Crazytown

IN WHICH I LOSE MY VOICE...

...and gain a valuable life experience.
By Alisha Giampola (Actor)

I'm not a particularly fearful person you guys. I don't get worked up easily about walking home late at night, or taking expired aspirin, or missing my train, or the inevitable heat death of the universe. 

But let me get really honest with you here. Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (Florida) ... I had a vocal injury that put me into about three months of major vocal rest and nine months of weekly vocal therapy during my freshman year of college; a year that I had orginally been planning on spending singing my face off. 

I had already been studying voice for several years with the head of the vocal department at the University of Florida and was absolutely certain about the course of my future: It was going to be all singing all the time. I had already gotten a head start, like any good musical theatre high school geek: performing in every community theatre production I could audition for, going to state with my high school's International Thespian Society and winning Best Solo Musical performance there, and even performing in one of UF's mainstage productions during my junior year. There was no question that I was about to spend the rest of my life singing every thought that came into my head, possibly while swinging around a lamp post in the rain. 

And then, at the beginning of senior year, I began to sound different in my voice lessons. At first, it wasn't anything I couldn't fake my way around, and then it was unavoidable. The hoarseness had seeped into my speaking voice. My ability to control the volume of my singing voice in my upper register had disappeared. My voice teacher insisted I make an appointment with her otolaryngologist who specialized in performer's voices at Shands, the big fancy teaching hospital associated with the University of Florida. 

The appointment itself was interesting. A scope was inserted through my nose and down my throat to view my larynx and a picture of it was even printed out so I could see what the doctor was seeing. 

Here are some vocal cords with a polyp, like the one I had, visible on the upper right.
These are VOCAL CORDS, everyone. Get your mind out of the gutter. 

For me, at seventeen, with dreams of greasepaint and crowds dancing in my head, the doctor telling me I had a polyp on my cords was the equivalent of telling me I had a terminal illness. In fact, I remember dramatically sobbing to my mother in the car on the way home, clutching the vaguely disturbing image of my voice box to my chest: "He may as well have told me I have cancer!" (No, that would be so so much worse, seventeen-year-old-Alisha, you are such a diva.)

Anyway, it was pretty much the worst news I had ever received up until that point (yes, I realize this is a hashtag-first-world-problem) and I spiraled into despair of ever recovering my ability to sing. Only a few years earlier, Julie Andrews had experienced her famous botched vocal surgery, and doctors were feeling a little hesitant about recommending them. (Although successful surgeries absolutely do occur.) My doctor had encouraged me to attempt a regimen of vocal rest and regular voice therapy to correct issues with my speaking voice that may have exacerbated the damage on my cords. I proceeded to do both of these things with a mixture of hope and dread. I was devastated that I was not allowed to sing at all, which meant no more voice lessons (and as any singer knows, going to voice lessons is essentially a form of therapy) and obviously there went my plans for jumping straight into a BFA program and killing it. 

SOUNDTRACK OF MY SUMMER

The most-anticipated musical theatre albums of the summer.    
By Michael Kras (Actor/Playwright/Director)

I don't know what it is about The Summer of 2013, but I've never been so excited by so many musical theatre album releases at one time (Especially from Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, who are knocking it out of the park with the vast number of highly anticipated releases coming our way). Here's a list of my top albums to keep your eye out, and your bank account full, for this summer.

Dogfight

Okay, I'm cheating a bit with this one, because technically, it has already been released and I already have it. However, it's only out in digital download form and hard copies are still on preorder, so I decided to add this gem to the list. Simply put, Dogfight is one of my new favourite cast albums... like, Top 10 material. There is not a single dud out of the 16 songs. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's contemporary pop-rock score all at once funny, rockin', beautiful, heartbreaking, and toe-tappingly catchy. Not only will the songs be stuck in your head for days (or weeks), but the album also begs to be replayed. It's short at 50 minutes long, and most of the songs aren't more than 4 minutes in length, but I think that adds to just how excellent this score is... none of the songs overstay their welcome and they all leave you wanting more. That's the mark of a terrific new contemporary score. And the vocal talent! All of my favourites: Lindsay Mendez, Nick Blaemire, F. Michael Haynie, Steven Booth, Derek Klena, Annaleigh Ashford, Josh Segarra!?? Come ON! Bravo on turning such an unconventional score into musical theatre gold.

