Artists build, riff, and pay homage to the work that's come before them. That means that the more you delve into an art form, the richer your experience of new work can be. It's a rewarding cycle. But starting that journey can be intimidating.
So we created the "Monday Mix." Fun introductions to art forms you may be intimidated by, by those that love ‘em.
Check out our mixes below:
Be sure to listen in order for the full, carefully designed experience.
Follow Hyacinth Productions on Spotify
to find the playlists ready-made,
or make it on your devices in the order below.
Check back here throughout the week for daily tidbits about each piece.
Enjoy!
So we created the "Monday Mix." Fun introductions to art forms you may be intimidated by, by those that love ‘em.
Check out our mixes below:
Be sure to listen in order for the full, carefully designed experience.
Follow Hyacinth Productions on Spotify
to find the playlists ready-made,
or make it on your devices in the order below.
Check back here throughout the week for daily tidbits about each piece.
Enjoy!
A Hyacinth Holiday
1. Tune Up #1
2. Auld Lang Syne & River
3. Snow
4. California Christmastime
5. Twelve Days To Christmas
6. Silver Bells
7. I Want a Hippopotamus For A Christmas
1. Tune Up #1
2. Auld Lang Syne & River
3. Snow
4. California Christmastime
5. Twelve Days To Christmas
6. Silver Bells
7. I Want a Hippopotamus For A Christmas
1. Tune Up #1
(Rent)
by Jonathan Larson
Mark (filmmaker) and Roger (musician) highlight two sides of an artist: the tendency to step out of and observe a moment and the desire to create something of importance. Even in this 52 second clip, these tendencies shine through.
(Rent)
by Jonathan Larson
Mark (filmmaker) and Roger (musician) highlight two sides of an artist: the tendency to step out of and observe a moment and the desire to create something of importance. Even in this 52 second clip, these tendencies shine through.
The original Mark and Roger (Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal.)
2. Medley of Auld Lang Syne & River
(Carols for A Cure, Vol. 17)
By Robert Burns & Joni Mitchell
Every holiday for the past 19 years: the shows currently running on Broadway record holiday tracks for a new album “Carols For A Cure.” The proceeds from this album go to support the charity: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. King and I is unusual in that it has 3 soprano roles with 2+ songs a piece, and this trio shows off this tight blend beautifully.
(Carols for A Cure, Vol. 17)
By Robert Burns & Joni Mitchell
Every holiday for the past 19 years: the shows currently running on Broadway record holiday tracks for a new album “Carols For A Cure.” The proceeds from this album go to support the charity: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. King and I is unusual in that it has 3 soprano roles with 2+ songs a piece, and this trio shows off this tight blend beautifully.
King and I stars, Ashley Park, Kelli O'Hara, and Ruthie Anne Miles, recording this tune.
3. Snow
(Selections from Irving Berlin’s White Christmas)
Irving Berlin
Sometimes songs are cut from one show, put away into a songwriter's "trunk," and then pulled out again to be used in a later project. "Snow" is a classic example of a "trunk song." Irving Berlin originally wrote the song "Free" for his musical Call Me Madam* in 1950. It was cut, and he repurposed the melody with some new lyrics into the famous song "Snow."
* Call Me Madam is the show that Elaine Stritch talked about in last week’s mix in the song “Can You Use Any Money Today.”
4. California Christmastime
(Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 1)
by Rachel Bloom, Aline Brosh McKenna, Adam Schlesinger, Jack Dolgen, Dan Gregor and Steven M. Gold
Location plays a major role in this song and in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in general. Rachel Bloom describes how she and co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna chose West Covina:
"We wanted it to be a fish-out-of-water story, and practically every fish-out-of-water story takes place in New Jersey or the Midwest." So they looked to L.A.'s suburbs for something different. They chose West Covina because it's become a "symbol of new America," Bloom said. She also added that they were drawn to the city's inordinate number of chain restaurants. "That's what America is—all races and cultures going into the same Applebee's."
