As I was looking through the songs in Sweeney Todd before auditions this week I found a song called Senior Pirelii's Miracle Elixir. This song is funny and ridiculous but I realized that I had heard of other songs like that one.
This stuff is probably, as Sweeney describes it, piss, but it is supposed to grow your hair back. We have products like that in stores but what ever happened to the random people on the street selling you products that were "completely safe and effective"?
These others deal with love and less about actual health related matters.
Love Potion number Nine. the perfect love drink and the original. This song is the way I picture a gypsy making a love potion, mixing it in a sink and selling on the streets. But I don't no that aphrodisiacs work for real.
this is basically the modern version of Love Potion Number Nine. It is used at a bar by a rap singer and it is a drug more than likely. This is just another example of this type of song.
So why a theme about potions and elixers? I think it is because we write songs about what we are thinking about and, in the case of those, they wanted what the potion would have given them.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Dark Side of the Theatre
In my theatre department, we have a streak of dark musical and plays being performed. I don't really don't understand why we have to do these dark shows but it is interesting. I have enjoyed performing in them even though they are a little depressing and evil. It is not that there haven't been happy shows in the middle of the dark ones but they are just fewer than the dark ones.
It all began sophomore year when I became the mutated plant from outer space, Audrey II. Yes. We did Little Shop of Horrors. It was a great show but it was extremely dark. The story is that in a small big city flower shop a dorky orphan buy finds an alien plant. he names it after his love interest, Audrey, and it starts to give the shop business. But he soon discovers that it eats humans and it will die if he doesn't feed it. He spends the rest of the show finding it food until it end up eating him and taking over the world. Great ending right?
The next show was Arsenic and Old Lace. It is the Story of the Brewster family. The sisters and aunts of the other characters are crazy and believe that they are doing old men a favor if they murder them and bury them in the basement of their house. Teddy, one of the boys, lives with his aunts and believes that he is Teddy Roosevelt. Mortimer is an up tight man who is trying to have a life of his own with his girlfriend but is to busy trying to help his crazy family to do that. and the final brother is Jonathan. He is a mass murderer and is coming home to hide. You can imagine the events that would follow with all of those characters in one house.
The next show that we are auditioning for this week is the bloodiest and must gruesome of them all, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It tells the story of Benjamin Barker who was a London barber until the judge steals his wife and child and exiles him for no reason. He returns and tries to get the judge to come to his shop so he can kill him but he won't. He goes crazy with his frustration and decides with the shop keeper below him that he would be doing the world a favor to kill those who are too pitiful. He kills people and makes them into meat pies and that is where the rest of the story starts.
So what will happen next? Well no one really knows. At this rate we will probably do more dark shows before we start doing happy ones. Maybe we will get back to shows like Cinderella which we did my freshman year. Shows that my little siblings will actually be able to see. But only time will tell.
It all began sophomore year when I became the mutated plant from outer space, Audrey II. Yes. We did Little Shop of Horrors. It was a great show but it was extremely dark. The story is that in a small big city flower shop a dorky orphan buy finds an alien plant. he names it after his love interest, Audrey, and it starts to give the shop business. But he soon discovers that it eats humans and it will die if he doesn't feed it. He spends the rest of the show finding it food until it end up eating him and taking over the world. Great ending right?
The next show was Arsenic and Old Lace. It is the Story of the Brewster family. The sisters and aunts of the other characters are crazy and believe that they are doing old men a favor if they murder them and bury them in the basement of their house. Teddy, one of the boys, lives with his aunts and believes that he is Teddy Roosevelt. Mortimer is an up tight man who is trying to have a life of his own with his girlfriend but is to busy trying to help his crazy family to do that. and the final brother is Jonathan. He is a mass murderer and is coming home to hide. You can imagine the events that would follow with all of those characters in one house.
The next show that we are auditioning for this week is the bloodiest and must gruesome of them all, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It tells the story of Benjamin Barker who was a London barber until the judge steals his wife and child and exiles him for no reason. He returns and tries to get the judge to come to his shop so he can kill him but he won't. He goes crazy with his frustration and decides with the shop keeper below him that he would be doing the world a favor to kill those who are too pitiful. He kills people and makes them into meat pies and that is where the rest of the story starts.
So what will happen next? Well no one really knows. At this rate we will probably do more dark shows before we start doing happy ones. Maybe we will get back to shows like Cinderella which we did my freshman year. Shows that my little siblings will actually be able to see. But only time will tell.
Girls to Sing About
I am going to audition for Sweeney Todd and I was studying the music to figure out what I think the audition piece will be. I thought about what they would want for a guy and I think I found it. Johanna is the best guys solo in the show, in my opinion. It shows off the high rang that most of the guys would need and it would be a great test of the emotion the actor can use.
But looking at that song made me wonder, Why do guys seem to sing about there dream girls? If you look at other musicals, it is easy to find song titled Maria in West Side Story. That is, as you might have guessed, a song about Toni's love interest, Maria. The song has the name Maria in it thirteen times and it only has about forty words total! That guy was dedicated to the girl he just met.
And it isn't just musicals. I looked at some of my favorite songs on my iPod and found similar results. I would be surprised if you hadn't heard the song Jesse's Girl. It is the song about this guy who wants his friends girl friend. That has to be great for there friendship. But it is about a girl he dreams of so it belongs here.
This isn't only an old idea. No, no. Just a few years ago, the Plain White Tees brought out a song called Hey There Delilah. It's about this guy who is far from his girl and is missing her so he tries to tell her that everything will be alright someday. The title is enough to qualify this song for this post but, if not, the story does.
So why do guys have to make songs about there girls or crushes? I think that is up to you to decide but the obvious fact is they do in all areas of music and every decade. So who will the girls to sing about be in this new decade?
But looking at that song made me wonder, Why do guys seem to sing about there dream girls? If you look at other musicals, it is easy to find song titled Maria in West Side Story. That is, as you might have guessed, a song about Toni's love interest, Maria. The song has the name Maria in it thirteen times and it only has about forty words total! That guy was dedicated to the girl he just met.
And it isn't just musicals. I looked at some of my favorite songs on my iPod and found similar results. I would be surprised if you hadn't heard the song Jesse's Girl. It is the song about this guy who wants his friends girl friend. That has to be great for there friendship. But it is about a girl he dreams of so it belongs here.
This isn't only an old idea. No, no. Just a few years ago, the Plain White Tees brought out a song called Hey There Delilah. It's about this guy who is far from his girl and is missing her so he tries to tell her that everything will be alright someday. The title is enough to qualify this song for this post but, if not, the story does.
So why do guys have to make songs about there girls or crushes? I think that is up to you to decide but the obvious fact is they do in all areas of music and every decade. So who will the girls to sing about be in this new decade?
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