musicals

If you think Broadway is only accessible in New York City or on tour think again.  Several classic and contemporary shows are often revived and filmed for audiences to see (either as live TV specials or as limited film releases).  Here you can meet a young boy who never wanted to grow up (Peter Pan) or see how to stand up for injustice one move at a time (Hairspray).  Featuring several big names of stage and screen (John Legend, Carrie Underwood, Alec Baldwin, Neil Patrick Harris) these stories are preserved for a lifetime with the power of DVD, introducing a brand new world of audiences to

Let's get all the obvious jokes out of the way first. It's not just one song over and over. It's not just Sonny and Cher's "I Got You, Babe" on repeat. It's the original Broadway cast recording of Groundhog Day: The Musical, and I love it. Most people probably know the premise of Groundhog Day from the film upon which the musical is based--Phil the arrogant weatherman is stuck in Punxsutawney, PA, covering the festivities of Groundhog Day again and again. As with any musical, the songs don't just tell the story, they let us know what the characters are thinking and feeling at any given time

I recently found myself saying something I never would have thought I might say: "I'm so in love with George Washington right now."

The reason for such a strange statement?  Hamilton.  It's an odd concept, a hip-hop musical about the guy on the ten dollar bill, most famous for having been killed in a duel with the current Vice President, based on the 800+ page biography by Ron Chernow.  And it's magnificent.  Lin-Manuel Miranda earned his MacArthur Genius Grant with this work.

There are a number of reasons that this is a perfect storm of a musical. Narratively, it's a story with antagonists