HATERS GONNA HATE

In defense of new musical theatre composers.
By Michael Kras (Actor/Playwright/Director)

 

I am a huge supporter and advocate of new musical theatre. It is my firm belief that the future is in more than good hands, as long as said future has the support and back-up it needs. How do I support these new composers? I buy their albums, I pimp their work on my Facebook and Twitter to encourage people to check it all out, and I'm always looking for the latest and greatest. It's a win-win... I get to hear great new music, and I make a small but important contribution to said composers for them to continue doing their thing.

That said, I hate reading reviews on these new works by young up-and-comers. Why? Because, in so many cases, I find them just plain unfair.

So many old, jaded critics out there seem to love preying on fresh meat. They're so set in the golden age of musicals and they seem to approach new works with negative prejudice. Of course, I'm generalizing, but it's something I see enough that I think it's worth discussing. A lot of these critics tend to complain about the same basic things. I'll list a few of them, and then explain why each one is total bullshit.

ONE LESS LONELY GIRL

Never Say Never? How about Never Say Anything?
By Alisha Giampola (Actor) 

You guys. Since the news broke that Justin Bieber was getting his WWII history on in Amsterdam and wrote a slightly awkward entry in the guestbook at the Anne Frank House, I'm sure you've all been wondering sleeplessly if Anne Frank would, in fact, have been a 'belieber' as Justin hoped. If you have somehow missed this amazing moment in American pop culture, and have not yet become alarmed that possibly no one under the age of 20 knows anything about Anne Frank, or you know, World War II, please take a moment to catch yourself up.

(And I really cannot even discuss right now that Justin Bieber was born in 1994, because that just makes me feel HORRIFYINGLY OLD. I need to procure a lawn, so I can start yelling at people to stay off of it.)  

To the credit of pretty much everyone on the planet, most people reacted on a spectrum between outrage and irritated disbelief at Bieber's comment, although 50 Cent had the Beib's back. In all fairness, if we ever hoped to discover what was on the mind of a teenage Jewish girl during the Holocaust, 50 Cent's guess is probably as good as anyone's. Also, it's pretty clear that Bieber's comments were made in fairly profound ignorance, as he doesn't even know who the Germans are, let alone the Nazis.

And then, Anne's own posthumous stepsister, Eva Schloss, steps forward and makes the ultimate defense for Bieber's comment. Eva constructs this very scientific logical syllogism for us: all 15 year old girls love Justin Bieber, Anne Frank was (and will eternally be) a 15 year old girl, therefore Anne Frank would have loved Justin Bieber. 

“Tell me what you like girl, tell me what you don’t.
I could be your Buzz Lightyear, fly across the globe.”

HOW I MET A TONY NOMINEE

With the release of the Original Cast Recording of DOGFIGHT this week, I'm reminded of when I first decided I wanted to write for Musical Theater...

by Alexander Sage Oyen (Composer/Lyricist)

I started writing songs when I was twelve. I wanted to be John Mayer (and, yeah, I still kind of want to be John Mayer… maybe more like Ben Folds now) and I wanted to write pop tunes.

Actually, when I was twelve I was on a reality television show on VH1 called In Search of the Partridge Family.  It was a show about casting a show based on the fun 70’s show, The Partridge Family, which starred David Cassidy and Danny Bonaducci.  I got 3^rd for the role of Danny.

(Also...Emma Stone was on the show and she’s the coolest ever.  I’d give you video content, but I will never let the video content be released). 

My parents both come from a theatre background and I remember, after I lost on Partridge Family, being in the car with my father and him saying, “Why don’t you audition for a show? That could be fun!” My reply was sassy and curt- “Why would I ever do theatre? That’s lame.”

