Days in the Life

Just some moments in the life of a young lad attempting to hack it in world media as a producer of stage, films, and television, with some side trips into the recording industry as it behooves him.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

just as a heads up, phantom of the opera poster @/filthybonnet / @/filthy-bonnet is an unrepentant racist terf who made a hyphenated new version of her username to start reblogging from people who blocked her old account and you should probably block her new one too

[thartwell]

Godspell Albums Ranked

cuz I've been listening to a lot of it lately:

Tie: Original Off-Broadway Cast (1971) / Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1973): I was tempted to be really edgy and rank the soundtrack first, but one can't deny the energy and charm of the OOBC. At the end of the day both are stellar casts without a weak link, and whether one prefers, like, Garber to Nathan or Alford to Jackson is entirely up to taste. The soundtrack has a fuller, more polished sound while the OOBC has a more electric energy in some songs, along with ofc the songs cut from the film, so ultimately there's some songs I prefer on the soundtrack and some on the OOBC*.

2000 Off-Broadway Cast (2000): Of all the re-dos and updates to the score, this is my favorite largely because it has a good ear for what to keep intact while giving it a bit more of a harder edge that you'd come to expect from a later recording. By far my favorite recording of "Tower of Babble", and a really solid front half, especially for the added dialogue passages. Stumbles more than a few times in the back--"We Beseech Thee" and "Beautiful City" are both fairly lackluster here.

Original London Cast (1971): A little worse of a recording than the OOBC, but with a strong cast including a very early in his career Jeremy Irons and a pre-Evita gathering of David Essex, Julie Covington and Marti Webb. The somewhat poor recording quality prevents this from ranking higher, but it's a solid time. I think Godspell sounds quite lovely with British voices.

2001 Touring Cast (2001): The one with re-arrangements from Alex Lacamoire, I don't think this one has dated quite as gracefully, but it's also the only radical reinventing of the score that I think works quite well, especially the tech-flavored "Babble". Shame about "Turn Back, O Man", though.

1993 Studio Cast (1997): A Jay Records recording with all that usually entails--an excellent recording quality, fidelity to the score, and almost always just dead in energy. This isn't so bad, but Darren Day is a deeply ineffectual Jesus that really sinks the early tracks, and Barrowman can go fuck himself. A surprisingly moving "Beautiful City", though.

2011 Broadway Cast (2011): The actual production of this was absolute crap, but separate from that the album isn't that bad. Its biggest issue is that it's one of the holy trinity along with You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Little Shop of Horrors of charming, low-rent Off-Broadway shows getting all gussied up and re-arranged for Broadway, with every song needing to be a big showstopper in some way. "Learn Your Lessons Well" is the biggest culprit here, along with the truly inexplicable "Turn Back, O Man" and the god-awful a cappella "Babble". Taken as arrangements qua arrangements, I'm quite fond of a few tracks--Prepare Ye, Save the People, Bless the Lord--and Uzo Aduba predictably kills it on By My Side. The Finale absolutely sinks it, with awful re-arrangements and added harmonies that do not do the material any favors. Not great.

If there's an English cast album you haven't seen here yet and it's a favorite of yours, go ahead! Put it here! Original Australian, South African, that weird 1972 London Studio recording that I can't find cast info on? They've got a spot on this list!

Foreign language Godspells? Original French? Original Swedish with a pre-Hooked on a Feeling Bjorn Skifs? Go ahead, put 'em here!

You remember all those random studio recordings of popular musicals that record companies turned out by the dozens in the 70s with session musicians and struggling singers? They all sound kinda the same and there's like a billion of them for Godspell? No worries, I guarantee they'll all fit here cuz nothing can be as bad as

An Original UK Cast Recording for the 90's (1994): No, I don't know why it markets itself like that, and no, I can't explain the random pixelated Genie on the cover art. Apparently this is an album for the UK touring cast in 1994, and apparently that actual production did not use any of the arrangements heard on this album. Which. Thank fuck, because this is dreadful. Think of every sappy, cheesy cliche you can of 90s music--and mind you, we're not talking grunge or alternative rock here, we're talking fucking muzak--and they've got it in spades here. Not a single song works, "Babble" is ok enough to fool you into thinking maybe you'll have a decent times, and then "Prepare Ye" barges in with its inexplicable brass synth loop that they use three times in the damn album. Someone, somewhere, thought this was a good idea, and I hope he enjoys this album. For everyone else on the planet earth, stay far away.

*for those curious: OOBC: Lessons, All for the Best, All Good Gifts, Light of the World, By My Side, Beseech; Soundtrack: Prepare Ye, Save the People, Bless the Lord, Alas for You, On the Willows, Finale. Draw: Day By Day, Turn Back, O Man

[thartwell]

Important addendums:

The original French cast fucking slaps, and would actually rank either #2 or #3 on my list now

The 1998 Sydney cast fucking blows and gives the 1994 cast a run for its money. Might just be worse. I'll sleep on it.

[gdelgiproducer]

Give the German cast, featuring the then-unknown Donna Summer, a spin. A lot of interesting stuff is going on there, including some jazzy business on "Learn Your Lessons Well."

Also, good Lord, you gave the Sydney '98 cast a shot? You're more charitable -- and thorough -- than I am. Once I learned that they were doing A Take (apparently set in, of all places, a Twenties speakeasy, with the songs completely shifted around and a "By My Side" rewrite that certainly didn't come from either Peggy Gordon or Jay Hamburger), I kind of noped out.

My short takes on Hartwell's other takes:

Smart move to lump the OOBC and film soundtrack together since the arrangements are largely the same, albeit with a little Hollywood elbow grease on the soundtrack to bolster the sound (some strings here, some light brass there, Paul Shaffer doing his thing). I like a bit of polish, though I realize it is, to some extent, antithetical to the show's overall vibe and aesthetic. If I want to hear what I consider to be "the best of OG Godspell," I throw on a playlist that is essentially the film soundtrack in show order, but with the "Prologue" (from the JAY recording, where it first appears), "Learn Your Lessons," and "We Beseech Thee" tacked on, "Beautiful City" moved to the top of Act II (as it were) to fill in for the unrecorded "Learn Your Lessons" reprise, and "Alas for You" swapped in from the OOBC (despite lacking that iconic Michael Kamen synth) for the complete lyrics. (I like my silly "fan mix" capabilities enough to enclose it for you all here.)

All other Seventies albums, official or unofficial, kind of blur into one for me, with some exceptions as noted above (French, German, etc.).

His description of the JAY recording is spot on. (For all the same reasons, I loathe their studio recording of JCS. Utterly lifeless.) It is most useful to any listener getting ready to do the show to give a pre-2012 clue: "This is what the score, as licensed, is more or less supposed to sound like, plus Schwartz did a rewrite on 'Beautiful City' so he wasn't embarrassed by it, isn't that nice."

