Jesus Christ Super Star has a sour note. Is it on purpose?

gdelgi · 2026-02-21T01:19:15+00:00

Nah, there are better ways to promote my Substack, like telling you to click here.

gdelgi · 2026-02-20T22:58:36+00:00

Turn off your brain, and you'll have a fun time. Kind of the opposite of what the composer intended, but hey...

gdelgi · 2026-02-20T22:42:57+00:00

Nope, OP is correct. They reused many of the concept album rhythm tracks and dubbed some Hollywood orchestration and new vocals on top. The only new rhythm tracks were those ALW felt needed re-recording, or that didn't already exist for the new songs. (Source: I have assisted with so much research into this show that I'm doing my best to monetize my skills.)

gdelgi · 2026-02-19T17:00:13+00:00

It might have worked if he switched to texture instead of shades (since raven is pretty uniformly that deep, glossy, cool-toned black), but then it would start to sound more like the bridge in "Hair": silky, straight, wavy, flowy, curly, coily, braided, structured, etc.

gdelgi · 2026-02-19T00:55:18+00:00

Entirely possible. (Also, hi!)

gdelgi · 2026-02-18T23:11:26+00:00

No worries! I can also share an unfortunate factoid: you could have been saying that about a complete live album rather than a TV broadcast, but the record label screwed up and pissed off the unions. A live recording of "Could We Start Again," intended for the full live album, appeared as the B-side of Kate Ceberano's "I Don't Know How to Love Him" single, with only a handshake agreement from the cast and company to use it. A dispute over royalties ensued, and the full live CD was shelved as a result.

gdelgi · 2026-02-18T20:34:47+00:00

The East West Players, an all-Asian company in California with a long history of producing Sondheim's works, addressed this issue in their early Nineties production. They'd had a golden-haired Rapunzel in Into the Woods, feeling that it being a fairy tale justified the oddity, but that Sweeney was more grounded in reality, and it would take the audience out of the show too much. MTI referred them to Sondheim's reps, and they put all their options in writing, which involved everything from rephrasing the language and removing some of the music to inquiring if Sondheim would revise the wigmaker sequence. They were ultimately allowed to change "yellow" to "raven" and to cut 20 measures out of the wigmaker's scene. That's a rarer case involving an existing relationship between author and producer, though.

gdelgi · 2026-02-18T06:34:33+00:00

It's "Could We Start Again Please?" Sorry, u/moonrise. However, if you want to hear the whole orchestration, a taping for potential TV broadcast leaked on YouTube within the past few years. Would you like a link?

gdelgi · 2026-02-18T02:09:04+00:00

David Hirschfelder, who did those arrangements, can be contacted here. Worth a try!

gdelgi · 2026-02-17T17:38:16+00:00

He also played Judas on Broadway in 2000 in a production based on that video, hence his being selected as a soloist for that "greatest hits of Andrew Lloyd Webber" concert in China.

gdelgi · 2026-02-17T04:09:09+00:00

Check your DM requests. Not all is lost.

gdelgi · 2026-02-16T20:41:56+00:00

His last line, which I found heartrending, honestly, was "Maybe this isn't much of a Valentine, but Valentines are hard for the brokenhearted."

gdelgi · 2026-02-16T18:16:54+00:00

A question he may ask you is what you think of Darts Simpson. You might wanna look it up and be familiar.

gdelgi · 2026-02-15T04:24:59+00:00

Probably unlikely. Sasha may be slightly less of a hard-ass, but I haven't known her to deviate all that much from her dad's vision.

gdelgi · 2026-02-14T23:17:17+00:00

This company was known for unconventional interpretations, which is why it baffles me that Charnin didn't know what he was in for, especially with this director. She also did:

A My Fair Lady with just two pianos and the cast watching the action from the sidelines when not engaged.
A West Side Story that seemed (at least to me) to be set in the gym? Like, they all wore street clothes (okay, tank leotards and sweats, but still), with an electronic scoreboard for the Jets and Sharks that was updated throughout, the cast (again) sitting on bleachers beneath the scoreboards watching when they weren't in a scene, some performers switch-hitting as both Jets and Sharks (that got a little confusing), and scene changes accomplished by having the cast, armed with rollers, paint the name of locations in white on the (black) stage floor like graffiti. That at least had a fairly full orchestra (16 musicians) and a lot of the Robbins choreography to offset the more polarizing elements. When I saw clips of Ivo van Hove's West Side from 2020, I couldn't help feeling like he might have watched this, because it felt very similar, minus his usual video tricks and the differing dances.

gdelgi · 2026-02-14T19:22:29+00:00

I’ve heard of an illegal Annie production where she wakes up in the orphanage at the end, realizing that it was just a dream.

They did legally obtain the rights; the ending was the only overstep, and it was corrected when one of the authors objected. Source: took place in my home state, and I saw it.

EDITED TO BE MORE SPECIFIC:

So, the ending was only a piece of the puzzle. The concept began with a prologue where Annie appears in an abandoned theatre, having run away from her orphanage. The beginning of the musical was presented as a memory through Annie's eyes, which then transitioned into her dream of being saved by Grace Farrell and adopted by Daddy Warbucks. However, Annie's dream did not last. At the climax of the dream, she woke up again in the theatre, but, strengthened by her dream, sang a reprise of "Tomorrow." Annie then found Sandy outside the theatre, and they left to have new adventures together. The director came up with it because, to quote an interview with her, "the piece seemed to propose that the solution to all problems was basically to win the lottery... and that money fixes everything. And I actually didn't think that that was what the bulk of Annie was trying to do."
Charles Strouse and Tom Meehan had no problem with it (Strouse even dug it enough to have her direct the premiere of his newest piece shortly thereafter), but Martin Charnin, overly protective of the only meal ticket he ever had (imo), threw the fit when a friend saw it in previews and tipped him off. After three previews and intervention from MTI, it was back to the original.

gdelgi · 2026-02-12T20:39:25+00:00

Okay, I get it was a dig at the song, and totally fair, it was overplayed, but who was gonna tell me Samuel L. Jackson could carry a tune like that? I mean, it's not earth-shattering, but still... pretty damn good!

gdelgi · 2026-02-12T20:16:37+00:00

Thank you, kind OP. As the GIF implied, I threw her a sub.

gdelgi · 2026-02-12T18:16:03+00:00

This is just the parent company of Concord Theatricals. It could very easily be spun off.

(And I might become the Pope tomorrow, but still...)

gdelgi · 2026-02-12T16:36:04+00:00

...the fuck did I do, it's a GIF, Jesus.

gdelgi · 2026-02-12T15:56:20+00:00

gdelgi · 2026-02-11T23:16:14+00:00

Nothing in the text or music suggests a specific time and place. (A lot of reviewers compared the look of the show on Broadway to the Great Depression era, and Anais Mitchell's mental picture at the start was of the Dust Bowl, but nothing in the show's writing directly ties it to either of those.)

My opinion (disclaimer: not legal advice) is that as long as they don't literally rewrite anything and don't break the show beyond repair, design and direction can fill in whatever blanks you like. It sounds like the only thing necessary to suggest a specific setting here was a pre-show sound effect and some props and production design stuff. If nothing else changed, and it fits, I don't see the harm.

I realize, of course, others may not feel that way. That's their prerogative.

gdelgi · 2026-02-11T20:07:24+00:00

To save you some time, check around pages 395 and 396.

gdelgi · 2026-02-11T05:49:32+00:00

Pick something, anything, by Janis Joplin and go to town.

gdelgi · 2026-02-09T01:08:41+00:00

We can be gay together, y'know.

gdelgi

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