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Five stories from Roald Dahl‘s Tales of the Unexpected have been adapted for the stage in the UK. On January 14th, Roald Dahl’s Twisted Tales opened for previews on the West End.

Jeremy Dyson wrote the script and Polly Findlay directed the play. The production website should be 14 or older since it is based on short stories with adult material.

Dahl first published the collection in 1979. The sixteen stories inspired a television series that lasted for nine seasons. The video embedded above features the show’s theme song. (Via the Daily Mail)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

I’m an unapologetic GLEEk.  Like a lot of adult fans, I think I follow the show so closely because I’m a frustrated band/drama/choir geek from back in high school.  I couldn’t play an instrument, I couldn’t act, and I most certainly couldn’t sing.  But, dang, if I didn’t hang out with that group, wishing that I had some shred of talent.  So for people like me, there’s GLEE.

Naturally, though, young adult literature caught on to this segment of high school society way before the show was born.  Some of my personal favorites (yes, I’ve read them all) include ENTHUSIASM by Polly Shulman, NO MORE DEAD DOGS by Gordon Korman, and the hilariously raunchy CASTRATION CELEBRATION by Jake Wizner.  And this list wouldn’t be complete, of course, without mentioning E. Lockhart‘s spot-on DRAMARAMA.  If you haven’t read these yet…well…then I worry about your GLEEk cred.  Pick them up today.

I also want to tell you about two upcoming books that’ll appeal to the teen GLEEks you work with (and your inner GLEEk, of course):

RIVAL by Sara Bennett Wealer

In the midst of competing against each other at a singing competition, two ex-friends try to figure out where their relationship went wrong. (On-sale 2.15.11)

WITHERING TIGHTS by Louise Rennison (Note: this cover is from the UK version)

From the author of the series The Confessions of Georgia Nicholson, comes a new series about 14-year-old Tallulah who attends a summer performing arts program. (On-sale 6.28.11)

And don’t forget: there’ll be a new GLEE episode this Sunday, February 6th.  GLEEk out!

~Laura

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By Robin S. Rosenberg

I recently saw a preview for the musical Spider-Man: Turn Out the Dark. It’s not really a musical; it’s a spectacle. It succeeds as a spectacle, fails as a musical, and hangs itself as a Spider-Man origin story. It’s easier to find good things to say about the spectacle aspect, so I’ll start by reviewing that aspect of the play.

Spider-Man: The Spectacle

Director/writer Julie Taymor and co-writer Glen Berger wanted to create a spectacle-something that was more than a musical. They succeeded. The sets were a wonder to behold (especially in the first half of the show). Aerialists, dressed as Spider-Man, the Green Goblin, and Arachne, flew about the stage and balcony, allowing viewers to feel a part of the production. In fact, because of the numerous injuries suffered by actors during rehearsals and previews, when the aerialists flew overhead it made me wonder-what if their cables broke and they fell on the audience? (And wouldn’t that be analogous to what New York’s pedestrians would wonder if an actual Spidey and actual Green Goblin were duking it out in the skies above Manhattan, without the cables?)

Even as a spectacle, though, the pacing of it didn’t work for me. Most of the spectacular elements were in the first half of the show, so when the effects and wow elements were fewer (and repeating) in the second half, it was a let down. During the last hour of the play, I kept looking at my watch. If you see the play and leave at intermission, you’ll see the best parts. Grade for spectacle (especially the first half): A.

Spider-Man: The Musical

In a good musical, the songs move the story forward. Unfortunately, the music in this play didn’t do this very effectively. The actors often spoke a “recap” of the gist of the song in order to transition to the next scene or to move the story along. (If you see this play, bring along some tissues or napkins to stuff into your ears: some songs were so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands; I didn’t enjoy those.)

As you may know, the songs were written by Bono and The Edge, and it showed. The songs didn’t have the structure or feel of a “Broadway musical,” which is okay in theory, but not in this execution. Sad to say, none of the songs were memorable – they didn’t have a great “hook” as do many Broadway songs or even U2 songs. Plus the feel of the music didn’t match up with Spider-Man’s character or story. Grade for music: B- (I’m being generous here, taking effort into consideration in my grade)

Spider-Man: The Origin Story

I’ve read (or seen) almost every Spider-Man origin story there is because I’m writing a book on origin stories that includes a chapter on Spider-Man’s origins. I was looking forward to this musical to see how it compared with previous origin stories of the Webbed Wonder. I was disappointed. There isn’t a whole lot of character development here, and there isn’t much more of a plot; what plot there is focuses too much on Mary Jane and not enough on Peter. Even though Peter/Spider-Man is a comic book character, his story is rich in the human drama of shouldering the burden of