I tipped him off about the '94 UK tour one. Only listen if you want to invent a Godspell-related drinking game. (And have a strong desire to develop fast-acting cirrhosis.)

Of the three major revamps, I like 2000 and 2001 together much, much more than what I call 2012 (technically, the revival was in 2011, but a variant of it is licensed today as "Godspell 2012," so I refer to it that way to keep from breaking my brain in two). Before I wade in the water of 2012, a) I largely prefer Alex Lacamoire's vocal arrangements (though a bit Nineties/Aughts "lightly Rent-inflected theater pop") to most versions, including the original (the harmonies developed improvisationally by the cast were written down in the licensed score, and they are confusing to teach; while it may not have dated quite as gracefully, most of it is in better shape than 2012, not that that's a high bar), and b) 2000 is the one to listen to if you want to hear the score at 125% speed. (Granted, some of those songs may be so fast in an attempt to substitute for the high-energy staging in an audio setting, but the pacing drives me nuts.) 2001's only big miss is "Turn Back, O Man"; I always substitute Capathia Jenkins from 2000 when that rolls around. [Me: "Softcore porn 'Turn Back, O Man' doesn't exist, it can't hurt me." 2001: ":)"] Like Hartwell, I have some tracks I prefer from each; mash 'em together, and they're a pretty good early Aughts take*.

Obviously, I'm not making you wait; I have a couple of rants about 2012, so...

*2000: Prologue, Prepare Ye, Day by Day, Turn Back, O Man; 2001: Opening, Save the People, All for the Best, All Good Gifts, Light of the World, Beseech; Draw: Bless the Lord (I feel like if we grafted the reggae vibes of the 2000 intro onto 2001's and put in Shoshana's vocal instead of Natalie's, we'd have something potent), By My Side, Beautiful City (I know, Hartwell, I know, but the 2000 take is a piece of a very particular puzzle for me), On the Willows, Finale

Getting more granular about two of the above choices:

I like 2001's techno take on the "Prologue," but I strongly dislike the Marianne Williamson verse. It sticks out like a sore thumb; let's be real here, we don't need someone preaching we're born to make manifest the glory of God. That's basically what Jesus is about to do, and if someone has already figured that out, the show's arc is gone. (Trivia: the quote was mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela and so was almost part of the 2000 version, but once the source was properly established, the performer allegedly felt some kind of way about it because he had a special attachment to its having come from Mandela as the source rather than his merely quoting it, so the original R. Buckminster Fuller bit was restored.)

2001's "Lessons" gets the slight edge over Leslie Kritzer's divine riffing if only because the "lamp of the body" echo-speech has aged so poorly (and is given such a hammy take on the 2000 album). I'll give 2012 this: while I don't love the a cappella take (or doing the whole second verse of the song again after it), I'm glad it was musicalized at all.

2012

My issue with 2012 musically is that it's clear Daniel Holland never got over Those Weird Pop Choral Octavos Done by Every College Ensemble, evidenced by the overly fussy added harmonies (far more difficult than they're worth) referred to above. (Also, fuck off with the "Turn Back, O Man" revamps already. I'll grant that it's better than 2001, but we didn't really need one styled after Shirley Bassey Bond themes -- or, probably more accurately, her cover of Pink's "Get This Party Started" -- either.)

Dramaturgically, though this is admittedly not so present on the album, it's a stunningly bad production in that it takes the religious "balls" of the project away, so to speak -- cutting the opening God speech for no discernible reason, swapping out Jesus' teaching in the middle of "All Good Gifts" for some hippie-dippie bullshit (ironic, given Schwartz's oft-stated distaste for Godspell being confused for anything even remotely hippie) loosely adapted from Paul's letter to the Romans, cutting the first verse of "Alas for You" because it denounces people as "fit for hell," for that matter removing any references to hell (or gendered language), all that stuff. Like, I get Schwartz coming at it from a non-Christian perspective, trying to stress the universality of its message (he himself was Jewish and utterly new to the Jesus story at the point when he joined the project), but I'm sorry, it's not just a revue about team-building; it's far from a coincidence that the show structurally follows the liturgy of an Episcopalian lessons-and-carols service. Ignoring the religious aspect of Godspell robs the show's specific angle of much of its teeth.

(TL;DR: I have nearly as many Godspell thoughts as I do JCS.)

[gdelgiproducer]

More research material

As belatedly promised to @fufferrrrrrr, here's some more stuff @ozymegdias and I unearthed during the process of research for our defunct podcast. These scripts, in my opinion, most effectively chronicle the move from European success to American failed experiment that was the trajectory from Tanz der Vampire to Dance of the Vampires.

(They're also really effective for seeing what demo or "final" - to the extent anything about DOTV can be considered canon - lyrics actually were, for those who've never been able or thought to look them up.)

Tanz

It would be unfair to share DOTV's shortcomings without shining a light on the European version and why those involved in America felt they could have such a free hand revising it in the first place.

As is now well-known, in addition to Jim Steinman basically being a hands-off composer whose themes were used piecemeal by the librettist with help from the music supervisor, Michael Kunze drafted what amounted to a placeholder English version so that Steinman and Roman Polanski, neither of whom spoke German, would have a basic idea of how the show worked, a Ur-text that, it should be noted, he did not at all feel beholden to in developing the actual German rendition, as even the most rudimentary comparison would show.

This, I suspect, is a variant of that early English version, sourced from Kunze himself. As evidence, a counterpoint by Krolock not heard in the final version of "Nie geseh'n" (but present in a documentary about the making of the original Vienna production) is still present in the script; "Du bist wirklich sehr nett" is not written at all except for Alfred's final verse; Krolock's second verse (starting "Ich geb dir was dir fehlt...") for "Einladung zum Ball" is not yet written; what lyrics are present for "Stärker als wir sind" and "Das gebet," the latter of which had no counterpoint from Sarah and Krolock at the time, appear to be direct-translation German-to-English rather than written with any feeling whatsoever for the music (indeed, I strongly suspect this was added to this older document at a later date); the a cappella ending to "Carpe Noctem" is missing; and more.

My Two Cents: If you've already heard Kunze's English lyrics in demo form for his other shows, then you have some idea of the quality of writing you'll find in this document. It ain't pretty, folks. At most, it serves as a clue for a starting point. To me, it's clear why Jim felt he could monkey around with it in the transition to the English stage, which in turn paved the way for more unfortunate tomfoolery.

DOTV

The following scripts reflect various phases of DOTV's development. What they all have in common, at least in my opinion, is that while they may not have much to do with Tanz (increasingly so after the 2001 drafts), each of them, with the possible exception of the last two, has individual moments of brilliance that show what could have been if everyone had their head screwed on tight, involved Kunze from the beginning, and didn't fall under the bus that was the tug of war for creative control between Steinman and Michael Crawford.

