Broadway

City’s Times Square, there was another show with bright lights, crowded seats, and outstanding performers. This show was the Broadway Musical, The Lion King, performed in the Minskoff Theatre. Around three years after the Disney animated movie was released, the Lion King was performed for the first time at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has been a Broadway hit ever since. It has earned many awards, including six Tony Awards, and it has expanded throughout theatres across the…

History, musical theatre, and rap sounds like a horrible combination. A combination that a history teacher might use to make their students more enthusiastic about their class. This is what came to mind when I heard of Hamilton for the first time. After hearing the music and later watching the show, however, it became apparent that Hamilton was successful in blending these elements into the wildy popular musical that it is now. It started when Lin-Manuel Miranda decided to read Ron Chernow’s…

Attending my first concert, Idina Menzel was my first live performance to ever attend and experience the music live. Menzel performs a selection of songs from her Broadway career, along with original songs from her various solo albums, and her Pop and Rock covers. The group that performed for Menzel was a local Los Angeles band and they played very well for the choices of songs she sang. The performers that played for Menzel was very impressive and seemed they had no problem playing and…

I just won a competition for “The Ear,” an organization that seeks to create modern, tonal classical material, and I just finished a three-song cycle of Sara Teasdale Poems. My vocalist is Siri Howard, the swing character in Les Miserable’s on Broadway. Perhaps my most controversial and/or flattering credit (depending on your point of view) is my appearance on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice with the Brett Michael’s team in 2012. We wrote jingles together and actually won the…

a whore go on and on grow into more of a phenomenon? Lin Manuel Miranda changed Broadway in 2015 with his musical Hamilton. Inspired by a biography by Ron Chernow about the life of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda went to work on what might be the most influential musical of the decade. Miranda, in creating his work, had to work through the constraints, find the exigence, and establish the audience for writing a Broadway musical while also making it original and inimitable. With clever casting and…

Cherry Lane Theatre, located at 38 Commerce Street in Greenwich Village, is the oldest and a front-runner of Off-Broadway theatre in New York. The theatre has been dedicated to not only the development of new American theatre works, but also diverse productions of both new and classic theatre plays since 1924. In pursuit of the Cherry Lane’s mission, “To cultivate an urban artist colony, honor our groundbreaking history, and engage audiences as partners in creating theater that illuminates…

Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize and eight Tony Awards, more than any other composer. Considering the span of his career, Stephen Sondheim is on of the most influential figures in musical theater. Sondheim first major work West Side Story was a major Broadway success and has been revived 4 times since its premier, most recently in 2009. It was later made into a film…

Tennessee Williams in his play A Streetcar Named Desire explores the natural state of man and his primitive desires and actions. Through his characters, Stanley and Blanche, he shows how the two sides of man’s natural state. William’s goal is shown in the 1951 production of the play starring Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh. In this production the play is acted out in a way that allows all audiences to grasp the underlying theme while remaining entertaining and engaging to the audience. The…

follows seven artists working for their dreams of stardom without becoming sellouts. Originating in 1996, Rent was composed by an almost unknown composer at the time, Jonathan Larson. From small beginnings in the Off-Broadway New York Theater Workshop, Rent made its way to Broadway, and became an American hit. This hit musical was written and composed by Jonathan Larson. Living from 1960-1996, dying the morning Rent was to be performed in its first preview performance. Larson was born in…

tickets were significantly discounted and right at my disposal, of course I took the opportunity to go. When the show was announced, I was very excited as I had heard a lot of buzz about the musical. First of all, it stars Josh Groban in his debut on Broadway, which obviously would direct a lot of attention towards the musical. Additionally, I have heard from multiple people that the Female lead, Deneé Benton, is very much in the running this year for receiving a Tony award. Further, before I…