Presidential Reviews

[sane]

Review your favorite musicals

[Samos]

Review your favorite musicals

OOH I SHOULD TOTALLY REVIEW THE MUSICALS I'VE BEEN IN AND TALK ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES DOING THEM

That'll go on the list. But first, bext Hamilton song on the list is Aaron Burr, Sir.

Spoiler: 

Plot Summary: It's 1776, and the young Hamilton has made it to New York City, where he hopes to start a new life. He decides to seek advice from Aaron Burr, who has managed to graduate from college in just two years. During the conversation, they find that they have a few things in common, such as that they're both orphans and that they're both very ambitious. However, they have one major temperamental difference: unlike the fast-paced and brash Hamilton, Aaron Burr is calculating and careful to stay out of danger, which is reflected in his motto, "Talk less, smile more".

As they share a drink, we're introduced to three new characters (an abolitionist named John Laurens, a French immigrant named Marquis Lafayette, and the cocky Hercules Mulligan), who all share a common interest in the ongoing American Revolution.

Thoughts: Aaron Burr doesn't get as glamorous an introduction as some of the other characters in this show like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, as we'll see later. He doesn't need to make the most of every second he has on stage, because he gets almost as much stage time as Hamilton himself. I think this is a really great move, since Burr is definitely one of the lesser known of the Founding Fathers, and the actual true story of his friendship/rivalry with Hamilton is fascinating. Leslie Odom Jr. plays the part extremely well. His rapping isn't super noteworthy, but his singing voice is fantastic, which really suits his "talk less, smile more" personality.

The wordplay at the beginning of this song with Aaron Burr's name ultimately becomes one of this shows many running gags. It's pretty entertaining, especially "You punched the bersar".

I have a notebook somewhere that has every rhyme for Burr and I was just ticking them off the list.

As for the other 3 characters they meet in this show, Laurens doesn't really stand out very much right now, and I find his rapping voice kind of annoying. Lafayette's accent makes him fun to listen to rapping, and he definitely ends up being the most memorable of these 3 characters by the end of the act for me. Mulligan makes a pretty good first impression too though. His lyrics are pretty funny if you look into them, and he's got a cool rapping voice too.

I don't know if this number is something I'd have on my iPod or anything, but it's pretty good. The wordplay with Burr is good, Burr's singing is good, the freestyle rapping is fun. It's just more of a storytelling number than a really melodic, show-stopping number like the opening one or the next one is.

[sane]

New project I think I'd have fun with: I'm going to attempt to review every single song on the new Hamilton musical soundtrack!

I've been obsessing over this musical for a while now, and the lyrics and decisions are so deep that there's a ton to talk about and analyze. There's over 40 songs in total, so I'm going to try to do these once a day. Let's kick things off with the opening number of the musical, aptly named Alexander Hamilton.

Spoiler: 

Plot Summary: Since this musical opts to tell the entire musical through music, instead of most musicals where they there are only like 10 big music numbers that focus on the emotions of the characters, while the storytelling is mostly done through standard acting. Because of this, the plot in Hamilton is a little hard to follow sometimes and probably requires a little description.

Anyway, this song basically tells the story of Hamilton's shockingly depressing childhood and his decision to come to America. It explains that he was born out of wedlock in the Caribbean, his father abandoned him at age 10, his mother died at age 12, he had to move in with a cousin, the cousin committed suicide, and his hometown was destroyed by a hurricane. Pretty rough. It then explains that he wrote a beautiful essay about the destruction the hurricane caused, which impressed the community's leaders so much that they raised a fund to send him to the US in hopes of finding a new life. The song ends with Hamilton on a ship headed to New York.

Thoughts: This is always the first song I play for people when I want them to listen to this soundtrack, because it is a great summary of everything I love about this musical and why it's so unique. I'm generally not a big fan of rap, mostly because I just don't think it's as fun to listen to as actual singing, but this musical seems to get that for me. It uses the rap as a build up rather than the highlight of the song.

It starts off with Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) and John Laurens (Anthony Ramos) rapping softly to a quiet beat. When Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Diggs) and James Madison (Okieriete Onaodowan) come in, the beat in the background begins to get a little more exciting, and their voices start sounding a little more like actual music notes. Aaron Burr comes back in to give a verse to a now very intense beat. It sounds like he's about to sing, but then he goes on to do more rapping. For me personally, this was really building suspense to when the singing was going to start. So when Aaron Burr goes "What's your name, man?", and Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) comes out with the first real singing of the show, I'm super hyped.

Then it goes back to the non-refrain verses, which are now entirely sung. I just love the way the song slowly transitions from total rap, to a little mix of both, to singing, to full ensemble singing. It's a perfect buildup. Even after listening to this so many times, I STILL get chills when the full chorus comes out for the first time to sing the refrain (which is at 2:45 in the video if you're lost as to where I'm talking about now).

