Take a Chance on Mia
Last night my best friend and I went to see Mamma Mia at the Music Hall. As KC Theater League members and Starlight Season ticketholders for the past several years, we have seen our fair share of musicals. I personally think last night was the MOST FUN we've had since we embarked on our little journey of cultural enlightenment! We've seen good shows before, of course. We loved The Producers (so witty), the clever and sarcastic Urinetown, and the wildly popular Rent. We're also suckers for well done revivals of light-hearted classics like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or Thoroughly Modern Millie (probably because were both old movie junkies, gotta have that AMC or TCM fix regularly or we start to twitch and hallucinate, visions of the RKO radio tower striking us down with a bolt of lightning).
We've seen some stinkers too. We saw a production of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas starring Ann-Margret that was abysmal. The star seemed to be sleepwalking through her entire performance, YAWN. We left during intermission of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express (please... the life and times of roller-skating toys set to incredibly over-synthesized music, gag). Overall, I'm pretty much NOT a fan of ALW, although my friend doesn't mind his work so much.
In any event, this Abba musical was really clever. It wasn't really about Abba, at all. It was a comedic plot about a single mother and her daughter who's getting married and the men who may or may not have fathered the girl. Just like any other musical, at key points in the play, the characters break into song, some ditty relevant to the plot or the current emotions of the characters. Unlike any other musical, every song is an Abba tune. As our program described, it was written "backwards", start with the tunes and work a story around it. I thought the whole thing was FUN and tremendously entertaining. (Of course, my friend and I have a little thing for Abba, but that story is for another day.) After the final bows, the cast led a dance number/sing-a-long with the whole audience on their feet!
I think you could create a musical based on the music of any well-rounded band or artist that has a large catalog of work from which to draw (The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, etc.) Maybe this is what I'll start working on in my spare time... oh yeah, I'm a working mom now, I don't have spare time any more... I keep forgetting!
We've seen some stinkers too. We saw a production of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas starring Ann-Margret that was abysmal. The star seemed to be sleepwalking through her entire performance, YAWN. We left during intermission of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express (please... the life and times of roller-skating toys set to incredibly over-synthesized music, gag). Overall, I'm pretty much NOT a fan of ALW, although my friend doesn't mind his work so much.
In any event, this Abba musical was really clever. It wasn't really about Abba, at all. It was a comedic plot about a single mother and her daughter who's getting married and the men who may or may not have fathered the girl. Just like any other musical, at key points in the play, the characters break into song, some ditty relevant to the plot or the current emotions of the characters. Unlike any other musical, every song is an Abba tune. As our program described, it was written "backwards", start with the tunes and work a story around it. I thought the whole thing was FUN and tremendously entertaining. (Of course, my friend and I have a little thing for Abba, but that story is for another day.) After the final bows, the cast led a dance number/sing-a-long with the whole audience on their feet!
I think you could create a musical based on the music of any well-rounded band or artist that has a large catalog of work from which to draw (The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, etc.) Maybe this is what I'll start working on in my spare time... oh yeah, I'm a working mom now, I don't have spare time any more... I keep forgetting!
posted by Tacey at
11:43 AM
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