I wish we had a copy of the script for the April 2001 reading, which starred Steve Barton and, though once purported by Jim's longtime assistant to be essentially the German version in English, already had significant departures from the original according to nearly everyone else involved that I had the pleasure of speaking with. While it may not be a direct comparison to Tanz, our interviews suggested that this was the last time in the project when everyone involved was completely aligned and on the same page. It'd be fascinating to see what that looked like.

Where we pick up the trail is with this draft, dated May 10, 2001. I call this the "workshop" draft, because a news announcement on Jim Steinman's website following the initial DOTV reading indicated that a workshop production would be staged in "mid-May" for theater owners. Already present are the new prologue sequence ("Angels Arise" and "God Has Left the Building" are in), new songs ("Is Nothing Sacred" appears in Act II as in later drafts, and unheard material such as "The Red Badge of Love" appears mainly to make up for all the shifting of material to different slots than in the German version), and tons of "funny" dialogue. (One may argue the final version at least made more of an effort to be consistent; the humor in this early script runs an uneven gamut from Beatles references to genitalia jokes to potty humor and all points between.) Alongside all of this, however, are huge sections of the original European score, virtually unchanged barring the occasional alteration of a word or phrase. (You'll recognize many an amended lyric from the 1997 draft in particular.) Unfortunately, some pages (the entirety of "Carpe Noctem") are missing, but this is still a fairly complete look at the earliest currently available version of the show.

We then fast-forward several months to the most commonly circulated draft, dated August 11, 2001, a month after Crawford's hiring was announced and one month to the day before the other big disaster that affected the show's pre-production. The mix of humor and score is more consistent, though some of the punchlines that are holdovers from the May script are blunted by being cut during rewrites. Overall, barring such anomalies as early draft lyrics for a much more dramatic "Invitation to the Ball" sequence, "Carpe Noctem" now closing Act I in a bizarre hybrid with part of the former Act I finale, and Krolock shape-shifting into an alien monster during the ball sequence (I shit you not), this is not an altogether terrible version of the show, and indeed widely regarded as the best version of DOTV that ever existed. This is a complete copy, no pages missing.

In February 2002, following the 9/11-related postponement, three new producing partners joined the show, and the funding began to pour in, centered on Crawford's involvement. From around that time comes this draft, dated February 6, 2002. According to cast member Ray McLeod, this script (or something like it) is what they entered rehearsals with, and it changed daily from there on out. The "UK demos" (so-called because they were recorded by British singers with heavy accents, two of whom have been identified as music supervisor Michael Reed and vocalist Anne Skates) can be dated to approximately this point, judging by the similarities of the main songs in this draft, lyrically speaking, to the content of the demos. (The lyrics to "Eternity" seem to have been obliterated by the photocopying process, but otherwise, the draft is complete.) By now, more of the final structure of the American version is in place, but the creative team is still trying to figure out how to make the humor work. Judging by a couple of scenes here, it would seem they turned back to the source film for possible clues.

Fast-forward several months to what I call the "previews" draft, with a title page date of August 16, 2002, and various revision dates throughout. Several pages are missing; this appears to be a copy created for the stage manager's use, as modifications were made during previews. This script was sourced from an overenthusiastic DOTV fan (for such species exist, strange but true) who went back through the script and wrote down everything they could remember from a bootleg to better reflect the final version, crossing out lines, writing in whole paragraphs, and generally making a mess of things. Working with my limited MS Paint skills, barring the strike-outs no one could fix, I did my best to clean it up in the initial scan. Probably still missed a few things though.

Last and least, as The Producers (the much funnier show DOTV aimed to imitate) might put it, courtesy of the NYPL's theatre collection (annotated for use when the show was filmed on the closing night by the Theatre On Film and Tape Archive), here is the final script for DOTV. Ironically, given how different Tanz fans feel DOTV is, it was interesting to emerge from reading this script with the (no doubt minority) opinion that a) while a bad adaptation, DOTV is nevertheless an adaptation and a surprising amount of it still resembles the original, if a more brash, crass version at times, and b) comparison to earlier drafts reveals what might've been a better choice, etc.

With the benefit of hindsight, I once successfully crafted a more faithful "fan edit" from all of these drafts, of which it can be said, "Okay, it's closer to Tanz if you squint, and it's effective proof of concept that they didn't need to change nearly as much as they did." I find it telling how easy it was to create something that, at very least, doesn't stray too far while being its own animal, proving that if anyone involved had tried, DOTV need not have landed so far afield. (There's an older version of it archived on this blog; if someone tempts me with enough notes, I might share a more polished version.)

For now, enjoy your reading. After all, a good nightmare comes so rarely...

[slavery]

[macbethz]

Fuck I’m at a fencing tournament and literally a minute after I reblogged this my dad told me that he talked to the point people and I’m probably going to win a medal.

[seananmcguire]

BURN BAGEL BURN

[gothiccharmschool]

OH WHY NOT?

[harukami]

I need to follow up to say I reblogged this last night, and this morning I got some of the best news of my life, like, a life dream come true news thing.

Bagel what are your powers

[acabosetotal]

FUCK, I though it was just another lucky meme but LISTEN. Since a week ago I was waiting a phone call to confirm me if I got a job or not in my university. I reblogged this yesterday’s night “just for fun and because I don’t want any bagel to be mad with me”, and today’s afternoon, while I was losing my time as always, the professor I was supposed to work with called me and asked me for my personal information to start working with her.

THE BAGEL POWERS ARE WAY TOO MUCH FOR THIS WORLD

[token-white-friend]

I GOT A JOB THE DAY AFTER MY QUEUE POSTED THIS THE FIRST TIME AND I JUST REALIZED IT WHEN I SAW IT AGAIN HOLY GOD

[noodle-dragon]

The bagel hasn’t let me down yet!

[tentacles-and-coffee]

Let’s see what you can do bagel

[emositecc]

I need your luck, bagel

[danineedshelp]

….. Bagel?

[sunsetsandsunshine]

Bagel.

[doodlemeariver]

Roasted bagel

[themunflower]

Why the Hell not, Bagel, please help, my package is late.

[jtranageder1]

it’s here so why not see if it’ll do anything

[arorea]

[genericpuff]

was literally thinking the other day that i could really use one of those lucky golden potato posts right about now

this is obviously a burning bagel and not a golden potato but i suppose it’ll do LOL

[liongrl321]

lol yes

[the-real-ecosia]

Well I can’t really retweet is because this is tumblr 🙃

[realsafari]

kinda need this rn.

[totallycirclek]

please bagel

[ravewing]

hi bagel please help me out with #rares on #animal jam thanks

[angst-is-yumyumm]

Pls babel

[bamthelocalcryptid]

BAGEL PLEASE

[frostfae-thesoulcrow]

bahgel

[boughtmender]

bahgule

[tweaking-again-i-fear]

Bagel plsss

[spaghettihell]

Hehe bagel piss

[thartwell]

Pippin and its "War is a Science"es

Dunno if this interests literally anyone except me but this has been nagging at my brain the last couple days and I gotta get it out in writing.

