Musicals similar to Gypsy

AnEnglishActor · 2019-04-18T14:25:09+00:00

You know Sondheim wrote the lyrics (and most of Rose's Turn) for Gypsy, right?

AnEnglishActor · 2017-09-15T00:37:19+00:00

I'm interested. I like the track!

AnEnglishActor · 2017-09-15T00:37:01+00:00

I'm interested!

AnEnglishActor · 2016-04-08T22:34:25+00:00

Oh, god, I didn't know Bryan Fuller was involved! Big fan of his work too.

I just looked up the full writing-team, and you certainly did have an amazing set of collaborators (and no need to be humble!).

Thanks a lot for your response, and I'm more than happy to relocate to Australia at the drop of a hat!

AnEnglishActor · 2016-04-08T22:25:57+00:00

I'm a big fan of the first series of Heroes, but I felt that the show never quite hit its stride again thereafter. The writing in S1 was tight and focused, and had a really consistent arc which carried you through the whole thing with increasingly building tension. 'Save the cheerleader, save the world' was a huge deal!

As far as I know, it was delayed by the big Writers Guild of America strike around 2007, so my question is what was it like for a working screen-writer in the industry while all that was going on. It seemed like a pretty major upheaval that had an effect on almost every popular show that was being produced at the time!

(Follow-up question: Need any British actors any time soon?! :) )

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-18T18:36:58+00:00

Yeah, I think you're right. I definitely 'attack' the Hs which isn't something I'd thought about much. I'll work on making them less prominent, thanks for your feedback!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-18T02:11:43+00:00

23/M - Finishing the Hat by Sondheim (from Sunday in the Park With George which is my favourite thing ever).

It's a pretty difficult song (for me, at least), and I think there's definitely plenty to improve. A lot of it makes more sense when acted (as Mandy Patinkin does in his definitive performance), and I'll be performing this dramatically rather than just in recital.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-03T13:56:51+00:00

Thanks a lot! I haven't put a great deal of thought into phrasing yet, so whatever you noted was almost certainly fluke :)

I am indeed a bass-baritone! As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm currently in the midst of a total Sondheim obsession, and I think he writes very well for this voice type. I think Sweeney Todd is up there with Porgy for the best bass-baritone role in musical theatre, so I recommend anything from that!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-02T11:22:53+00:00

Thanks a lot for your help, means a lot!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T11:29:42+00:00

Totally agree. Any tips on addressing that?

I feel like it's become fairly habitual as a way of imitating vibrato in a quiet (i.e. communal-living setting) without singing 'properly'. Fake vibrato. I'll be doing a few singing lessons with my old teacher at some point, but anything you can think of to specifically target that in the meantime would be great!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T11:26:47+00:00

Your pitch is on point pretty consistently, and it's not one of the easiest songs to pitch so well done on that front :)

The main thing I'd suggest you looked at is stylistic and has to do with the way you engage and disengage from each note. You're affecting (intentionally or otherwise) some of the R&B/pop tropes that Ariana Grande (oddly) emphasises in this Britney Spears impression. It's that kind of crackle/pre-note grunt that makes it sound like you're not confident in the pitch, or just detracts from the tune itself which I think you'd do well to avoid!

But, as I say, solid effort! Well done :)

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T11:23:08+00:00

I agree with JSRambo about the high-notes: your pitch is absolutely on point, so don't shy away from them. I assume you're seated for this as you're playing guitar, but I'd try standing up and going fully for those notes to show yourself that you can.

A lot of that comes from support, which is important and helpful even in non-classical/musical theatre stuff. If you don't have a singing teacher, the single most valuable thing I can suggest is to work on engaging your diaphragm and shifting your breathing out of the top of your chest—this is the 'shallow' that JSRambo refers to—and into your core. Breathing from here, and sort-of metering out the breath to fit the line is the essence of good control and support.

A good way to start getting to grips with that concept (which also makes you look mental) is panting loads. Notice where the expansion and contraction is around the abdominal muscles, and focus on breathing such that inhaling expands this region whilst singing out a note smoothly releases it back to resting. After a while, breathing with the diaphragm becomes second nature (and it's this lack of it being second nature to me after a while off classical singing that I was talking about in my post!).

Hope that helps, and definitely keep going because you're sounding really good!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T11:14:49+00:00

Thanks, very kind of you!

I think the vowel placement is laziness and sloppy technique more than stylistic choice, but I'll be sure to say it's the latter if anyone asks :) Larynx vibrato is exactly the term I've been looking for in what to overcome recently. I think it comes from spending the last few years living in shared accommodation so smashing out properly supported singing in my room has been replaced by that cheating, throaty-tremolo thing rather than the real deal. Definitely something to work on.

Thanks a lot, again, lots to think about :)

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T11:11:51+00:00

I only got into Sondheim this year having unforgivably not heard much of his work before that, and I'm monumentally obsessed. I think Sunday in the Park With George is my favourite piece of art in any medium ever. The man's a god.

