I was Dick Datchery twice, and a lover once. In fact, the night I was a lover, my male lover was Alex, who played Neville. Mmm, incest. It was hilarious and disturbing.

Anyway, I just had the greatest experience doing Drood, and I wanted to share some of the AMAZING show shots taken by the very talented Victoria Nelson. Stalk her on Facebook, tell her she should start a blog/website to showcase the photography she and her twin sister, Felicity (also very talented) do.

Mr. Harry Milas (the magician of my previous post) as the Chairman. He was a legend.

Me, with Alex (Neville) and Lizzie (Edwin), explaining the death of Dickens to the audience.
The Voting for the female Lover. Naomi (Rosa Bud), Marina (Princess Puffer) and myself, with Andy as Mr. James Throttle, the mentally handicapped Stage Manager.
My very talented twin - twin in the show, soul twin in real life, Alex.
Alex, confessing that it was HE who murdered young Edwin Drood.
The climactic scene just before Drood vanishes in Act I - with the incredible song "No Good Can Come From Bad" aka the crunchy crunchy close harmony death song. Heh.
Me having a little angst in "No Good Can Come From Bad". Alex on the left, Naomi on the right.
Roman (with RIDICULOUS hair), playing the Reverend Crisparkle, blesses the meal in "No Good Can Come From Bad".
I yell at Harry for a while, then he calls me a bitch and I glare for a bit.
The gorgeous female "Moonfall" quartet. Felicity, Naomi, myself and Minna.
And here's Roman as the murderer. He was truly truly scary.
What musical is complete without an epic kick-line?
... or side-stepping, top-hat miming?
Harry and Roman have a moment.

I am so proud of everyone in the cast, and so happy that I got to perform again... it might be the last time I get to for a very long time.