"War is a Science", the third-or-fourth song in Pippin, is almost certainly its weakest number next to "Love Song". It's rife with what Sondheim liked to call "rhyming poison", and full of the sort of overly showy and cutesy trick rhyme, puns, and wordplay that Schwartz has always inexplicably loved. [I'd say he got better about this with age, but we all know what Wicked's lyrics are like].

I'm not a fan.

Evidently, though, it seems like Schwartz was on some level aware of the song's deficiencies, because it's changed quite a bit from minor lyric rewrites to entire structural changes, and seems to go back and forth between versions depending on at what point in time you're looking at the show. So this is, for my own sanity, a comprehensive layout of the different versions of the songs I've noted--the 1972 original, the OBC album/original license version, the 2000 revision, and the 2013 revival rewrite--and I will update it as I find any new versions or revisions. Please join me on this journey of exhaustively documenting one of my least favorite lyrics in musical theatre canon.

Because clearly, everything else in my life is going so well.

Version #1: The Original 1972 Script

As has been well-discussed in many places, the original script of Pippin was a tense battle between Stephen Schwartz/Roger Hirson and Bob Fosse, with Fosse being the eventual victor and Schwartz being banned from rehearsals. This then becomes the first version of the song audiences would hear, and it goes as follows:

CHARLES War is a science, With rules to be applied...

SOLDIERS Yeah!

CHARLES Which good soldiers appreciate, Recall and recapitulate,

A SOLDIER Hah!

CHARLES Before they go to decimate The other side! Now, this is the plan for tomorrow's skirmish: The army of the enemy is stationed on the hill, They're in favored field positions and they're ready for the kill! So we've got to draw them down here onto the plains And suddenly successfully usurp the battle reins, Then bring our horsemen into full effect-- And it all must be accomplished in a way they won't detect!

And when the foe see our soldiers marching through the lea, They will mount a charge and meet us at a place I've labelled "B". And their bowmen on the hill (In yellow on the map), Will leave their posts to join the rest and fall into our trap! We'll cut off reinforcements and retreat of any kind, Bearing principles of enfilade and defilade in mind!

And if all the ploys we pick to really Work to bring to pass occur, We won't have just a victory-- We'll have ourselves a massacre! Skidoo! And then!

SOLDIERS And then!

CHARLES And gentlemen, and then!

PIPPIN And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation's cheers! Doodah!

CHARLES Pippin, sit down immediately!

PIPPIN I'm sorry, father--I just got a little excited.

CHARLES Now, where was I? Ah, yes... War is a science, A breeding ground for brains!

A SOLDIER Ha cha!

CHARLES And though I cannot write my name...

TWO SOLDIERS Yuk yuk!

CHARLES The men whose pens have brought them fame Write endless paragraphs explaining my campaigns! Now listen to me closely I'll endeavor to explain What separates a charlatan from a Charlemagne: A rule confessed by generals illustrious and various, Though pompous as a Pompey or daring as a Darius, A simple rule that every great man knows by heart: It's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart! And if the fates feel frivolous And all our plans they smother... Well, suppose this war does shrivel us-- There'll always be another!

SOLDIERS Yeah!

PIPPIN Oh yeah! And then the men go marching--

CHARLES Pippin, I shall not caution you again! War is a very serious business.

PIPPIN I'm sorry, father...

CHARLES And then...

ALL And then...

CHARLES And gentlemen, and then...

SOLDIERS Doodah!

CHARLES Now... gentlemen... now!

SOLDIERS And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilation! We can hear a grateful nation cheer!

As far as I know, this is the lyric that remained in the show through its Broadway run and subsequent transfers and tours. This is also what's heard on the 1981 Toronto video of the show (albeit cut down in the final edit--you can hear the full version as above in the bootlegged Fosse cut). However this is not what was heard on the OBC album...

Version #2: The OBC Album/Original License

The version of "War is a Science" as heard on the OBC album is substantially different from what was heard on stage, featuring a new first verse and a different overall structure to the song. Why was this different if the show kept using the original version? Here's my supposition:

We know that Schwartz and Fosse disagreed heavily on the show, and what premiered on stage was the Fosse-approved version. We also know that Schwartz had a heavy hand in the OBC cast album, like he did on many of his cast albums, and is credited as a producer. My supposition is that Schwartz had more of a say on the score as recorded for the album--Fosse likely didn't care--and reverted changes imposed by Fosse, most primarily for this song.

I suspect that Fosse realized the song was weak and cut portions of it and created the interjecting framework to turn the song into a self-aware construct, essentially poking fun at its own self-satisfied cleverness, which likely didn't sit well with Schwartz. I also suspect Schwartz knew the song was imperfect and had by this point rewritten the first verse, but didn't have say to put it into the show proper.

This supposition is further supported by the original license--as many know Hirson and Schwartz gained control over the show when it came time for preparing the license, and removed much of Fosse's additions where they could. Included in this is replacing "War is a Science" with the OBC lyric, which goes as follows:

CHARLES War is a science, With rules to be applied... Which good soldiers appreciate, Recall and recapitulate, Before they go to decimate The other side! Now, gentlemen, this is the plan for tomorrow's skirmish: The army of the enemy is stationed on the hill, So we've got to get them down here, and this is how we will: Our men in the ravine (that's this area in green), Will move across the valley where they plainly can be seen. And the enemy (in blue) will undoubtedly pursue-- For that's what you depend upon an enemy to do!

Then to guarantee their folly, We'll bring bowmen into play, Who will fire just one volley And retire to point "A".

And then, and then, And gentlemen, and then!

PIPPIN And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation's cheers!

CHARLES Pippin, sit down immediately!

PIPPIN I'm sorry, father--I just got carried away.

CHARLES Now, where was I? Ah, yes... War is a science, A breeding ground for brains! For though I cannot write my name, The men whose pens have brought them fame Write endless paragraphs explaining my campaigns!

Now, when the foe see our soldiers marching through the lea, They will mount a charge and meet us at the point I've labelled "B". And their bowmen on the hill (In yellow on the map), Will leave their posts to join the rest and fall into our trap! Then we'll cut off reinforcements and retreat of any kind, Bearing principles of enfilade and defilade in mind!

And if all the ploys we pick to really Work to bring to pass occur, We won't have just a victory-- We'll have ourselves a massacre! And then, and then, And gentlemen, and then!

PIPPIN And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation's--

CHARLES Pippin, I shall not caution you again! In conclusion, gentlemen... Now listen to me closely I'll endeavor to explain What separates a charlatan from a Charlemagne: A rule confessed by generals illustrious and various, Though pompous as a Pompey or daring as a Darius, A simple rule that every great man knows by heart: It's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart! And if the fates feel frivolous And all our plans they smother... Well, suppose this war does shrivel us-- There'll always be another!

