Like Baz Luhrmann’s groundbreaking 2001 romantic-tragedy movie before it, Moulin Rouge! The Musical is a poptastic spectacle with a grab bag of famous pop songs. For the stage production, music supervisor, arranger, and orchestrator Justin Levine expanded its sonic landscape, using more than 70 pop songs (credited to 161 writers) …
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“You know, I never thought I’d be doing this,” composer David Yazbek admits. “The fact that I’ve been translating cinematic works to the stage has just been a coincidence. … I’m still surprised. I used to feel like an outsider, like a recording artist who has a day job, but …
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To describe Anthem: Homunculus as a “podcast musical” really doesn’t begin to do it justice. In reality, it’s an unclassifiable omnibus of theater, music and strange narratives written by John Cameron Mitchell and Bryan Weller that translates to over six hours of storytelling packaged in 10 episodes, with 31 songs …
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“Welcome to a show about death!” the ebullient chorus of “mourners” sings. Then Beetlejuice — as interpreted for the stage by actor Alex Brightman, as a shameless, gravelly voiced vaudevillian huckster — reiterates in his own gleefully glib way: “That’s the thing with life, no one makes it out alive!” …
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