“I’m a theater animal. I’m not really a cinema animal, ” Andrew Lloyd Webber said in an interview with CNBC on Friday, “and I don’t believe you can really, really ever, at the moment, have a substitute for the live experience.” Yet even Lloyd Webber added: “there is a great value in filming theater and it’s getting much, much better.”
Lloyd Webber is certainly not alone in his attitude. Theater is “an antidote to the screens,” said Sara Cardona of Teatro Dallas, one of thirty theater companies across ten states who responded to graduate student Janice Rabian’s research project on the pandemic’s effect on theater, as reported in HowlRound.
And yet, in truth, “at the moment,” it’s now the “in-person” productions that are experimental, and theater on screens the norm. That’s certainly evident in my list of Top 10 theater of 2020.
And, judging from some of this week’s theater videos below, that norm is…expanding. (Exhibit A: Daniel J. Mertzlufft.) Or as Variety’s Gordon Cox puts it: All Arts Organizations Are Media Companies Now: “The pandemic has prodded an ancient art form — and an often hidebound industry — to explore the digital potential it’s eyed so warily in the past. As the theater’s biggest commercial motor, Broadway, has languished, resourceful artists and producers are making work that incorporates video, gaming and interactivity into hybridized digital-theater forms that, rather than serving as mere stopgaps, stand poised to endure even after the return of theater as we knew it.”
In the interview with CNBC, Lloyd Webber said “certainly fans will come back” to Broadway and the West End and pronounced himself “pretty optimistic that things will get back to normal.” But what will normal look like?
Theater Quiz for November 2020
Holiday gifts for theater lovers
Week in Theater News
Best Musical Theater Album #Grammy Nominations
Another annual theater event goes digitals. The sixth annual @bwaycon #BroadwayCon2021 will take place April 17-18, 2021 online. Its “Main Stage programming” will be free.https://t.co/a3v4HMtDmO pic.twitter.com/2vUzFOylhH
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 24, 2020
Matthew López has been hired by Searchlight Pictures to write a screen adaptation of “Leading Men,” the Christopher Castellani novel about Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo
.@LauraBenanti on ending her impersonation of Melania, the many jobs she’s juggling (new album, 2 TV shows, a documentary) and 10 things she likes, including @starsinthehouse and her own #SunshineSongs https://t.co/qkUd1OUaek pic.twitter.com/8xRa9fy6bf
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 24, 2020
That’s a PICTURE WRAP on #TickTickBoomMovie.
So profoundly grateful we were able to finish telling the story and keep everyone safe. Grateful to @netflix for sticking with us.
To quote Roger in Rent: “It isn’t much, but it took all year.”
Thank you, Jonathan Larson. pic.twitter.com/hYZL04A7IE— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) November 29, 2020
Rocky wins again
Mavel Tov @MP3MP and @dkeudell1. May you be blessed alwayshttps://t.co/mvusa8196G— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 28, 2020
Pandemic Diary: To disrupt the monotony of the moment I’m representing playwrights, non-conformists & rebellious spirits in the #MacysThanksgivingParade #mermaidqueen for @coneyislandusa @DickZigun @FogoAzulNY Celebrating theater & the arts! @MarketRoadFilms pic.twitter.com/4uqPZKslzs
— Lynn Nottage (@Lynnbrooklyn) November 26, 2020
The Week in Theater Videos
The theater video journey of Daniel J. Mertzlufft
It first needs be said that Daniel J. Mertzlufft is no musical theater novice. He’s created dozens of musical TikToks for months, as you can see from his TikTok page.
This thread is evidence of the way TikTok’s duet feature can result in the most hilarious and creative collaborations.
Pretty much a guy wrote a musical number about a grocery store and everyone is adding onto it and I am deceased.
Part 1 pic.twitter.com/4z5Mqbscgp
— Emma Lynn (@emmaspacelynn) October 5, 2020
@danieljmertzlufft Remy: The Musical OG Song @e_jaccs add. Vocals @cjaskier #remy #ratatouille #musicaltheatre #broadway #singer #musical #disney #fyp #disneymusicals
As this history of #ratatouillethemusical makes clear, Mertzlufft didn’t post the first song, but his arrangement of it inspired all those who followed
James Corden was entranced, and brought him on the show, to initial Thanksgiving The TikTok Musical, enlisting musical theater royalty
Here’s the full segment including Corden’s introduction and Mertzlufft’s reaction
Here’s the 271-second musical straight up
And it’s not the only Thanksgiving Musical! New York-based Fault Line Theater a Thanksgiving musical by Rob Shapiro starring Lynne Rosenberg on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Broadway in Thanksgiving Parade 2020 (blocked in the U.S.)
(Watch full videos of these performances at Broadway at Thanksgiving Parade 2020)
Sit Down You’re Rocking the Vote
Another trailer for The Prom
The Liz Swados Project