CHARLES And then, and then, And gentlemen, and then! Now... gentlemen... now!

SOLDIERS And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilation! We can hear a grateful nation cheer!

In terms of the revisions, the new first verse is undoubtedly better and sits more smoothly on the lyric. But you can also see why it was cut down on stage, it's awfully ponderous and the lack of the interjections do it no favors.

This version of the song remained until Schwartz and Hirson re-revised the show, now incorporating more of Fosse's insertions they had previously omitted. This leads us to...

Version #3: The 2000s License

This is the version of the show available to license until MTI supplanted it entirely with the 2013 script (I'm unsure when this happened--at least as of 2019 you could still license the "original" version, but currently only the 2013 script and orchestrations are available for license).

"War for a Science" is again edited here, but not enough to print out the lyrics in full. The only real change is that the ends of the verses have been edited--"then to guarantee their folly" and "and if all the ploys we pick"--while "and if the fates feel frivolous" was kept.

A good move, both to make the song less ponderous and to get rid of the worst line Schwartz ever wrote in his career: "and if all the ploys we pick to really work to bring to pass occur/we won't have just a victory, we'll have ourselves a massacre". Rhyming Poison of the worst degree, desperately trying to come up with a sentence structure that would justify the phrasing of "pass occur" to rhyme with "massacre", coupled with padding words like "really" to end up with a truly awful line.

This is the version of the song that remained until...

Version #4: The 2013 Revival

The 2013 saw the next, and to date last, revision of the show, coupled with a brand new version of its weakest song. It goes as follows:

CHARLES War is a science Which a general must use, With stratagems and strategies, Statistical analyses To know how many soldiers he's prepared to lose! Now, gentlemen, this is the plan for tomorrow's skirmish: The army of the enemy is stationed on the hill, So we've got to draw them down here, where they're easier to kill. So you in the ravine (that's this area in green), Will move across the plain where you plainly can be seen. And the enemy (in blue) will undoubtedly pursue-- And we'll hope to keep your losses to comparatively few! And then! ALL And then!

CHARLES And gentlemen, and then!

PIPPIN And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation's cheers!

CHARLES Pippin, sit down immediately! Now, where was I? Ah, yes... A general accepts that war is hell or even worse, He must never be too cautious or casualty averse. I'm certain the majority of blood that you will splatter Will be theirs, with just a minimum of damage that's collateral. But we know for success you must also pay a price, That's why for my success, you must sacrifice. And then! ALL And then,

CHARLES And gentlemen, and then!

PIPPIN And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering--

CHARLES Pippin!!!! PIPPIN Sorry, father... CHARLES Well, now time is short...I'll have to speed the whole damn thing up! In conclusion, gentlemen... Now listen to me, men, as I endeavor to explain What separates a charlatan from a Charlemagne: A rule known to generals illustrious and various, Though pompous as a Pompey or daring as a Darius, A little rule that every leader knows by heart: It's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart! And then!

ALL And then!

CHARLES And gentlemen, and then! Now, Pippin! Now!

SOLDIERS And then the men go marching out into the fray, Conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears! Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation's cheers!

It's the shortest of the different versions, so that's something in its favor. A lot of the lyrics have been rewritten to have more of a pointed satire, which the song desperately needed, but I also find the new lyrics clunky and weirdly ill-fitting to the meter (Stephen, you've been working on this song for 40 years, how is it worse with the meter???). It also adds the gimmick of the song speeding up every verse, and while that's a nice idea in theory it really just highlights how this lyric actually completely flops at high speeds.

Soooooo yeah. That's all four versions.

Conclusion? I don't fucking know, it's a shit song that I think mostly just got worse over time.

Lmk if any other versions of this thing surface lol

[gdelgiproducer]

This seems like a good time to point out that even from the '72 version to the '81 video, that lyric received a few minor revisions, including the soldiers being at "saber-tip position." If I remember more, I'll let you know.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

Tanz der Vampire fandom is a little too hung up on the replica productions as canon that must be used as a basis for fanwork.

“Herbert directs Carpe Noctem” like sure, in that staging. I’ve seen one where the vocals are done by three female vampires and in the end the Sarah and Krolock doubles retreat to have sex while leaving poor vampirized Alfred to burn to death in the morning sun. The same staging portrayed the ball as a wedding banquet where everybody but Herbert got a sip of Sarah’s blood because Krolock kissed a couple of members of the ensemble with a mouthful of it and passed it into their mouths, and then they all proceeded to swap spit so everybody got some. “Krolock drops Sarah callously on the ground at the ball” yeah, in that one! In others he catches her and holds her and it’s this pity and tenderness in itself that repulses her and makes her feel she has to get out Right Now! Kill the replica inside your head! Look at the lyrics and come up with your own interpretations and visuals!

[gdelgiproducer]

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

Okay, I have one bonus job I’m waiting to start training for that will already financially make up for the hours slashed at my main job, plus an interview for a third that will fit in around both of those on Friday morning (and last night I learned the dream job I applied to a couple of months ago hasn’t even had a chance to start going through resumes yet, so that’s still a possibility for the future).

My landlords dropped it on me that I need to pay an extra month’s rent as a U&O fee on Friday (4/10/26); I’ve figured out how to lock down the majority of the money, but I’m running about $700 short. I’m in the home stretch for the big problem here, but if there’s any way anybody can help, this should be the last time this comes up, because I think I’m at least finally getting back into the livable wage zone 💜

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

down to $400 to go 💜💜💜 thank you!!

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

Okay, I have one bonus job I’m waiting to start training for that will already financially make up for the hours slashed at my main job, plus an interview for a third that will fit in around both of those on Friday morning (and last night I learned the dream job I applied to a couple of months ago hasn’t even had a chance to start going through resumes yet, so that’s still a possibility for the future).

My landlords dropped it on me that I need to pay an extra month’s rent as a U&O fee on Friday (4/10/26); I’ve figured out how to lock down the majority of the money, but I’m running about $700 short. I’m in the home stretch for the big problem here, but if there’s any way anybody can help, this should be the last time this comes up, because I think I’m at least finally getting back into the livable wage zone 💜

[susandsnell]

hey all, my friend Megan ( @ozymegdias) is a really lovely soul who’s currently run into some issues with her hours being cut, repeated late paychecks including this week, compounding ongoing difficulties with her landlords/roommates, and could use some help at the moment. Please boost if you can’t donate; details about her venmo/PayPal can be found here and every little bit helps 💚

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

My paycheck (which was over $300 less than it was on average when I started this job) has basically been wiped out by bills and late fees and I still have more bills coming. I am trying to find other work and it’s not panning out so far. I don’t know what else to do but ask for help. I’m sorry, I’m madder than anyone that I’m in in this kind of spot again, but I don’t know what else to do.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

I really cannot emphasize enough that this is an emergency and I am at risk of losing even more work hours as well as my apartment. I am trying to communicate the seriousness of the situation to my roommates and it’s not getting through even though it will affect them too. I’ve spent most of the day trying to figure out what I can sell and applying for loans that have so far rejected me. I’m trying to be self-sufficient here but it’s not panning out (not even asking for more hours at work and applying for second jobs that will mean I don’t have any days fully off; it is that bad).

