musicals

YouTube Clip Of The Day

10:48AM Jess McGuire | This particular clip describes itself as follows. A student stands up in the middle of class and starts brilliantly singing a broadway style musical. Even the Professor (James Valentini) was laughing at this!!!! Your thoughts? More »

Elton John Composing The Most Hilarious AIDS Musical Ever For Ben Stiller

8:20AM Seth | For those of you wondering how in the world Ben Stiller could possibly outdo his finely honed, full-retard character work in this summer’s Tropic Thunder, fret not. The actor is pairing with Elton John for a movie musical that will require him to go full blown AIDS. John explained in a recent GQ interview: More »

The Four Billies Elliot Now Have A Paperweight To Show Off To The School Bullies Who Said Dancing Is For Sissies

11:36AM Clem Bastow | Bless their ballet slippers cotton socks: the four young lads who each play the titular boy dancer in the stage musical version of Billy Elliot have taken out the Helpmann Award for Best Male Actor in A Musical. The little tackers beat musical theatre god Anthony Warlow as well as stiff competition from fellow nominees iOTA and Mitchell Butel to claim the prize. [T]he night went to Billy Elliot, the feel-good musical based on the popular movie from 2000 and featuring music by Elton John. The production was named best musical, while Genevieve Lemon won best female actor in a musical for her role as Mrs Wilkinson. Lochlan Denholm, Nick Twiney, Rarmian Newton and Rhys Kosakowski were jointly awarded best actor in a musical for their alternating performances in the title role. Billy Elliot – which was the strong favourite with 11 nominations – also won awards for best lighting design, best choreography, best music direction and best direction. Well done, lads! Now we just have to work out which one will grow up to become a choreographer, which one will become a recording artist, which one will end up on Neighbours and which one will wait tables for ten years before being given a career reprise with a role as a psychotic hit man/pre-op transsexual kindergarten teacher/dinosaur in an AFI-winning comeback extravaganza. More »

‘Spider-Man: The Musical’ Open Call Seeks Vocally Gifted Peter Parker Types

3:45AM Seth | A little over a year ago, we noted that celebrated director/visual-flourishist Julie Taymor would be tackling perhaps her most challenging source material yet. This project would afford no opportunities for portentous lion births, or soldiers lugging Lady Liberty across a model Vietnam in an extremely literal interpretation of a Beatles lyric. Rather, Taymor set about adapting Spider-Man into a Broadway musical. Helping to sell audiences on a hovercraft-enabled lead villain whose big showstopper, “Everything’s Coming Up Pumpkin Bombs,” closes the first act is none other than U2’s Bono and The Edge, who came on board as composers. Now all that’s left to round out this spider-shit insane idea is you, triple-threat Tobey and Kirsten types! More »

Yet Another British Reality Tv Show To Make Us Bitterly Jealous Of Our Pals Across The Pond

3:19PM Clem Bastow | We’ve spoken at length before about our love of the UK’s knack for coming up with incredible celebreality television concepts, from Celebrity Wife Swap sending Freddie Starr’s wife to play lesbians with Sam Fox’s lover, to Kerry Katona’s fly-on-the-wall series. Well, those crazy Brits have outdone themselves AGAIN, this time managing to make us drool unfairly by combining car crash television with our other great loves, musical theatre and child performers! They come from all over the country and from very different backgrounds but these 12 boys are all prepared to do anything to be Oliver. The contestants are the dozen finalists in the BBC’s latest collaboration with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. On offer to three of the boys is a coveted part in West End musical Oliver! The shortlist has been whittled down from 3,000 and all 12 of the finalists are aged 10 to 13 with nine from England, two from Wales and one from Northern Ireland. Jordan, 13, from Wrexham, is a Chelsea fan who has set his heart on a career in musical theatre. He says his idols are Ant and Dec. Gwion, 11, from Carmarthen, names Harry Potter actor Gary Oldman as his ideal co-star and has ambitions of going on to be a director. Meanwhile Kwayedze, 13, from Kent, wants to pursue a song-writing career, says his favourite group is Boyz II Men and would love to work with Johnny Depp. Etc, etc – there are 12 of the plucky little buggers! The show is also pitting 12 young female performers against each other in the bloody fight to win the role of Oliver’s guardian angel/scrag with a heart of gold, Nancy. Apart from anything else, the whole thing is so massively, fantastically camp – look at the official site! What makes us even more seething with jealousy is that this is the third installment in the series; previously How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and Any Dream Will Do found new stars for The Sound Of Music and Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat respectively. No fair! We’d give our right arm, and probably our left one too, if we could get Grant Denyer and Erica Heynatz off the tele and something like this on it! More »

4:52AM Seth | The Color Purple is reportedly heading back to the screen, this time in the form of the Oprah Winfrey-produced Broadway musical currently starring American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino. “‘That’s going to happen and I’m going to do it,’ the former Idol champ said, smiling broadly. ‘They’re going to work with me. They don’t have to [but] that’s a favor,’ Fantasia said. ‘Working with someone like Miss Oprah who’s so talented and amazing – It’s a blessing.’” Approached for comment, Miss Oprah explained, “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men, but I ain’t never thought I’d have the opportunity to bring this timeless musical adventure into theaters everywhere, Summer 2009! And don’t forget to watch Oprah’s Big Give, ABC Sundays at 9!” [moviesblog.mtv.com] More »

4:52AM Seth | The Color Purple is reportedly heading back to the screen, this time in the form of the Oprah Winfrey-produced Broadway musical currently starring American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino. “‘That’s going to happen and I’m going to do it,’ the former Idol champ said, smiling broadly. ‘They’re going to work with me. They don’t have to [but] that’s a favor,’ Fantasia said. ‘Working with someone like Miss Oprah who’s so talented and amazing – It’s a blessing.’” Approached for comment, Miss Oprah explained, “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men, but I ain’t never thought I’d have the opportunity to bring this timeless musical adventure into theaters everywhere, Summer 2009! And don’t forget to watch Oprah’s Big Give, ABC Sundays at 9!” [moviesblog.mtv.com] More »