Transcript The Rock Musical

ROCK MUSICALS
-Hair
-Grease
-Rent
-Spring
Awakening
-Once
CHRONOLOGY – YOUR OWN THING 1968
Your Own Thing (1968 - 933
perfs) took the gender-switching
plot of Shakespeare's Twelfth
Night and reworked it around the
management of a rock band
called "The Apocalypse." Your
Own Thing ran for three years,
then toured. New York's first rock
musical hit.
HAIR (1968)
Hair (1968 - 1,742 perfs) had only a shadow of a
plot, involving a young rock man who revels in rock
and rebellion until he is drafted into the army. He
falls in with a tribe-like group of hippies who sing
about such pointed social issues as poverty, race
relations, the Vietnam war and more. After brief
runs off-Broadway (first at Joseph Papp's Public
Theatre and then a dance club) composer Galt
MacDermot and librettists Gerome Ragni and
James Rado revised their "happening" before
moving to Broadway where it packed the Biltmore
Theatre for almost five years.
Clip 1 – 1977 revival TV commercial
Clip 2 – 2009 revival TV commercial
HAIR REVIVALS
#1 Apr 29, 1968 - Jul 01 , 1972 Musical, Original
Biltmore Theatre, New York, NY
#2 Oct 05, 1977 - Nov 06, 1977 Musical, Revival
Biltmore Theatre, New York, NY
#3 Sep 20, 2004 - Sep 20, 2004 Special, Revival
New Amsterdam Theatre, New York, NY
#4 Mar 31 , 2009 - Jun 27, 2010 Musical, Revival
Al Hirschfeld Theatre, New York, NY
#5 Jul 13, 2011 - Sep 10, 2011 Musical, Revival
St. James Theatre, New York, NY
THE FILM
Released in 1979
Directed by Milos Forman
Choreography by Twyla Tharp
Starring Treat Williams (Berger)
John Savage (Claude)
Beverly D’Angelo (Sheila)
Annie Golden (Jeannie)
Dorsey Wright (Hud)
Don Dacus (Woof)
Clip One – White Boys, Black Boys
Clip Two – Finale (Let the Sunshine In)
OTHER ROCK MUSICALS OF NOTE
 The Me Nobody Knows (1970 - 794 perfs) was a revue-like
collage of songs based on poems by inner city children .
 Jesus Christ Superstar (1971 - 720 perfs)
 Godspell (1971 - 2,651 perfs)
 Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971 - 627 perfs)
 Grease (1972 - 3,388 perfs)
 The Wiz (1975 - 1 ,672 perfs)
 Dude (1972 - 16 perfs)
 Via Galactica (1972 - 8 perfs)
 The Lieutenant (1975 - 9 perfs)
 Rockabye Hamlet (1976 - 7 perfs)
GREASE
#1
Feb 14, 1972 - Apr 13, 1980
Musical, Original Broadhurst
Theatre, New York, NY
Eden Theatre, New York, NY
Majestic Theatre, New York, NY
Royale Theatre, New York, NY
#2
May 11, 1994 - Jan 25, 1998
Musical, Revival Eugene O'Neill
Theatre, New York, NY
#3
Aug 19, 2007 - Jan 04, 2009
Musical, Revival Brooks
Atkinson Theatre, New York, NY
RECENT REVIVALS
Rosie O’Donnell and Brooke Shields
Cast on a TV reality show
THE FILM (1978) TRAILER
 Directed by Randal Kleiser
 Starring
John Travolta
Olivia Newton-John
Stockard Channing
Jef f Conaway
Didi Conn
 Favorite Musical Motion Picture
1979 People’s Choice Award
Sequel GREASE 2 made in 1982 starring
Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield
PIPPIN – 1972 (1944 PERF)
2013 Revival
A COUPLE OF BRITISH ODDITIES
 The Who’s TOMMY
Willy Russell’s
BLOOD BROTHERS
THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW
1975
2000
RENT (1996 - 5,123 PERFS)
By the late 1990’s, almost every show that made it to Broadway was a corporate
product. With the average musical budget running over $8,000,000, it took a lot of
people to finance a show, and they all wanted some say in the production. This left
no room for amateurs or rebels. Even the much ballyhooed Rent was nurtured for a
year by a company that booked and produced national tours. Rent's producers had
vision and took a genuine risk, but it was a calculated risk informed by years of
business experience. They guided composer-lyricist Jonathan Larson through
extensive rewriting in the months before the show opened at The New York Theatre
Workshop, and would have encouraged further revisions had Larson lived. As it was,
the composer's death on the night of the Off-Broadway dress rehearsal made Rent
a cultural cause celebre. As the show moved to Broadway on a wave of sympathetic
publicity, no opportunity was wasted.
RENT REVIVAL
SELECTIONS FROM RENT
 Rent press reel
 At the 1996 Tony Awards
 RENT on Today (2005)
 At the 2008 Tony Awards
 RENT 2005 film trailer
 Final performance of original Broadway run Seasons of Love
ROCK STILL LIVES ON BROADWAY
Rock shows recently closed, announced or running
include:
 Beautiful, The Carole King Musical (running)
 Memphis (on tour)
 Motown (on tour, returns to Broadway in 2016)
 Rocky (closed in 2014)
 Hamilton (Opening soon)
 School of Rock (Opening soon)
SPRING AWAKENING
VIDEO CLIPS OF SPRING AWAKENING
 A brief documentary on the making of Spring Awakening
 The Bitch of Living
 Mama Who Bore Me
 Medley from 2007 Tony Awards
 Spring Awakening cast does GREASE from
annual Easter Bonnet fundraiser 2007
OTHER ROCK SHOWS OF NOTE
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Aida (2000 - 1 ,852 perfs)
Mamma Mia (2001 - still running)
Movin' Out (2002 - 1 ,202 perfs)
Hairspray (2002 - 2,642 perfs)
Wicked (2003 - still running)
Avenue Q (2003 - 2,534 perfs)
Moved of f-Broadway and still running
Jersey Boys (2005 – still running)
In the Heights (2008 - 1 ,184 perfs)
Next to Normal (2008 - 733 perfs)
American Idiot (2010 – 422 perfs)
Winner of 2011 Grammy for best cast album
ONCE (2012)
CLIPS FROM “ONCE”
 At the 2012 Tony Awards
 Falling Slowly
 Gold
 The Making of Once
 Original film trailer
 Falling Slowly film version