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

I have a preliminary info session tomorrow for what might be a job that will prevent this from happening again in the future. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be able to fix the problem in the next week, so please keep circulating this, but if this pans out I might actually make enough to get my own place in the future and not be burdened and begging like this anymore.

[liddie-dissociating]

Okay we are trying this again this time with clearer instructions and options.

Please read all instructions before voting.

If you are using the desktop site, mobile site in the browser, or an updated version of the app, please vote with the number of REBLOGS ONLY (not total notes) you see at the bottom of the post.

If you are using an un-updated version of the app, please vote "un-updated app." If you don't know what version of Tumblr you're using, please vote "I'm not sure what version of tumblr I'm using."

If you vote, please reblog. The purpose of this is to examine the new reblog behavior on Tumblr.

Please DO NOT add text to the body of your reblog.

The post you're seeing should have the word "Apple," "Banana," or "Coconut" as the first tag under the post. This is to track how the reblog behavior works with tags as opposed to reblogs with text. If you reblog, please tag and make "Apple" "Banana" or "Coconut" your first tag based on the first tag of the post you are reblogging from.

Again, the instructions are:

Vote with the number of reblogs ONLY (not total notes) you see on the updated app or desktop site. If your app hasn't updated or you're not sure what version of Tumblr you're using, make that your vote

Reblog this post without adding text to the body of your reblog

Tag your reblog "Apple" "Banana" or "Coconut" depending on which of the tags the post you are reblogging from is tagged with. Please make this your first tag.

How many reblogs do you see at the bottom of this post?

1-5

6-10

11-20

21-35

36-50

51-100

I'm using an un-updated version of the app

I'm not sure what version of Tumblr I'm using

Voting ended onMar 18

Please reblog and tag with the same first tag as the post you're reblogging. This should be "apple" "banana" or "coconut."

You can add other tags, but please don't add text to the body of your reblog. If you want, you can tag with the reblog count that you saw when you voted.

You can reply, but please do not reblog with text in the body of the reblog.

Thank you for participating in this experiment!

[gdelgiproducer]

Here's some old research material

Hello, everyone!

This blog isn't used very often these days, but you might recall that I once announced a podcast titled A Good Nightmare Comes So Rarely, intended to further explore the case study I conducted on the issues that arose when Tanz der Vampire became Dance of the Vampires.

Apart from the two episodes that actually saw release, my co-host @ozymegdias and I actually got pretty deep into research, learning a lot in particular about the mysterious April 2001 staged reading before everything went to shit, the one that starred Steve Barton reprising his award-winning performance as the Graf, under the direction of John Caird (Les Mis, Jane Eyre, etc.) Caird was very generous with his time, as was William Youmans (Abronsius in the reading; he went on to become the original Dr. Dillamond in Wicked).

Apart from that, though, it was difficult to break the cone of silence that the final cast and creative team seemed to have entered surrounding DOTV; between that and waning interest on my co-host's part as development dragged on and on, I decided to let it die.

However, the research material won't go to waste. DOTV has been on Wait in the Wings' docket for a long time, and I'm turning everything I have over to them to build an in-depth mini-doc around. (Eventually. They've got a lot of ground to cover on other shows first.)

I've also decided to share a portion of the source work with the general public. (That includes you, @alfredismyson.) Hit the jump!

You see, I (foolishly, as it turned out) anticipated not only that the audience would be large (it wasn't), but that it could include people unfamiliar with the many flavors of Tanz (ultimately hard to tell).

To familiarize them with the successful version, I created a selection of YouTube playlists for viewing and enrichment. They are listed below:

Original Replica -- In other words, a sampling of the most common version of Tanz, with the Bill Dudley/Sue Blane designs. I pulled together everything I could find on YouTube, from 1997 to at least 2019.

Revival Replica -- In 2007, Kentaur began making his design mark with the Hungarian production, and later replicated his efforts in Vienna and Russia. Again, pulled together all the ones I could find on YT.

Non-Replica -- This is the most fun playlist of all, at least for me! It collects the outliers, the productions that may have had recognizable features in common with the other Tanz-es out there but otherwise marched to the beat of their own drum. You'll see videos of Poland, Japan, Slovakia, two from the infamous St Gallen, a handful of clips from the one-night-only concert staging at Operafest Tulchyn in Ukraine (it was sung live in German, and they maneuvered around not being allowed to properly stage it by projecting the 2005 Berlin pro-shot upstage to give a semblance of plot and otherwise distracting the audience at times with admittedly awesome choreography and firework), and even an unauthorized Spanish translation from Mexicali. In the case of at least three of these productions, it will reflect the 1997 version, with apologies to fans of the new "Die Roten Stiefel/Gebet" (like me), so you might even see and hear stuff that has seldom been seen or heard since Tanz's earliest days. Enter with an open mind, and see what a different view may offer!

Hope you enjoy (some of) the fruits of our labors.

[grafenliebchen]

First of all: thank you for the update. For years I thought you continuesly wanted to talk about DOTV but never really did, so it’s nice to see what you’ve been up to. I‘m most curious to hear of the 2001 reading, mostly about the script that they were reading (which was probably not Kunze’s first English draft as it was never finished. It was just the first version of songs and dialogue, some of them not even fitting the music, to present to the English speaking part of the team before he continued working on it in German). Will Caird’s and Youman’s info be shared in Wait in the Wings or can you speak more about it?

[gdelgiproducer]

To answer some stuff quickly in the order received:

(Note: Any links in this post are to a storage service called Degoo, which requires users to log in using a Google or social media account to download the files in question.)

I suspect the script for the April 2001 reading was something between the July 1997 draft I have, which I suspect is the placeholder version to which you refer, and the May 2001 draft from the period immediately following that reading, when DOTV intended to go into workshop for theater owners, based on context clues from our interviews (specifically, some jokes that are still present in the May 2001 draft that Youmans remembered as being part of it) and info obtained second-hand from other people close to the process. (Although "Carpe Noctem" is not present in the May 2001 draft that I have, this is just a case of missing pages. Everything else about the script, including the song list at the front, suggests it was included.)

Wait in the Wings has yet to respond to my request to share info with them; as I said, they've got a lot of ground to cover on other shows first. What they include is up to them. However, as I have not yet granted them exclusive rights to the information, I may elaborate on everything Caird and Youmans had to say in the near future. Watch this space!

[gdelgiproducer]

Here's some old research material

Hello, everyone!