Well… fast forward five years. I’m seventeen now, and I’m in my junior year of high school. For the past three years I’ve been in the theatre division of my high school’s performing arts magnet program. Oh, how the tables had turned. And I had just started writing musicals. I had gone from a chump who thought that theatre had no business in my life to a chump who thought he had something to say about theatre.

That’s when I found some bootlegged demos from a new musical that had just opened and closed on Broadway.  The show was called GLORY DAYS  (Also, this was in the days of Myspace music pages and that’s where I found the stuff. I actually miss Myspace music. Or like… not really). GLORY DAYS is a wonderful show written by James Gardiner and Nick Blaemire about four high school friends who come back to find that not everything is exactly how they left it.  The score is so wonderful and so damn catchy.  I decided that I had to contact Nick, the composer/lyricist, and make him hear my stuff...

VIDEO HOS

By Sam Perwin

As an actor, you know you're on a roll when you have your next job booked before your current one ends. This is the case for a few of my more fortunate castmates, but alas, as Gershwin wrote, not for me. It was a long, hard, busy audition season in NYC, and while I came out with some callbacks and this gig, as of right now, I don't have a summer-stock job. This means, especially now that the show is open, I plan to spend my downtime trolling the Equity Website for audition postings and making a lot of audition videos to see what's still available for the summer.

 
Hey, it worked for the Biebs....

While not too much has changed about the audition process since the dawn of theatre (when I walk in the room, there's a table of men, always men, usually gay...), the ubiquity of smartphones and digital cameras has made submitting an audition video easy and extremely common. When I submitted my headshot and resume for this gig at the Meadow Brook, I was asked to send a video. Once, I ran into a friend at a bar who was working for a casting director. She realized I'd be perfect for one of their projects, called her boss in the bar and told her to check out my website. She watched the videos I had there, and I was told to come in at 10am tomorrow (obviously I went home and went to bed). This week, I got a phone call asking me to come in for a callback from an audition a few weeks ago, and since I'm out of town, I offered to send a video. They said that'd be great, e-mailed me sides, and asked me for a pop song. I downloaded a karaoke track, and asked one of my cast mates to read the sides with me. Boom, I had an audition. 

IT'S ALL IN THE MIX

What does your road trip music say about you?
By Gregory Jacobs-Roseman (Composer- Lyricist) 

St. Francis Vineyards in Sonoma.

Greetings from sunny California! I am writing this post from Sonoma, where I am spending a wine-soaked weekend with my parents at their house in Healdsburg. Though I hate, hate, hate that I am away for opening weekend of the production of Once On This Island I designed in Brooklyn (have you purchased your tickets yet? Click here and do it already!) I left the show in good hands and this was one of those mandatory family obligations. Also, I have no room to complain when this is the view out of the front window: 

As fellow Crazytowner Alisha commented when I posted this photo on Facebook: “That looks terrible.”

My parents flight got into San Francisco about half an hour after mine and we immediately jumped into the rental car and headed north to wine country. While searching for something to listen to during the drive, we discovered that someone had left a mix CD in the CD player. It was labeled simply: “US 101”, which happens to be the highway that connects San Francisco to Healdsburg (it actually runs along the enitre west coast of the United States – I sense those of you in and/or from California thinking “um, DUH” when you read that, but as a New Yorker who hasn’t driven a car since 2006 this was all news to me) so it was clearly someone's road trip music. My father hit play, and was instantly thrilled by the music coming out of the speakers. The track list was as follows (many thanks to the app Shazam for identifying the tracks I did not know):