A few nitpicks? Well, this show kind of has a weird obsession with New York, which I'm fine with, but I feel like one of the main messages of the musical is that America gave this orphan immigrant an opportunity to rise beyond his expectations, and for that, they focus a little too much on New York and not enough on the whole country in general. There's also the fact that the show's ending is spoiled at the end of this song. I mean, I'm pretty sure most people going to see a show about Alexander Hamilton already know that he got shot by Aaron Burr, but the way it's just thrown onto the end there is a little unnecessary, and totally gives it away for anyone who didn't know already.

Oh yeah, and I guess I ought to talk about this now since some of you are probably a little confused: Yes, most of the major characters in this musical are black. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Aaron Burr, all black. This was an intentional move on the part of Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote the musical and plays Alexander Hamilton):

I thought the historical inaccuracy was kind of weird at first (usually I'm totally fine with characters like James Bond and Spider-Man being black since they're fictional), and it seemed a little culturally ignorant since race was a really big deal back then, but I warmed up to the idea. The idea of "America Then Being Told By America Now" helps the rapping make a lot more sense and leads to some other really interesting musical choices later on.

In conclusion, this opening number is pure, unadulterated hype. It's use of rapping, solo singing, and ensemble singing is wonderful, and this is definitely one of the most replayable songs in the musical for me. If you like this song, you'll like this musical. If you don't, you probably won't. And I love it.

Listening to it now. I really liked that transition into singing. I'm definitely going to follow this.

[Klonoa]

Could you review Ujarak's Story in the Writer's Corner, please? There are 4 chapters, and it's incomplete. I'd like some feedback on how it is, please.

[Samos]

Review your favorite musicals

So here's a review of the songs from the first musical I've ever been in, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I'm just going to talk about each song one-by-one.

Spoiler: 

How to Succeed: Good, energetic opening number that sets the tone for the show pretty nicely. It's about the main character, Finch, reading his new book "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". In some performances of this, it's just the main character singing alone, and in others, they have the entire ensemble come out for this number. It's a lot better in my opinion when the entire ensemble gets to come out. When I did it, the ensemble came in from all different directions doing all sorts of hectic things and it was really cool.

Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm: In this song, the female lead, Rosemary, sings about being ready to date a neglectful businessman and just keeping his dinner warm until he comes home. This song is pretty funny. There are one or two lyrics in particular that always get a laugh from the audience. I can't really share any experiences I had with this number since it's a solo, but the girl we had playing Rosemary was awesome and hilarious here.

Coffee Break: This is the first ensemble-focused number, although it does feature solos from the villain, Bud Frump (the company boss' annoying nephew) and Smitty (Rosemary's friend and co-worker). It's a song about the importance of coffee breaks in a workday. It can be funny if the ensemble is energetic and good at capturing desperation, but the lyrics themselves aren't super laugh-out-loud hilarious. We basically had very zombie-like choreography when we did it. There weren't too many big laughs, but the audience was softly giggling the whole time, which I guess was the intent.

Company Way: This is a song sung by Finch and Twimble, a company worker who teaches Finch the virtues of kissing up and never questioning the guys in charge. Reminds me a lot of Hamilton and Burr actually now that I think about it. There's a reprise right after it featuring the whole ensemble about Bud Frump saying he's going to start following Twimble's philosophy of kissing up. This song also has some pretty funny lines. The reprise was fun because we all get to obsess over Bud Frump, but it wasn't super memorable or anything.

A Secretary is Not a Toy: This is a very 60sish song about not sexually harassing secretaries. This one was a ton of work but a ton of fun to perform. I made my ensemble character really slimey and jerkish for this number, and luckily it never got awkward because theater people are cool with that stuff.

Been a Long Day: This is a song about Smitty trying to hook up Rosemary and Finch. This one was the audience favorite for some reason. I mean, it's a fun number, but I'm not sure why the audience liked this one so much more than the others. The ensemble only does a little singing at the end though, so I can't talk about my experiences with it too much.

Grand Old Ivy: This is a song about Finch and his boss JB Biggley bonding over Biggley's favorite college football team and doing their fight song. The whole song though, Finch is just making things up so the boss will like him, so he has no idea what he's doing the whole time. It was acted pretty well by the guys who played Finch and Biggley. The most recent Broadway version of this song featured the ensemble coming out as football players to do some dancing, which could've been fun.

Paris Original: This is a song about every single girl at a party wearing the same dress and how they all get super pissy about it. I was not allowed in this number because I am not a female, but this is definitely one of the funniest numbers in the show.

Rosemary: This is a pretty straightforward love song about Finch realizing he's in love with Rosemary. Rosemary then comes in and he proposes to her (musicals like to really rush their relationships), and then they sing a duet. It's nothing too special, it's just a nice little love song.