5. Twelve Days To Christmas
(She Loves Me)
by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick
Hungarian playwright, Miklós László’s 1937 play Parfumerie, inspired not only She Loves Me but also You’ve Got Mail, The Shop Around the Corner, and In the Good Ol’ Summertime.
In She Loves Me, Georg and Amalia are nemesis co-workers at a parfumerie and falling in love as anonymous pen pals on the side. While it might seem dated at first glance, you quickly realize that it’s a workplace comedy, with the added twist that two of the co-workers meet and message on a Tinder without pictures.
The 2016 Broadway Cast.
6. Silver Bells
(Christmas In New York)
by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Renee Fleming and Kelli O’Hara are Beyonces in their respective fields, Opera and Broadway. They each get above the title billing and are known for their incredible stage presence and glorious voices. This coming season they of them are trading places. Kelli O’Hara will play Despina in Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” at the Metropolitan Opera, while Renee Fleming will play the role of Nellie Fowler in Rodger and Hammerstein’s “Carousel” on Broadway.
But when they get together with friends even they take a selfie.
Opera's (Renee Fleming) and Broadway's (Kelli O'Hara)
7. I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
by John Rox
Oklahoma City was hippo-less for years. Then in 1953, local ten-year old, Gayla Peevey sang "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas" on The Ed Sullivan show. Soon donations flooded in to purchase one for the zoo. On Christmas Eve, Gayla was presented with Matilda, the hippo!
Je Suis, Nous Sommes
1. Cabaret
2. Die Vampire, Die
3. Can You Use Any Money Today
4. Too Much Exposition
5. Sunday
6. Mr. Tanner
7. You and Me
1. Cabaret
2. Die Vampire, Die
3. Can You Use Any Money Today
4. Too Much Exposition
5. Sunday
6. Mr. Tanner
7. You and Me
1. Cabaret
(Cabaret)
by John Kander and Fred Ebb
(Cabaret)
by John Kander and Fred Ebb
Scenic Design (Sketch) by Boris Anderson for the 1966 Original Broadway Production, described in Walter Kerr's review.
Walter Kerr. If you've heard the name, you most likely only know it as a Broadway theater. Currently Bruce Springsteen is playing there.
However, before all that, Walter Kerr was a New York Times Theater critic (from 1966-1981). He was lauded for his turn of phrase and won a Pulitzer for Criticism, but in those early days as an NYT critic he wrote a review for a little show that broke all expectation for the American Musical: "Cabaret."
Here are a few lines that give you an idea of the show and of the critic:
“The marionette's-eye view of a time and place in our lives that was brassy, wanton, carefree and doomed to crumble is brilliantly conceived. The place is Berlin, the time is the late 20’s when Americans still went there and Hitler could be shrugged off as a passing noise that needn’t disturb dedicated dancers.” “It has elected to wrap its arms around all that was troubling and intolerable with a demonic grin, an insidious slink, and the painted-on charm that keeps revelers up until midnight making false faces at the hangman.”
Read more here: www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/theater/82958835.pdf
2. Die Vampire, Die
([title of show])
by Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen
([title of show])
by Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen
[title of show] is the little show that could. It began as an entry into the inaugural New York Musical Theatre Festival, just four songs and a script. Determined to write an original musical, Bowen and Bell created a meta-masterpiece: "a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical." A four person musical, starring the writers and their friends, performers Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, as version of themselves, the show traveled on to additional runs at the O’Neill Theater Center, Ars Nova, and the Vineyard Theater. At each new stop on the journey the writers captured the moments in their signature style and added to the tale.
Then they took it up a level, and began a campaign to get this show to Broadway by creating a youtube webseries called “the [title of show] show." They announced in the pilot “[title of show] is going to Broadway! We don’t know how or when or where, but we’re working on that." They then spent the next 12 episodes documenting their work. The series had such an online following that it jump-started conversations with Broadway producers and got them to Broadway for a 4 month run in 2008.