This blog isn't used very often these days, but you might recall that I once announced a podcast titled A Good Nightmare Comes So Rarely, intended to further explore the case study I conducted on the issues that arose when Tanz der Vampire became Dance of the Vampires.

Apart from the two episodes that actually saw release, my co-host @ozymegdias and I actually got pretty deep into research, learning a lot in particular about the mysterious April 2001 staged reading before everything went to shit, the one that starred Steve Barton reprising his award-winning performance as the Graf, under the direction of John Caird (Les Mis, Jane Eyre, etc.) Caird was very generous with his time, as was William Youmans (Abronsius in the reading; he went on to become the original Dr. Dillamond in Wicked).

Apart from that, though, it was difficult to break the cone of silence that the final cast and creative team seemed to have entered surrounding DOTV; between that and waning interest on my co-host's part as development dragged on and on, I decided to let it die.

However, the research material won't go to waste. DOTV has been on Wait in the Wings' docket for a long time, and I'm turning everything I have over to them to build an in-depth mini-doc around. (Eventually. They've got a lot of ground to cover on other shows first.)

I've also decided to share a portion of the source work with the general public. (That includes you, @alfredismyson.) Hit the jump!

You see, I (foolishly, as it turned out) anticipated not only that the audience would be large (it wasn't), but that it could include people unfamiliar with the many flavors of Tanz (ultimately hard to tell).

To familiarize them with the successful version, I created a selection of YouTube playlists for viewing and enrichment. They are listed below:

Original Replica -- In other words, a sampling of the most common version of Tanz, with the Bill Dudley/Sue Blane designs. I pulled together everything I could find on YouTube, from 1997 to at least 2019.

Revival Replica -- In 2007, Kentaur began making his design mark with the Hungarian production, and later replicated his efforts in Vienna and Russia. Again, pulled together all the ones I could find on YT.

Non-Replica -- This is the most fun playlist of all, at least for me! It collects the outliers, the productions that may have had recognizable features in common with the other Tanz-es out there but otherwise marched to the beat of their own drum. You'll see videos of Poland, Japan, Slovakia, two from the infamous St Gallen, a handful of clips from the one-night-only concert staging at Operafest Tulchyn in Ukraine (it was sung live in German, and they maneuvered around not being allowed to properly stage it by projecting the 2005 Berlin pro-shot upstage to give a semblance of plot and otherwise distracting the audience at times with admittedly awesome choreography and firework), and even an unauthorized Spanish translation from Mexicali. In the case of at least three of these productions, it will reflect the 1997 version, with apologies to fans of the new "Die Roten Stiefel/Gebet" (like me), so you might even see and hear stuff that has seldom been seen or heard since Tanz's earliest days. Enter with an open mind, and see what a different view may offer!

Hope you enjoy (some of) the fruits of our labors.

[greelin]

$50,000 immediately dropped into my bank account wouldn't improve EVERYTHING but boy it sure would be a grand, sexy little start to a good, happy life path, don't you think

[meilintheempressofdreams]

Reblog for unexpected $$$ dropping into your Bank account.

[symbolblue]

uhh did i forget how time works or was the first post in december 2018 and the second in august 2018

[greetings-inferiors]

Reblog for time travelling $$$ dropping into your Bank account.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

I haven’t had to do this in a very long time and it’s mortifying that this has even come up, but my boss basically forgot to pay me and my coworkers and it’s plunged me into overdraft hell this long holiday weekend. I went to reactivate my babysitting service account to try to pick up some last minute cash after work today, but it’s gone app-based and my phone won’t let me download the app because of overdraft hold on my card, so that’s out the window.

I am trying to get to a cumulative $500, but anything will relieve this really acute sudden strain. I had plans to do my laundry this weekend and needed to go to the grocery store and both of those are kind of impossible at the moment, to say nothing of the potential death spiral of fees.

My Venmo is @Megan-Lerseth; I am also on PayPal via [email protected] (old RP email, lol). Literally anything will help and this isn’t going to be an ongoing problem, but this carelessness from my boss has really screwed me over.

[gdelgiproducer]

Tanz der Vampire: What Came From Where

Introduction

Every fan of Tanz der Vampire knows that the score is far from original. Jim Steinman was/is notorious for the sheer amount of musical recycling he engaged in over both his pop and theater careers. As Meat Loaf said in his autobiography of Jim's songwriting process for albums, "The way Jim works on an album is this: First, he recycles stuff that's either been lying around or, often, songs he's used elsewhere in another form. [...] Steinman regurgitates the older material, then writes three or four new songs, which makes the album new. When he has the content down, then the album is ready to be recorded."

That was certainly the case with Tanz, with some estimates suggesting that as much as 70% (or more) of the score originated from his earlier projects, mainly from his less-known shows written in the late Sixties and early Seventies before he moved into the rock world. (Considering how many times the melodic motifs in this list recur in the show, 70% is likely an underestimation.)

However, it only recently became clear that this was no ordinary case of "old habits dying hard." In an anniversary-related interview with Blickpunkt Musical, Michael Kunze revealed exactly how the composing process for the show occurred. After Steinman was approached and his initial interest gauged, he provided Kunze and music supervisor Michael Reed with a box of tapes of existing melodies, encouraging them to use whatever they thought they could, and only directly collaborating on songs for the spots where they couldn't find an appropriate theme from the tapes. As Reed put it in a Vulture article chronicling the disastrous American adaptation, Dance of the Vampires, "We basically took Jim's melodies and the stuff he drafted from various sources and put it all together like a quilt."

(Ironically, given Jim's much-vented distaste for the final product in later years, he was far more hands-on involved in the creation of DOTV before abandoning ship... or being forced to walk the plank, depending on who you believe. As far as Tanz went, comparing the story he told on his blog with the above, the most I can confirm as to hands-on involvement is that he probably suggested where what became "Totale Finsternis," "Carpe Noctem," "Ewigkeit," "Die unstillbare Gier," and "Finale 2" should go, likely shaping their respective English lyrics as well, and that he almost definitely wrote the English source lyrics for what became "Stärker als wir sind" and "Das Gebet" when the show went to Stuttgart, as Kunze's English script has only a direct transliteration of his own German lyrics in that space.)

Many people have tried to catalogue the genesis of the melodies on various Wikipedia entries and in many publications, most of whom, not to toot my own horn too loudly, built on my research. (I'm happy to share the wealth, although I would prefer not to go down in history as the "Casting Crawford, 9/11, and other disasters" guy, even if that is who I am.)

With that in mind, it's time I set down the (currently, more info will always become available with time) definitive list of what began where.

The (Likely) Sources

Jim was working on several other musicals that failed to launch in the late Eighties and early Nineties, including an adaptation of the 1967 film The Graduate and his long-gestating Neverland concept, the latter then in the form of a possible film entitled Bat Out of Hell 2100. More than one demo tape exists for the latter, boasting at least six melodies apiece that were later snatched up by Tanz.

