![]() Our favorite things you won’t be seeing in the 45-minute presentation include a Defying Gravity moment, puppet violence and a plot twist that reveals why Howard’s life has been musicalized.We were instantly enamored with the concept of a man who found himself trapped inside a musical, but it was also really important for us to find the meaning behind Howard’s metamorphosis, to explore the emotional journey beneath the amusing conceit.The show is a comedy, but the thing that has kept us invested in it from the beginning is its heart.Though the show makes use of a number of references to specific musicals, the overwhelming feedback we’ve received from audiences is that such references do not inhibit the enjoyment of those who are not well-versed in the musical theatre canon.We feel that the best next step for the show is a regional production and/or the involvement of a commercial producer. But now he has slipped into a quiet routine punctuated. Howard Barnes does provide that hero’s journey, but it also spends a great deal of time and energy referencing many American musicals in a way that will fascinate. He once got pretty close to marrying a young woman named Grace. A Village Original from The 2013 Festival of New Musicals, The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes is equal parts satire, romantic comedy, and love letter to the American musical. ![]() These references are bound to excite and entice any regular musical theatre-goer, who can recognize the show as both a satire of and love letter to the American musical. We will be continuing to develop the show at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, where we plan on ironing out the last few dramaturgical trouble spots. Howard Barnes is a single guy in his mid-30s with an office job in Manhattan. The ability to reference (and include cameo appearances from) Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Avenue Q, Les Miserables, Hamilton, Chicago, and Spring Awakening just to name a few in a mere 90 minutes makes The Noteworthy Life of Howard Barnes a conglomeration of inside jokes from contemporary Western musicals.“I think that would be a wonderful world to live in. Overett would agree: “Musicals shape emotions into something beautiful, with music,” he said. Desperate to escape from the show, Howard embarks on a fantastical quest through the realm of musical theater. “In a musical a song is a moment that’s so heightened, so important that you have to sing it,” he said. Pfister, who teaches voice and acting at Berklee College of Music in Boston, said that writing original material using people’s real-life experiences helped to give his clients a sense of “ceremony and ritual and community,” elements intrinsic to the theater. Mankowsky’s fees have ranged from $500 to upward of $6,000, depending on the size of the production. On a bigger scale, they mounted “An American Town,” a musical about the small community of Lincoln, Mass., that was commissioned by a local theater troupe. player, they wrote a number called “She Married a Nose Tackle,” which she performed at a party. Rene Pfister and Jan Mankowsky, who run a business called Make Your Life a Musical, create personalized songs and shows, using any style of music. (The show’s premiere is set for the 2015-16 season at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, with Alex Timbers, of “Rocky” fame, directing.)Īnd sometimes life really can come with a cast recording. Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, the husband-and-wife team that won an Oscar for their megahit song “Let It Go” from the film “Frozen,” are at work on a stage musical, “Up Here,” which features a man whose thoughts get the musical treatment. The production is just one of several new projects that imagine what would happen if reality came equipped with a score. “It’s about coming to accept and love himself about something that makes him a freak,” Mr. For him, it’s embarrassing, a secret that must be hidden, especially when he falls in love with a female colleague who can’t experience his musical life. Here, a young man named Parker inhabits a musical that no one else sees. End the day with an 11 o’clock number and applause for a job well done.īut what if you were not that kind of fan - and this dream was your nightmare? Such is the premise of “My Life Is a Musical,” a new show by Adam Overett (book, music and lyrics) that begins Tuesday at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, N.Y. Catch a performance by Chita Rivera and cheerful chorus boys in kick-line formation at the water cooler. For a certain kind of theater fan, to live life as a musical would be a gift from the show-tune gods.
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