Tomorrow night (Jan 15) will see the opening of the Emerald Theater of Chicago's brand new musical production of DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS!   The show will run through April 10 in the windy city.  For a peek backstage at rehearsals, check this out. For those of you outside of Chicagoland, the Kennedy Center's production of KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL is back on tour for

Here's a nice, short article about the touring company of KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY MUSICAL with an interview with Dad. Also, some nice pictures of the new cast: I'll admit it's a bit weird seeing different actors than the ones I work-shopped with in the roles, but I've been hearing fantastic stuff about them from the venues, KC staff, and director, Rosemary Newcott.  I'm looking

After a busy fall on the road reading from Knuffle Bunny Free and Elephant & Piggie's We Are in a Book!, it's back to the old drawing board for me. So this month, instead of any literary public events, I thought, "why not ballet?" So, on December 11 at 1pm in Northampton MA's beautiful Academy of Music theater I will be making a special guest appearance/debut* in the Pioneer Valley Ballet's

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Earlier this week, Jerry Bock (perhaps best known for Fiddler on the Roof) passed away, the day after he was honored with Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild. Below, Philip Lambert remembers the great composer.

By Philip Lambert

After an apprenticeship in early television, and at Camp Tamiment, a summer camp for adults, in the early 1950s, Bock made his Broadway debut with three songs in a revue, Catch a Star! (1955). At that time he wrote mostly with Larry Holofcener, whom he had met at the University of Wisconsin. Bock and Holofcener also teamed with George David Weiss to create a star vehicle for Sammy Davis, Jr., Mr. Wonderful in 1956. But when Bock began working with Sheldon Harnick in 1957 – they were introduced by a mutual friend, Jack Cassidy – his music began truly to blossom and sparkle. Bock and Harnick wrote hundreds of songs of infinite variety in support of disparate stories and characters. Feeding off each other’s formidable talents, the partnership thrived until an array of forces sent them their separate ways in the early 1970s. After that Bock mostly wrote his own lyrics for other new shows, including a very successful series of musicals for young audiences between 2000 and 2007, and music for a feature film (Sidney Lumet’s A Stranger Among Us, 1992). He also worked on personal, private songwriting projects during the last four decades, yielding autobiographical song cycles (Album Leaves, Trading Places) and thematic collections (Noblesse O’ Blues, Three/Four All).

Jerry Bock was the master of what Lehman Engel called the “musical costume.” He could dress up a song in any style, from the nineteenth-century parlor song (for Tenderloin) to the jazz shouter (in The Apple Tree). He would immerse himself in the style and culture of the story he was helping to tell and then transport the audience there with musical references and flavorings. In She Loves Me he took us to Hungary, in The Rothschilds to the power centers of eighteenth-century Europe. In his most successful show, Fiddler on the Roof, he drew from his own background and heritage to evoke a turn-of-the-century Russian shtetl. Of that experience, he said in 2008, “I simply could not stop the brood of melodies and harmonies that waited to be born.”

There was, in other words, no single Jerry Bock “style.” His style was simply an acute sensitivity to the dramatic requirements of the project at hand. He and Harnick would work tirelessly on each of their scores searching for perfect dramatic support, during development, rehearsals, and pre-Broadway tours, usually producing two or three times the number of songs a

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By Philip Lambert

They never had the marquee allure of Rodgers and Hammerstein. They didn’t enjoy the longevity of their contemporaries Kander and Ebb, who wrote songs for shows like Cabaret and Chicago for almost forty-two years. But they are one of Broadway’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful songwriting teams, and on November 1, 2010, composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick will be honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Dramatists Guild, at a ceremony in New York.

It may be difficult for Bock and Harnick to find room for the new statuettes on their mantels, which are already crowded with Tony Awards (for Fiorello! in 1960 and Fiddler on the Roof in 1965), a Pulitzer Prize (Fiorello!), New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards (Fiorello! and Fiddler), and a Grammy (She Loves Me, 1963), among other honors. But the new award has the extra appeal of recognizing all of their work, not only the prize-winners but also their other Broadway shows – The Body Beautiful (1958), Tenderloin (1960), The Apple Tree (1966), and The Rothschilds (1970) – as well as the shows they wrote with other partners before they met in 1956 (such as Bock’s score for Sammy Davis, Jr.’s Broadway debut, Mr. Wonderful, in 1956), and the work they have done since they went their separate ways in 1970 (including Harnick’s lyrical contributions to Richard Rodgers’s penultimate musical, Rex, in 1976). They have taken their rightful places in the Broadway pantheon.