1. This Must Be The Place – Talking Heads
2. Smells Like Funk – Black Eyed Peas
3. Mannish Boy (live) – Muddy Waters/The Band
4. Got You All In Check – Busta Rhymes
5. My Neck, My Back (Lick It) – Khia
6. The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Bob Dylan
7. The Night They Drove All Dixie Down – The Band
8. Crazyhorse Mongoose – Galactic
9. A New Arrangement – Bright Eyes
10. Helpless (live) – Neil Young/The Band
11. Hillbilly Deluxe – Brooks & Dunn
12. Dead Wrong – Eminem/The Notorious B.I.G.
13. A live 9-minute Latin jazz/rock improvisational instrumental track that Shazam couldn’t identify.
14. Another live track Shazam didn’t know. Come on, Shazam. You had one job.
15. Long Black Veil – The Band

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

Musicians: You need more sleep. Seriously. You will memorize your music better, according to a new study.
by Loren A. Roberts (guru of multi-hyphenate media)

Your memory is a fragile thing, but studies show we can help it along...

I have spoken about this before [here], but there is a new study that I want to discuss.

Are you feeling like you are having a hard time memorizing new music? It happens to us all. This new study suggests that the reason might be twofold: lack of sleep and/or too much other input. Directly from Science Daily:

Performance of a musical task improved among pianists whose practice of a new melody was followed by a night of sleep, says researcher Sarah E. Allen, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

...

The study found, however, that when two similar melodies were practiced one after the other, followed by sleep, any gains in speed and accuracy achieved during practice diminished overnight, said Allen, an assistant professor of music education in SMU's Meadows School of the Arts.

...

Surprisingly, in a third result the study found that when two similar musical pieces were practiced one after the other, followed by practice of the first melody again, a night's sleep enhanced pianists' skills on the first melody, she said.

The researchers are reticent to make blanket statements about how this might affect our pedagogy for music training, but I will simply say “let’s try sleeping!” And secondly: “let’s simplify and only learn one thing at a time!”

So, next time I need to learn a new piece of music, I’m going to a) learn a single short piece only, b) sleep on it, and c) repeat until I have learned the whole piece.

LOREN A. ROBERTS produces films, videos and music, designs magazines and logos, plays and sings in a Doobie Brothers tribute band, and is a student of what happens when science and technology and the arts and culture collide. www.hearkencreative.com
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INSTANT REPLAY

My favourite musical moments from amazing cast albums.
By Michael Kras (Actor/Playwright/Director)

We all have them. Those moments on ANY music album that just make us go 'Damn!' and have us reaching for the replay button. Oftentimes, they're over and done in like a second and we sit there compulsively going back and relistening dozens of times. Whether it's an eargasm-inducing high note, or wow-worthy orchestrations, I have my share of these moments. And thus, I present to you a few of my favourites.

The opening piano and strings of 'The Beauty Is' from The Light in the Piazza

This is one of my favourite songs from Adam Guettel's score for Piazza, but the thing about it that has given it such replay value for me is the opening few seconds. It starts with a great Guettel-esque piano melody and the strings get added on top of that, making for pure ear-candy. Give it a listen!

 

WHY I STILL WATCH SMASH (OR, A LOVE LETTER TO MEGAN HILTY)

Smash is barelling towards unwatchability, but we're still rooting for Ivy.
By Sam Perwin 

First off, I must apologize to anyone who read my post last week, felt guilty for having abandoned Glee, then tuned in to watch the absolutely wretched episode that centered around a school shooting. While I appreicate Ryan Murphy's unflagging willingness to go there no matter how tasteless, this was unnecessary. It also led to many unfortunate, snotty/scared close-ups of our fresh-faced heroes, and then the shooter turning out to be (SPOILER ALERT) the girl with Down's Syndrome bringing a gun to school because she was feeling scared about graduating into the real world (wah-wah) then accidentally firing it, then dropping it. Bad form, Murphy, bad form. 

I do, however, stand by what I said, and echo it this week with some thoughts on the TV show the New York Theaterati loves to hate, Smash. Now, Smash, is a horse of a slightly different color than Glee in that it actually pretends to be an insight to the inner workings of Broadway. There are a few musical dream sequences (some good, some bad), but for the most part, the singing and dancing is in rehearsals, auditions, performances and the occasional "we're at a party, let's do a number!" situation (we've all been there...).