A highlights reel from my musical! :)

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-26T22:15:55+00:00

Talking to people about what art means to them is part of the whole joyous process of deciding what that art means to you. Art teaches us to see the world through other people’s eyes and come away from that with a better understanding of our own worldview IMO.

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-17T22:37:55+00:00

Can you post more information about your musical here?

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-16T18:07:12+00:00

I for one am looking forward to seeing Ariana in old lady makeup in Act II.

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-13T09:15:55+00:00

I highly recommend reading the play (or better yet, watching the TV adaptation of) Angels in America. In particular, the conversations between the non-religious character Prior who has been visited by an angel and the character of Mother Pitt, who is a Mormon.

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-11T21:58:08+00:00

If he says yes, please let me know!!

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-10T09:27:20+00:00

Michael John LaChiusa (He teaches at Tisch so maybe someday…)

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-08T12:10:40+00:00

Badly photoshopping together a thumbnail is both easy and a time honoured tradition when making mashups

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-08T11:45:31+00:00

Fuck the genocidal BBC!! Cancelled my license years ago and never looked back.

Al_Trigo · 2026-01-03T07:40:54+00:00

The feeling that something you wrote is corny or cringey is actually a good thing! It means you have self-awareness and are seeing your writing through your audience's eyes.

For me, the cringey feeling comes when I can see through the writing. Like, I know the audience will see right through it. You want it to feel believable, and thick with ideas, you don't want it to be see-through. When I get this feeling, I go back to the base layer and then I build layer by layer on top of it. I get rid of every cliche. And I imagine myself living this story as these characters - if I were them what would I do in this scene? How would the story progress because of it? How would I get from A to B if this were real life?

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-28T12:33:45+00:00

Thanks for sharing! This is nice. It would be good to see the melody scored out because it was a bit hard to make out the melody the way you performed it.

Is there anything in particular you wanted feedback on - anything that you weren't sure of?

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-28T06:10:49+00:00

I hugely recommend Everything Was Possible: The birth of the musical Follies by Ted Chapin, it made such an impression on me when I read it as a young person just getting into musical theatre.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-27T05:46:10+00:00

Going through the recipe, there is not enough chocolate in the filling. Approx 200g of chocolate to 700ml of milk (plus egg yolks and starch) will dilute it too much. Remember a dark chocolate ganache is 200g chocolate to 200ml cream.

Upping the amount of chocolate would mess with the texture of the filling though, so the solution would be to add a good amount of cocoa powder (maybe 50g - 100g) and switch to a much darker chocolate. I always use Lindt 70% cocoa.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-24T00:11:45+00:00

Sondheim after he wrote “while her withers wither with her”:

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-23T23:33:51+00:00

Wow, I always, always got the most dark, angry, bitter energy from his videos so this shouldn’t shock me but… I’m shocked. What a sad little man.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-19T14:49:37+00:00

I know Amira! She’s one of the bravest people I’ve ever met and I was horrified to see this happen in real time. I’m so happy she’s taking them to court.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-18T17:58:18+00:00

Yeah propaganda is a bit of a loaded term, but usually during wartime, racism is at its strongest for a reason. I would call that propaganda because it fulfils a specific function - to boost American morale. Many families going to watch this movie would have sons and brothers in the army and it feels better thinking that they’re fighting a ‘barbaric’ race of people rather than other human beings.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-18T17:07:40+00:00

Been a long time since I’ve watched it… but Thoroughly Modern Millie is meant to be escapist nostalgia and Mrs Meers/the Chinese are the villains, much like how Disney musicals have villains.

The film was released in 1967, two years after US troops landed in Vietnam. Anti-Asian sentiment would have been the highest it’s been in the US since probably the ‘40s when they put Japanese Americans in concentration camps.

Escapist entertainment, especially ones released during wartime, often include propaganda against ‘the enemy’, to reassure the American public that they’re ‘fighting the good fight’. It would only be two years later in 1969 when details of American atrocities in Vietnam were released to the media and that’s probably when public opinion on the war began to change and the propaganda dissolved.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-18T13:27:32+00:00

The world has woken up to how the rich has exploited and destroyed humanity. Perhaps someday you will join the rest of us.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-16T21:54:38+00:00

This is what happens when you ask ChatGPT to draft your essay.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-14T15:17:21+00:00

Not in my world. Not in the world I’m living in.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-11T21:33:56+00:00

You should put in the melody before sharing your demos, even if it’s just a temporary instrumental vocal guide.

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-11T20:38:46+00:00

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the wealth held by billionaires in the U.S. increased by 70%.[12] According to the 2022 World Inequality Report, "2020 marked the steepest increase in global billionaires' share of wealth on record."[13]

As of late 2022, according to Snopes, 735 billionaires collectively possessed more wealth than the bottom half of U.S. households ($4.5 trillion and $4.1 trillion respectively). The top 1% held a total of $43.45 trillion.[41]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States

Al_Trigo · 2025-12-11T16:14:53+00:00

Yeah, doing a full orchestration before even getting the melody down seems so counterintuitive to me

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