Act I Finale: Finch singing about the success he's been having in the company, Rosemary singing about now starting to realize how annoying being neglected by a busy businessman is, and Bud Frump singing about wanting to stop Finch. Pretty exciting finale.

Cindarella Darling: So Rosemary is getting kinda sick of Finch ignoring her, so here all of her female coworkers come in to sing to her and tell her not to give up her opportunity to be with him. This number was fine, not bad or anything, it's just not one of the more memorable numbers for me.

Love From a Heart of Gold: JB Biggley singing a love song to the girl he's having an affair with. It's funny in the sense that this is such a horrible and shallow relationship. I think that's what the author intended. It was funny when we did it because the guy playing Biggley had such a low voice and the girl playing his girlfriend had such a high voice.

I Believe In You/Gotta Stop That Man: This one takes place in the men's bathroom, where all the other men are singing about how Finch has gone too far and needs to be stopped. Then Finch has a solo where he sings a love song in the mirror to himself. This love song gets sung later by Rosemary to Finch, but in the movie Rosemary sung it to Finch much earlier, and Finch just repeats it here to himself. I think the way the movie did it is kinda funnier since it plays on the factor that Finch is in love with himself. Anyway, this song was fun to do because we had portable sinks on wheels to dance around with.

Brotherhood of Man: This is my favorite song in the show. It takes place after a big disaster that almost ruins the entire company, forcing the chairman of the board to come in and decide who he wants to fire. Finch uses this song to convince him not to fire any of them. This was just so much fun to perform and sing. Real show-stopper. I thought it'd be the audience favorite, but they seemed to like It's Been a Long Day more.

Overall: I really like the music in this show. I may be a little biased because the whole thing was just such an amazing experience for me to do, but I'd recommend checking it out if some high school in the area is putting it on. It advertises itself as a "musical comedy", and I don't know if it's the funniest musical out there, but it's got some laughs and it's got some really catchy songs.

[Samos]

Next on the Hamilton soundtrack is "My Shot".

Spoiler: 

Plot Summary: This number is mostly entertaining and meant to show off Hamilton's genius writing. Basically, all that happens in this song is Hamilton drops a sick verse about the American-British politics going on in 1776 which really impresses Lafayette, Mulligan, and Laurens. He inspires Lafayette to rap about his hatred for monarchies, Mulligan to rap about his hatred for his job as a tailor's apprentice, and Laurens to rap about his hatred for slavery. Burr comes in and tries to convince them that being too vocal about the Revolution is dangerous, but he's ignored.

Thoughts: This song holds the distinction of the song that took the longest for Miranda to write.

This is the song where Hamilton comes into the room and blows everyone away with the strength of his oratory. So every couplet has to be amazing.

Is "every couplet amazing"? I don't know about that, but this song does its job well. I can't help but feel like Miranda wanted this to be the unanimous pick for the best song in the musical, and I just don't think many people think it is. Still, it is really well written, and the wordplay definitely does help build Hamilton as this incredible wordsmith who can rise out of his position on the strength of his words alone.

I've heard some people say that this would've been a good opening number. I agree, but I'm glad they went with the opening number they did instead. The opening number is amazing for anyone regardless of how much they like rap or hip-hop. This song pretty much exclusively appeals to hip-hop fans and not musical theater fans.

Lafayette, Mulligan, Laurens, and Burr all get some good development in this song, and all of them except Burr have some of their backstories elaborated on (we'll get to Burr in a little bit). I could see why people might've found these character annoying in the last number, but here they're a little more interesting.

Hamilton gets the most development out of this number of any character though. He even has a cute little moment about him being a little socially awkward and lonely.

If you're a hip-hop fan, you'll probably like this number a lot. If you're not, you'll probably still enjoy it, but you might find yourself waiting for the singing which never comes.

[Samos]

Could you review Ujarak's Story in the Writer's Corner, please? There are 4 chapters, and it's incomplete. I'd like some feedback on how it is, please.

Spoiler: 

Chapter 1: I usually find first-person narrators more interesting than third-person narrators, so I was captivated right off the bat here with how informal this one is. I also like how honest the narrator is in saying “yeah this setting isn’t too interesting”, whereas a lot of authors would just try in vain to describe the not-so-interesting idea for a setting they have in their mind to try to make it sound interesting.

The descriptions of the personalities of the mother and father feel a little forced, would’ve preferred if these pros and cons were just expressed through dialogue. Some of the later characters are developed more naturally.

The first apology moment is surprising and a cool way to introduce readers to the norms of this world. Nice cliffhanger to end on too, makes you legitimately wondering what’ll happen next.

Chapter 2: The description of Ujarak’s new powers is kind of rushed. There probably could’ve been like a story told about the first time he realized he was quicker and stronger and stuff.

