Musicals
Newsies
Next year will mark the thirtieth anniversary of Disney’s attempt to revive the musical. Before the “Hamilton” craze and “The Greatest Showman”, musicals had hit a slump. Except for shows like the stalworth “Annie”, the musical was seen as a fossil best left in our memories of the greats like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. Then along comes “Newsies”, a historical musical about the New York paperboys of 1899 in their campaign to fight back against the major newspapers who were trying to put the squeeze on them.
Hamilton
Hamilton has seized a place in pop culture and captured the imagination of a generation in a way no other musical has since Les Miserables in the 1980’s. And not unlike Les Mis, Hamilton captures the energy and passion of a revolution on many levels. Lin Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton) who wrote the music, book and lyrics, joined forces with director Thomas Kail and cinematographer Declan Quinn to bring the excitement of a live performance to the filmed version of the show. A live audience was present but not seen to add those authentic audible moments of response to great lines such as “Immigrants, we get the job done!” And the overall effect is to capture a magical moment of theatre history for posterity to enjoy…