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From Lauryn Axelrod, Resident Dramaturg
Welcome backstage at the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company with our new online StageNotes. Enrich and expand your WPTC experience as you explore the history of the play, read interviews, watch videos or hear music clips, discover connections and contexts, and learn about the playwrights, composers, directors, actors and designers who make your WPTC live theatre experience so memorable. Enjoy the show! |
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OVERVIEW
What happens when two talented Broadway veterans parody five great English and American composers in five mini-plays, each based roughly on the same melodramatic plot, but presented in the style of different composers? Join the fun when the styles of Rodgers & Hammerstein (Oklahoma!, the Sound of Music), Stephen Sondheim (Company, Sweeney Todd), Jerry Herman (Auntie Mame, Hello Dolly), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Phantom of the Opera) and John Kander/Fred Ebb (Chicago and Cabaret) merge into a mélange of musical mayhem! |
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ABOUT THE PLAY
The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) was written by Joanne Bogart and Eric Rockwell, who also starred in the original 2005 off-Broadway production. Musical was nominated for a 2004 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, five 2004 Drama Desk Awards, including Best Musical, and a 2005 Drama League Award for Best Musical.
The common story is classic: the villainous landlord demanding rent, the ingénue who cannot pay that rent, the heroic leading man who tries to help and the matronly woman who is asked for advice. The five musical plays are:
• Set in Kansas, Corn includes such lyrics as “follow the rainbow up that mountain to a lonely island.”
• A Little Complex takes place in a New York apartment with a murderous landlord.
• In Dear Abby, a Manhattan socialite offers advice while others sing and dance around her.
• Aspects of Junita is a pop opera in which the heroine tried to avoid paying rent by becoming a superstar.
• Speakeasy takes place in a Chicago bar inhabited by a band of colorful characters.
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| ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT & COMPOSER |
Eric Rockwell (music) and Joanne Bogart (lyrics) began their collaboration in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. For The Musical of Musicals: The Musical! they were honored with a 2004 Drama Desk nomination for Best Musical, as well as individual nominations for Best Music and Best Lyrics.
Their parody of Mickey and Judy musicals Golly Gee Whiz was originally produced by the TADA! Theatre, then later featured at the Lincoln Center "Reel to Real" series. Their other collaborations include productions of The Trials of Alice in Wonderland and David and Goliath. As a lyricist, Bogart contributed several lyrics to The Book of Pooh and Bear in the Big Blue House, both for the Disney Channel. Rockwell composed the score for The History Mystery and wrote the libretto to Everything About School, both produced by the TADA! Theatre Company.
They are currently working on their next project together, a traditional full-length Broadway book musical, which will leave them open to parody by some new upstart in years to come!
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