What were the secrets of their success? Indeed, what are the requirements for any successful songwriting team? Personal compatibility is a plus, of course, but not essential, as Gilbert and Sullivan proved. It’s a matter of debate whether George and Ira Gershwin wrote great songs together because of, or in spite of, their familial bond. And then there are the examples of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim, avoiding the issue entirely by writing both music and lyrics. But Bock and Harnick were, and still are, close friends. Their personalities complement each other, from opposite ends of a dispositional spectrum. As Harnick, the self-described pessimist, said in 1971, “Between us, we help bring the other either down to earth, or up to earth.” And it surely helped that each partner was well-schooled in the task of the other. Bock has always had a flair for verse and has served as his own lyricist on many occasions (including a very successful series of musicals for young audiences in 2000–07). Harnick is a classically trained violinist who has written both music and lyrics at various times throughout his career (for instance, the early revue numbers “Boston Beguine” [1952] and “Merry Little Minuet” [1953], and the more recent full-scale musical Dragons [1973–2006], for which he wrote book, music, and lyrics).

Most importantly, and most elusively, Bock and Harnick mastered the art of collaboration, of being productive members of complex creative teams. Working with book writers such as Joseph Stein and Joe Masteroff, and with directors such as Jerome Robbins, Harold Prince, George Abbott, and Mike Nichols, they learned to listen, to adapt, to evolve. They became experts in reading and shaping audience reactions, in knowing where and how music can enhance drama. They learned that a song is only as good as its dramatic context, that their best efforts in the studio might fall short on the stage and need to be replaced by something entirely new. They have estimated that they wrote two or three songs for every one that eventua

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By Keith Gandal

Want a quick, but apparently reliable measure of how elitist you are?  Go see the 7-hour production of Gatz, in which all 47,000 words of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are, in the course of the play, enunciated on stage.  (If you dare and can afford to.)  If you love every minute of it and find time flying by, you’re probably, well, an arts snob; if you find your reaction mixed, your mind drifting in and out, and your body just plain giving out, well, you’re likely more of a populist.

Consider the following small, statistically meaningless, but provocative sample of reviews you instantly encounter on the web: the New York Times, Bloomberg, and Theatremania all give the play rave reviews, while the New York Post and the New York Daily News both give it 2½ stars (out of 4 and 5 respectively).  Ben Brantley of the New York Times describes the play as “work of singular imagination and intelligence.” Jeremy Gerard of Bloomberg calls it “remarkable,” “as powerful a piece of stagecraft as you may ever see.”  David Finkle of Theatremania finds the play “mesmerizing” and declares, “the lengthy production goes by in what seems like a blink of an eye.”  Meanwhile, Elisabeth Vincentelli of the New York Post gives it a mixed review, asserting that the director “has come up with an inspired concept” and that Gatz is “great, but [it] also grates.” “There are the deadly boring stretches. Very long ones.”  She concludes: “It’s as maddeningly tedious as it is brilliant. By the end, my mind was as numb as my butt.”  And Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News recommends the play, but also calls it a “fanny-numbing readathon.”

In other words, this small sample of reviews breaks down across class lines.  Higher-brow papers or websites are raving, and the lower-brow papers have mixed feelings, including uncomfortable feelings in their behinds.

But is this breakdown really surprising?  A 7-hour production at a cost of $140 seems to demand of its audience members that they have a lot of time and money to spare.  This is at the Public by the way, which was presumably once more public than it is now.  In fact, one thing the play Gatz does quite effectively is to restore Fitzgerald’s now very accessible novel to the inaccessibility, along class lines, that it would have had back in the 1920s.

I want to make clear that I haven’t seen the play and, thus, that my perceptions of its length, its cost, and its reviews are not colored by my having sat through it.  I’m actually quite curious to see it – I’m teaching the novel this term at City College, and I’ve written a recent book that devotes the longest chapter to Fitzgerald’s novel.  Well-meaning colleagues and friends have even suggested I take my class to see the play, given that some reviewers are calling it a major theatrical event, but with regular tickets starting at $140, who c

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This time around, Lauren and Michelle deal with drama! They talk with the Toy Box Theatre Company, learn about politics in musical theater, and go behind-the-scenes on the set of Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson. ALSO: You have a chance to win* free tickets to Woyzeck or a copy of Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck by Georg Büchner!

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

*To enter to win free tickets or a copy of Georg Büchner’s theatrical works, send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Toy Box” by 5pm ET on October 26. Two tickets will be awarded at random to the October 31, 3pm showing of Woyzeck (at the Choicirciati Cultural Center in New York City). Admission includes a champagne toast and talkback with the cast and crew. A second lucky entrant will win a copy of the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck.

Featured in this Podcast:

TOY BOX THEATRE COMPANY

(About this Production of Woyzeck)

Thanks to Jonathan Barsness, Ryan Colwell, David Michael Holmes, Sarah Hankins, Elisabeth Motley, James Sparber, and Colonna Sonora

Norm Hirschy, Associate Editor for Theater & Music

James Lovensheimer

Assistant Professor in Music, History and Literature at Vanterbilt University

Author of South Pacific, Paradise Rewritten

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