3. Can You Use Any Money Today
(Elaine Stritch At Liberty)
by Irving Berlin
Legends beget legends. A young Elaine Stritch understudied Ethel “The First Lady of Broadway” Merman, before she became “The First Broad of American Theater.” You might recognize her as Jack’s mother in 30 Rock.
Ethel Merman
|
Elaine Stritch
|
Admired and beloved, each also gained a reputation for brashness at best, or being ruthless and difficult at worst.
To which Merman when asked about this description replied: ''I believe in asserting myself, but only for things that are important. Anybody who's worth her salt has to fight for her rights once in awhile or get shoved around."
4. Too Much Exposition
(Urinetown)
by Mark Holliman and Greg Kotis
Artists get inspiration from all over. Greg Kotis (book writer and lyricist) got the idea for this show..when it became a costly privilege to pee. He describes the "light bulb moment"in the following:
The idea for URINETOWN, THE MUSICAL first came to me during what might generously be described as a poorly planned trip to Europe... For some reason, I thought $300 would cover my expenses, and …I ran out of money almost immediately. What I had intended to be a meditative, economy-style backpacker excursion through the capitals of France, Germany, England, and Spain quickly devolved into a grim test of endurance, (with) the defining question … "How can I not spend any money until I can reclaim my ticket to the States and go home?" For me, the answer involved sleeping in the train stations, eating cheap but belly-filling foods, and, strangely enough, avoiding going to the bathroom as much as possible.
Public bathrooms in Europe are pay-per-use….Each involves a fee of some kind, some more expensive than others, all the time prohibitive to me… And so it was that on one particularly cold, rainy afternoon in Paris, while I was making my way past the Luxembourg Gardens, trying to determine how badly I needed to go to the bathroom … that the notion of a city where all the public amenities in town were controlled by a single, malevolent, monopolizing corporation came to me.
5. Sunday
(tick, tick, boom...)
by Jonathan Larson
Artists manipulate time and focus, to allow us to see. In this song Johnathan riffs on the Sunday song that Sondheim made: in which George Seurat creates the scene for "La Grande Jatte" (Sunday in The Park with George) using the words:
Order, Tension, Balance.
He updates it to his Sundays as a waiter in a Manhattan Diner.
Johnathan originally performed this song as part of a solo show. After his untimely death, Pulitzer-winning playwright David Auburn re-imagined the original script into the three-person show which played off Broadway and is heard on the mix. Here is Jonathan playing all the parts:
(tick, tick, boom...)
by Jonathan Larson
Artists manipulate time and focus, to allow us to see. In this song Johnathan riffs on the Sunday song that Sondheim made: in which George Seurat creates the scene for "La Grande Jatte" (Sunday in The Park with George) using the words:
Order, Tension, Balance.
He updates it to his Sundays as a waiter in a Manhattan Diner.
Johnathan originally performed this song as part of a solo show. After his untimely death, Pulitzer-winning playwright David Auburn re-imagined the original script into the three-person show which played off Broadway and is heard on the mix. Here is Jonathan playing all the parts:
6. Mr. Tanner
(In Constant Search of The Right Kind of Attention)
Harry Chapin
Harry Chapin was inspired to write this song after he read these New York Times reviews of bass-baritone Martin Turbidy. He quotes them in the spoken word section of the song.
|
timesmachine.nytimes.com
|
7. You and Me
(Victor/Victoria)
by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse
|
|
Mary Poppins grew up, moved to Paris, and became the biggest sensation at 1930s Parisian nightclubs. A starving, unemployed soprano named Victoria, starts going by the name Victor and performing as a male female impersonator. Victor sells out theaters and makes men and women alike question their sexuality. Along the way she gets a little help from her friend, “Toddy,” The Music Man’s Harold Hill. (a.k.a. Julie Andrews and Robert Preston)
|
|
Hyacinth 2.0
1. Magic To Do
2. I Miss The Music
3. Wrote My Way Out
4. Finishing the Hat
5. Welcome to Our House On Maple Avenue
6. Broadway Here I Come
7. Our Time
1. "Magic To Do"
(Pippin-New Broadway Cast)
Written by Stephen Schwartz
We're welcomed to the show by the Leading Player saying “Join us.”