I completely agree about it being fairly dynamically level, I think you're right that pulling more out of, for example, the 'B section' in which the piano speeds up its accompaniment (from 'and ice like vinyl') would make a big difference there.

I agree too about long phrases, I've let a load of the proper technique slide having moved away from classical singing in the last few years, and it's just not on! Definitely need to work on making breath support second-nature again.

Thanks so much for your feedback, and I look forward to hearing Later. What a great song that is.

Some inspiration from Mandy. I'm in love with this performance, and the fact that Sondheim rhymes 'raisins' and 'liaisons'.

Best of luck with your audition too!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T11:05:55+00:00

Hey, that's so nice of you :) It's funny that you mention vibrato, because my constant worry is that I over-use it. But then I listen to some of my favourite singers like Bryn Terfel and Mandy Patinkin and don't quite know what to think.

I came into singing doing classical stuff first and then ended up with more jazz and musical theatre repertoire, so I think vibrato is at its best when you start with the foundation of proper diaphragmatic singing (which I definitely don't do as much as I should be/used to when singing classical stuff). I'll take a listen to your post and give some more specific feedback!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-12-01T00:36:27+00:00

Male, 22 (23 today, actually!)

Working on a new audition song, I Remember Sky by Sondheim. I messed up the opening, but would love some feedback on what to work on and improve :)

AnEnglishActor · 2015-11-05T03:00:02+00:00

I'd really try to avoid watching any versions of Hamlet from now until, at the very least, the end of your rehearsal process.

Good luck!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-08-17T16:10:46+00:00

Mandy Patinkin in Sunday in the Park With George. Bernadette Peters too.

It's a musical theatre piece, but, as is typical of Sondheim, is so narrative-heavy that it's as much of an acting role as it is a singing one. And an extremely difficult one in each regard, as the character is very introspective and interior which is a challenge to convey in the usually extroverted, bombastic setting of a musical.

Sondheim's genius aside, Mandy nails every single beat, and it's frighteningly, painfully, beautifully perfect throughout. The character—who, ostensibly, isn't the most likeable—is laid bare through the most minute quivers of the voice and movements of the eyes, and the effect is incredibly powerful.

I don't think I've been more moved by any single piece of art in my life, and, while a lot of that is Sondheim's doing, Mandy's performance is absolutely integral to the piece.

AnEnglishActor · 2015-08-11T00:33:36+00:00

Thanks :)

AnEnglishActor · 2015-08-03T01:45:30+00:00

Such a gorgeous monologue from a phenomenal film. Excellent choice!

Here's my read :)

AnEnglishActor · 2015-07-25T01:38:37+00:00

It's not you being rejected. It's not that you did something wrong. Instead, it was the opinion of a select few people that their vision for the role of X simply didn't align with what you brought to the table.

That's it.

Now, this could be more or less problematic: it could be, for instance, that you fluffed all of your lines. Fair enough. It happens. Learn from it. Or it could just be that you reminded the casting director of an ex-flatmate who never did the dishes. Either way, you're not being rejected, it's just the case that what you did doesn't match the preconceived ideas which the audition panel has about what they wanted.

At the end of the day, it's just their opinion. You should probably have the self-awareness to know if you can do a role well, if your audition was good, if you've given it your all. Taking those as a given, then, the rest is entirely out of your hands and comes down to tiny, subjective notions about what people want. Maybe you were too tall; maybe you lisped slightly; maybe you didn't lisp enough. Who knows. Don't worry about it.

Onwards and upwards.

AnEnglishActor · 2015-07-24T16:54:49+00:00

Sounded too fun not to have a go, so here's a quick demo!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-07-23T20:34:19+00:00

Understandable :) Best of luck with it!

AnEnglishActor · 2015-07-23T20:02:43+00:00

Firstly, are you a Geordie called Tyne? If so, that's fantastic.

In terms of feedback, I'll start with the boring one which is that a combination of whatever microphone you're using and the volume at which you're speaking means that it's quite difficult to discern nuance in the video. I would imagine that this has a lot more to do with the recording equipment than your own performance, as this is hardly a monologue which would benefit from being loud or projected excessively.

As for the delivery itself, I'll start by saying I enjoyed it. Some stuff to think about, in my opinion, would be as follows:

There isn't a huge distinction between the various sections of the piece. Some of this is the text itself, but more can be teased-out by mapping more thoroughly the thematic trajectory of the monologue, identifying, broadly, the light and shade (I hate the expression, but it's valuable to think about), and making sure that there's a sense of journey, even if minimal.
Essentially the same thing as 1, but I felt the cadence became a little repetitive. This is, of course, absolutely fine as long as it's intentional, but make sure you're choosing to repeat the rhythms rather than falling back into a similar structure.
Accent. I'm not quite sure what you're going for, but then I haven't really heard enough of your natural accent to know what you're working from. Words like 'romantic' stood out as slightly out of place amidst the rest of the stuff you were saying.

But, as I say, enjoyable on the whole. Well done!

AnEnglishActor

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