The description of the wolf power is good though, and the idea of the father not saying anything but just intimidating Ujarak with his disappointed expression is pretty powerful.

Chapter 3: The conversation with Skye provides a nice break from the action. I kind of wish that conversation was a little longer for that reason. The combination of narration and dialogue makes the slow transformation a lot more haunting and dramatic, as well as the dialogue breaks with his family. Definitely the most dramatic chapter so far.

Chapter 4: The mother is so much more likable than the father in this story. Definitely seems intentional, but you really feel bad for the mother and really just hate the father in this story. The end is really heartbreaking and effective, and the last line really does pack a punch.

Overall: Some parts seem a little undeveloped or rushed, but the stuff in this that’s good is really good. The drama is real, the slow transformation is really creepy and heartbreaking, and you both connect with and can see the flaws in the main character. 9/10

[Samos]

Next Hamilton song is The Story of Tonight.

Spoiler: 

Plot Summary: No real new plot points here, just Hamilton, Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette sharing a drink and dreaming about the Revolution.

Thoughts: Nice move putting this after the hip-hoppy last number. This one is beautifully sung by these four. They all sound great in their own ways. Onaodowan (Mulligan) and Ramos (Laurens) especially have standout voices. Diggs (Lafayette) doesn't sound quite as melodic as they do, but his French accent makes the notes they sing in unison sound really cool. Daveed Diggs is actually more famous for being a rapper than a singer. In the second act, spoilers, he loses the accent to play Thomas Jefferson, and he's a better singer when he doesn't have that accent.

This number isn't as exciting as some of the last few numbers, but I think it's probably good to take a little breather. I can see why others would say it's boring though. Especially since the lyrics are maybe a little bland and repetitive.

The melody for Story of Tonight is actually from a song I wrote when I was 16. I wanted it to feel like that.

That's what he was going for, and it accomplishes that goal. So it's a cute number, and if you like singing harmony with other people, this is a really fun one to sing.

[BKTurner47]

Ah yes, I'm back! Can you review this, Samta?

Spoiler: 

BEAT: Poltergeist by Tristan on the Track

EEEEPIC RAP BATTLES OF BIGKIDRANT3!!!! FORD PINES.... VERSUS... SIR MAX!!!!! BEGIN!!!!

Sir Max: Welcome, Ford Pines, to my custom-made world of pain and suffering,
watching all the children bleed and cry is my form of entertainment!
A madman, a crazo! Blow you out of existence with my servers!
Crashing all your rap tactics ‘cuz I’m QUITE THE OBSERVER
You’re all talk, Cave Johnson! It’s simple when you get the hang of it.
Ask my slaves, they’ll really hand it to ya that you wanna HANG it!
I torture people daily, so what? It’s not as bad as you.
I don’t trust triangles, what about you? You worshipped them? Screw you!

Ford Pines: Listen, you canine, I’m not here to play games.
I’d rather face Gangsta Joey then this teen who’s insane!
Gone mad with power, although you barely have none.
You’re not a sir, max! You’re just a newspaper boy hitting blunts!
It’s safe to say, all over the world, that you don’t have anybody!
Gone to the point of stalking just to be with somebody! How shoddy!
You’re a failure, Maxwell! How many times to I have to say it?
I’ll split your ass in pieces like the Interdimensional Rift!

*Sir Max disappears, and a new, bigger enemy approaches... JOEY ZIOLKOWSKI!!!!! CONTINUE!*

Joey Ziolkowski (start at 1:18): I’m pulling all your strings and I’m tightening them!
Break your leg, snap your neck, fire hose you right into your death!
You have no idea what you’re doing when you’re up against me! You’re bonkers!
Make Gravity fall right on you and then kick your ass right back to Yonkers!
A Glass Shard Bitch tried to get his way near me,
clearly, I’ll rewrite you JUST LIKE THIS WHOLE SERIES!
I’m glorious and verified! You’re just a model for shitposters!
Stumble to your Tumblr and call yourself down for dinner!

Ford Pines: Joey? I’ll leave you hopping around like a kangaroo!
Rewriting your shit game hasn’t done a good toll on you,
but now, I’m stuck facing a sixteen year old hack,
You’re not a threat! You look like a wax figure at the Mystery Shack!
You wanna take over the world? Well, too bad!
Give me all your lemons, but I’ll make you take them back!
Respect your elders! You’re just a dumb, prepubescent child!
You just got served, Joey, pause to put on sunglasses doggy style.

Announcer: WHO WON? WHOS NEXT? YOU DECIDE!!!!

EPIC! *crowd cheering* RAP BATTLES OF BIGKIDRANT3!!!!

[Katz]

http://www.erboh.com/forum/showthrea...247#post418247

Please, sir