One of the great things about revivals is the ways in which they play homage to previous productions and transform the way we see the piece. In the original 1972 production, the Leading Player was played by Ben Vereen. In the 2013 production (heard in this mix) the Leading Player was played by Patina Miller. Both won the Tony Award (like the Oscars for Broadway) for this role, making history. This was the first time that a man and woman have won the Tony award for playing the same role.
2. I Miss The Music:
(Curtains)
Written by John Kander, Fred Ebb, Rupert Holmes
This might not be the kind of song that you think of when you think of Kander and Ebb, the writing team behind Chicago and Cabaret. In fact, it takes on an extra poignancy when you realize that lyricist Ebb died in 2004 working on this show with Kander, the composer. Kander then wrote this song, where the character of the composer misses the music that they made with their long-time lyricist.
(Curtains)
Written by John Kander, Fred Ebb, Rupert Holmes
This might not be the kind of song that you think of when you think of Kander and Ebb, the writing team behind Chicago and Cabaret. In fact, it takes on an extra poignancy when you realize that lyricist Ebb died in 2004 working on this show with Kander, the composer. Kander then wrote this song, where the character of the composer misses the music that they made with their long-time lyricist.
Kander (back) and Ebb (front)
3. Wrote My Way Out
(The Hamilton Mixtape)
Written by Nas, Dave East, Lin-Manuel Miranda
This song not only samples “Wrote My Way Out” from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit “Hamilton,” Lin’s verse is also full of references to other works of art. Below are 3 of them.
Runnin' out of time like I'm Jonathan Larson's rent check
Jonathan Larson is the writer of the Pulitzer-Prize Winning Musical, “Rent” set in the East Village, in 1989. The characters, a band of artists many of whom suffer from HIV/AIDS crisis, struggle to pay their rent. Jonathan Larson tragically died suddenly of an aneurysm on the morning of Rent’s first performance off-Broadway.
3. Wrote My Way Out
(The Hamilton Mixtape)
Written by Nas, Dave East, Lin-Manuel Miranda
This song not only samples “Wrote My Way Out” from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit “Hamilton,” Lin’s verse is also full of references to other works of art. Below are 3 of them.
Runnin' out of time like I'm Jonathan Larson's rent check
Jonathan Larson is the writer of the Pulitzer-Prize Winning Musical, “Rent” set in the East Village, in 1989. The characters, a band of artists many of whom suffer from HIV/AIDS crisis, struggle to pay their rent. Jonathan Larson tragically died suddenly of an aneurysm on the morning of Rent’s first performance off-Broadway.
My mind is where the wild things are, Maurice Sendak
Now a famous, beloved children’s book featuring a boy who escapes into his imagination after a quarrel with his mother, “Where The Wild Things Are” was critically panned and banned from libraries and schools when it was released in 1963.
I know Abuela's never really gonna win the lottery
In this line, Miranda references his first Broadway show, “In The Heights.” In it the character of Abuela Claudia-- a grandmother figure to the whole neighborhood wins the lottery. Miranda has said that Jonathan Larson’s “Rent,” which he saw as a high schooler, opened his mind to writing musicals about the people he saw day-to-day, and thus inspired him to write In The Heights, a show featuring the community of Washington Heights where Lin grew up. (Read more here)
4. Finishing The Hat
(Always, Kelli O'Hara)
Written by Stephen Sondheim
Sunday In the Park with George imagines the story of George Seurat painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte." This piece is the most famous example of the style he created: pointillism, a painstaking creation of millions of points of varied color, which when viewed at a distance allow the work to seem luminous and the colors solid. In the song, George is finishing one of the many hats in the painting, and struggling with the fact that part of him is always working on the painting and thus not as present in their relationship as his partner and muse, Dot needs him to be.
