Break Out In Song

I was surfing Youtube and I saw this very interesting rendition of "If They Could See Me Now", a musical number from "Sweet Charity". Not that it was sung as a parody or blended into some unusual genres, but was performed by 40 over singers and dancers among unsuspecting members of the public. Call it a musical flash mob if you want! And it wasn't quite a cheesy free public performance; the quality of performance is actually quite good, complete with well-choreographed moves too.



This performance is presented by Break Out In Song, an arts project that, according to their official website, "pushes the boundaries of live theater as it dazzles unsuspecting audiences with free, spontaneous and fully staged Broadway musical numbers." Their website has not been updated for quite a while, but worth checking out, for those who likes musicals and public performances: Break Out In Song.

"High School Musical" Junior

It was only about 2 weeks ago that "Believe" had ended its run, and immediately I jumped into "High School Musical" Junior as a set and costume designer. Yes, it's that hit musical by Disney, but since the cast now comprised mainly of local primary school kids instead of teenage or adult actors, we went for the condensed "junior" version which is tailored to suit the technical capabilities of young performers and educational institutes. Of course, I didn't do up the costumes and set in barely 2 weeks. I was roped into this production a few months back, but I was too preoccupied with "Believe" back then, hence my main focus was on that musical, and toggle back and forth as and when needed. It was only after "Believe" closes that I can spend my entire energy into "High School Musical".

Working on this production is a huge challenge. Other than clashing with "Believe", the issue of how to transform these kids into convincing teenagers (with my set and costumes, of course) and yet not becoming too "matured" for their peers and their parents to enjoy is the primary concern. And then there's also venue constraints like limited wing and rear stage space for set parking and having only 2 flybars for scenery, and a budget that is not exactly a lot. Not forgetting also that "High School Musical" is such a hit that it became a tremendous stress trying to make justice to the musical when coming up with a set design. Fortunately, my design for the set turned out rather well on stage, and I'm rather satisfied. However, I can't say the same for my costumes, but I will just leave them for my subsequent posts.

In the meanwhile, I shall just post some of the random shots taken during bump-in.

One whole lorry of set flats!

From a two-tier steps...

... and then a wall with a door frame...

... and it progressed on...

... to the final complete set!

"Believe" The Musical

The youth musical I've been working on for the past 7 months finally closed last weekend after 2 performances. This musical was titled "Believe" and has a plot that centers around problems faced by youths in present-day Singapore. It revolves around the life of a 14 year-old "problem kid" who managed to turn over a new leaf and got transferred to the Express stream through the help of his probation officer.



This musical is not exactly a big-scale production, but not that easy to design. With a limited budget and having a wide number of scenes ranging from LAN game shop to police headquarters and old Chinese cemetery, I had to revise my designs over and over again until a balance between artistic, aesthetic and practicality is achieved.







For the final design, I decided not to employ realistic representations of the various scenes due to budget constraints, and focussed more on creating a symbolic inner world of these "problem kids" on stage. With that, I came up with a relatively simple set consisting of two 60cm high runways that intersected each other and spanned across the entire stage, and a 1.4m high platform flushed with the intersection point of the two runways. The crossed runways is an abstraction and visualisation of crossed paths of which these youths had to make decisions as to what they want to do and where they want to go. The raised platform, on the other hand, is to suggest blindspots and bumps in life, and at the same time create more heights on an otherwise relatively plain stage. These set pieces remained permanent throughout the musical, and addition and removal of various furniture and set pieces will give a suggestion of locality.







I managed to design the set within the budget limit, and thank goodness everything went rather smoothly for my set. If I have had bigger budget, I could have a better designed set, as like what some of my friends and colleagues had commented, the stage looked a bit too bare. However, with my available budget for this production, I can only say I've done my best, and I'm rather satisfied with the outcome, just that the cross pattern marked out by the crossed runways didn't come out prominently due to the shallow slope of the auditorium.

Unseen Shots from "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown"

Earlier on I've said that we crew members parodied the cast before the show started. So here are some of them, courtesy of Caitanya who played Schroeder.

An elongated dog... Adam's (our drummer) upper body and my lower body...

Me parodying Lucy in "Lucy Opens Shop"

Me parodying as Lucy and Adam as Schroeder in "Schroeder"

Closing of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" is finally closed last night and it was a good performance by the Level 3 Musical Theatre students, in collaboration with our Technical Theatre faculty. Other than yesterday's matinee which was like 60% full, all other performances were close to full house if not filled up to the max. Yesterday night's turnout even overstretched the seating capacity and I believed more chairs had to be added so as not to turn away anyone (I'm not sure though if anyone had been turned away).