(Always, Kelli O'Hara)
Written by Stephen Sondheim
Sunday In the Park with George imagines the story of George Seurat painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte." This piece is the most famous example of the style he created: pointillism, a painstaking creation of millions of points of varied color, which when viewed at a distance allow the work to seem luminous and the colors solid. In the song, George is finishing one of the many hats in the painting, and struggling with the fact that part of him is always working on the painting and thus not as present in their relationship as his partner and muse, Dot needs him to be.
It’s a feeling that many artists relate to:
Stephen Sondheim, the writer of 20 musicals, said of this song “[It’s] the only song I’ve written which is an immediate expression of personal internal experience.”
Kelli O’Hara (who sings the piece on the mix) said “It’s one of those songs where I just instinctively knew that feeling…”
Stephen Sondheim, the writer of 20 musicals, said of this song “[It’s] the only song I’ve written which is an immediate expression of personal internal experience.”
Kelli O’Hara (who sings the piece on the mix) said “It’s one of those songs where I just instinctively knew that feeling…”
5. Welcome to Our House On Maple Avenue
(Fun Home)
Written by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron
Tesori and Kron made Tony history as they became the first all female-writing team to win a Tony Award for a musical's score, for “Fun Home.”
Kron and Tesori
On the historic nature of their win, Lisa Kron said:
"If someone wanted to change [it], they could change it," Kron said of the standards for diversity in the industry. "They would bring more vibrance into the theatre. I'm also not interested in the argument in terms of fairness. I'm interested in why it's important in terms of the quality of art and what theatre is about. I think theatre is not actually about looking at people who are like you. Theatre is about what happens when people unlike each other [collide] — that's what happens on a stage. That's what drama is made of — when people unlike you reach across that divide. And when that can happen on the stage, the play is better. When that can happen in the audience, the experience of the theatre is better."
On the historic nature of their win, Lisa Kron said:
"If someone wanted to change [it], they could change it," Kron said of the standards for diversity in the industry. "They would bring more vibrance into the theatre. I'm also not interested in the argument in terms of fairness. I'm interested in why it's important in terms of the quality of art and what theatre is about. I think theatre is not actually about looking at people who are like you. Theatre is about what happens when people unlike each other [collide] — that's what happens on a stage. That's what drama is made of — when people unlike you reach across that divide. And when that can happen on the stage, the play is better. When that can happen in the audience, the experience of the theatre is better."
6. Broadway, Here I Come!
(NBC's Smash)
Written by Joe Iconis
One of the most exciting things about the NBC show “Smash” (a TV show about the creation of Broadway show), was the music written by real musical theater writers that was featured in rehearsal rooms, in out-of-town tryouts, in off-hour bar “practice rooms.” Joe Iconis had written this song, puzzling the leap of an artistic career, that grew into a life of its own. Soon “Smash” picked it up and (ironically, perhaps) the playing of that song by the character Jimmy Collins led to his first Broadway show.
Extra Fun-fact: “Give them my regards” is a shoutout to “Give My Regards to Broadway” a famous American Standard written by George M. Cohan in 1904
7. Our Time
(Merrily We Roll Along)
Written by Stephen Sondheim
A story which starts with three successful, but jaded artists who are no longer friends and asks “when did it happen…” ends with this song. Merrily We Roll Along may be the ultimate cult classic: a flop, created by Broadway legends Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince, which closed 16 performances after Opening on Broadway. Still it is arguably one of the most beloved pieces of the musical theater community, and has been performed many times since that fateful closing including a 2012 Encores production featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Colin Doyle.
The Original Broadway Frank, Mary, and Charlie.
|
The Encores Mary, Frank, and Charlie.
|