My props table at a dark corner of the backstage

For those who still don't know what's my role in the production, I was one of the two assistant stage managers for the show. Over the intercom, other than identifying myself as "stage left" (since I'm stationed on the stage left side), I was also known as "the man on the stage left", or "Mr Stool" or "Mr. Baseball Bat", as I need to throw stool and baseball bat to my fellow actor as required by the director. Generally speaking, stage crew like me are not supposed to be seen by audience when the show is running. Hence, to make up for the loss of exposure, I had some fun with my other crew members while the cast is not around by parodying them on stage. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone had footages of these monkeying scenes of us, so I won't be able to post them up here. But to be honest, if I'm at least taller by 10cm, I might have joined the acting or musical theatre course instead. I'm actually equally interested in the performance aspect of theatre, so seeing others perform on stage tends to make to itch for acting opportunities too. But for now, I'll just stick to technical theatre.

Queen Julia from the Queendom of BopIt, also known as Miss Dogbone for having a throw a 1m dogbone on stage to Snoopy.

The cast of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

Right now, I'm relieved that the production is over, but on the other hand I'm starting to miss working on this production already, because I really like this show since ages ago. Hopefully I'll get to work with the same group of actors again, though I'm not sure if there'll be any chance till the end of this academic year...

The backstage crew, finally exposed to public...

Burning of the damned leaf that refused to listen to the SM's cue by the SM after last night's performance.

Numbers from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" animated version

I can't wait for the actual rehearsal for the musical theatre level 3's "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown". Personally I'm a fan of "Peanuts", and I'm curious how it would be staged. Not so much because it's comic-turned-musical, but I want to see how a seemingly innocent on the surface but very adult-orientated (as in the characters actually speak more like adults instead of kiddy language) cartoon is like on stage, played by real young adults.

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"


"Schroeder"


"Snoopy"


"The Kite"


"Book Report"


"T-E-A-M" a.k.a. "The Red Baron"


"Glee Club Rehearsal"


"Suppertime"


"Happiness"

I know some numbers in this musical is not in list of clips above, but these are all I can find. Hopefully I can find the DVD version of this musical locally someday...

Upcoming Musical Productions

Previously I had posted that our whole class was involved in various musical productions this month, and now the tickets are available for sale at Gatecrash!

The production I am in is "Lucky Stiff", a whimsical musical about an Englishman who inherited his uncle's money after his death, with 2 other people after him trying to ruin his plan. It will be performing from 26 to 29 November, with a matinee on the last day, at Lasalle's Creative Cube.

The other 2 productions are "Nunsense" from 13 to 15 November at the Creative Cube as well, and "The Life of Galileo" from 27 to 29 November at Lasalle's Flexible Performance Space.

Do come and support if you can!

PS: For those who can't remember, I am doing sound op., not part of the cast.

Funny Mamma Mia!

So I just returned from Abbamania, but before I think of what to write about it, let me put a clip of Mamma Mia! the musical, not the "original" version, but a hilarious skit based on the original, done by the original Broadway cast. Enjoy!

Beckham the Musical?

So, the next new theme to be brought onto the stage of musicals is the life of David Beckham, and somemore on London's West End! It's still rather vague as to what will be featured in this musical, but it is said that David Beckham: The Theatre of Dreams, "is a modern-day fairytale of heroes, villains, love, Manchester United and what it means to lead your country" as quoted off from Mark Archer, the producer of this musical. Although I may not have interest in soccer, I'm quite interested to see how this musical is like, somemore it's based on the life story of a living, white male!

Charlie Brown Musical

"Peanuts" has been my all-time favourite comic strip since young, and believe it or not, it as watching the cartoon version of "Peanuts" that make me interested in Jazz (Jazz music has been used extensively in almost all episodes, if not all).

There's also a musical version of "Peanuts" titled "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown", and if not wrong it was performed in Singapore a few years ago. It's rather interesting to have a comic strip being brought to stage, because the characters no longer look like what you used to remember; like Charlie Brown no longer is a small boy with big head and a bit of curly hair, and Snoppy now has "hair" and looks more like "human". However it's still not hard to tell who is who from some clues embedded in their costumes, which makes it even more fun. Of course, other than these elements, I thought the music and lyrics to this musical are good also. Hopefully I'll be able to catch them in action again, although I know well that it has been closed for a few years now.

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"

"Happiness"

Are you able to tell who is who from the 2 clips above?