Despite his long-stated desire to write a vampire musical, my guess is that Jim was working against a tight deadline (in articles surrounding the opening of DOTV, he would excuse his use of the Grammy-winning "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by explaining that he only had a month to complete the score) and may have felt it might be a better idea to let someone else do the dirty work of establishing the primary ingredients and then coming in to help shape the final dish. The way he tended to compose, he could have done a lot worse.

My theory, which I must state is only that, is that Jim grabbed his Bat 2100 and Graduate tapes and handed them over. "Don't worry about the lyrics, write what you need to write, and we'll refine it." The track lists and melodies included certainly suggest this was possible.

The result was perhaps the world's most successful filk musical.

Act One

Ouvertüre is a much-used Steinman melody dating back to some of his earliest works, including his college musical The Dream Engine and the Off-Broadway play with music Kid Champion. However, it is best known by most fans of his recorded work as the first half of the instrumental prologue "The Storm" on his solo album Bad for Good, or as a primary melodic motif of "Nowhere Fast" from the film Streets of Fire. (German Wiki says that it was also used as part of the entr'acte for his and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind, but I think they just sound similar unless someone can point out actual melodic comparisons.)

Gott ist tot (Sei bereit) pulls from both "Original Sin" (recorded by Pandora's Box, Taylor Dayne, and Meat Loaf) and, of course, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," originally made famous by Bonnie Tyler. (The "Original Sin" theme appears again in Einladung zum Ball, a/k/a Ich lad' dich ein, and in Tanzsaal.)

Both Alles ist hell and Wahrheit began their lives as part of the unproduced musical of The Graduate, serving as a section of a song called "Ben" in the opening party scene.

Draußen ist Freiheit began as "Our Ship is In" in the early 1970s play Little Friend from Front Street, an educational piece for schools that told the story of a Polish-Jewish immigrant who financed much of the American Revolutionary War. (We all take early gigs that live on only as factoids if they do at all. Nature of this industry.) Some of the melody was then reused in "Something of This Masquerade May Follow" from The Confidence Man, an Off-Broadway musical loosely based on Herman Melville's novel of the same name. And, of course, the whole kit and caboodle (including Stärker als wir sind and Das Gebet) was eventually lyrically adapted and re-recorded by Meat Loaf, Karla DeVito, and Ellen Foley as "Going All the Way Is Just the Start (A Song in Six Movements)" for the album Braver Than We Are.

Finale 1 is a combo of a few old favorites: "Total Eclipse" appears again, then the bulk of the Vor dem Schloss section is adapted from "City Night," which originally appeared in both The Dream Engine and its later variant Neverland, and finally the Sink mit mir ins Meer der Zeit part comes from one of Steinman's oldest, most frequently used, and favorite chord progressions, which pops up again in Carpe Noctem later in the show, but has also appeared in "Come With Me, We Know Love" from the Off-Broadway musical More Than You Deserve, a longer version of "City Night" at one point, "For Crying Out Loud" on Meat Loaf's first Bat Out of Hell album, "Left in the Dark" on Steinman's own Bad for Good (but only in that version; neither Meat Loaf's nor Barbra Streisand's covers include it), etc.

Act Two

Totale Finsternis (Liebesduett) is, of course, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," with a dash of "Original Sin" at the very end. If I got into all the times he used the primary melody pre-1982, we'd be here all day, so I will simply say it frequently recurred in his early work, and that Meat Loaf commercially recorded one of the earliest uses as "Skull of Your Country" for the Braver Than We Are album. ("Turn around, bright eyes" was originally a reference to the blast flash from nuclear explosions, its origins referenced by the cannons in the instrumental section of its future descendant. Aren't you glad you know...) As for the melody's most popular form, I'd link you to the Bonnie Tyler original, but a) I already did above, and b) the song as it appears in Tanz is already fully formed on the Bat Out of Hell 2100 tapes, labeled "Love Duet." (The vocals are by Marcus Lovett and the late, great Laurie Beechman.) I guess it was never going to be terribly different except in foreign tongues (honestly, the lyrics aren't even terribly different from DOTV)...

Carpe Noctem (Fühl die Nacht), in addition to the melody already cited above, also cribs its main guitar-and-electric-piano riff from the Bat Out of Hell II arrangement of "Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)"; this riff also appeared in the instrumental piece "Back into Hell" on the same album. (German Wiki cites "Nowhere Fast" here as an influence, but while it sounds overall similar stylistically, and a very early version of Carpe Noctem intended for the Batman Forever soundtrack does borrow wholesale from it, the actual melody is in the overture of Tanz, not here.) Meat Loaf, of course, eventually covered it as "Seize the Night," with a snatch of "The Storm" on the front (replicating an English demo version for the show), for his album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose.

Für Sarah began its life melodically as "Milady" in The Confidence Man. It was later recycled as an unreleased song, possibly intended for Barry Manilow, entitled "Vaults of Heaven (Her Hymn)." (The latter also includes a melody from Steinman's film score for A Small Circle of Friends that I believe influenced the Gebet section of Draußen, but others may disagree.)

Die Gruft (inclusive of An so einem Tag and In der Gruft) borrows from "Who Needs the Young," which dates back to The Dream Engine in 1969 and has remained in all variants of that project, including Neverland and Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, as well as being recorded by Meat Loaf for the Braver Than We Are album. (Further, it is my theory, based on an interview with Anne Welte for the same publication named far above, that Jim may initially have intended to lift the whole song; she describes a version of the crypt scene that didn't make it out of rehearsals where Chagal is haunted by a puppet version of his wife, presumably comparable to the Fruma-Sarah nightmare in Fiddler on the Roof, but the scene didn't work, with Welte opining she would have preferred to be onstage rather than voicing a special effect. While, of course, I cannot say for certain, the only appropriate music I could think of for such a sequence would be to use the entire song. "Geil zu sein..." ultimately replaced it.)

Wenn Liebe in dir Ist has been called out on numerous occasions as a straight-up copy-paste of the David Bowie obscurity "Little Bombardier," which Jim Steinman, of course, did not write. However, it has since emerged that the melody was also used frequently in Steinman's early work, once as a song entitled "Oh Euthanasia, It's Really What We Crave" (...yes, seriously), as a number in a puppet adaptation of Ubu (again, yes, seriously) that seems to be called "At the For-Arts Cafe," and as the melodic setting for Lewis Carroll's "Lobster Quadrille" in a stage version of Alice in Wonderland. As a rip-off of Tim Buckley's "Wings" appears in The Dream Engine, and this would neither be the first nor the last time that Jim "made use of borrowed talent," shall we say, in his career (though more often with spoken word than melody, it should be noted), this appears not to have been a recent plagiarism, but instead one so old that he forgot the original melody was never his to begin with. (That's my theory anyway.)

Ewigkeit began its life, inspired by Eric Bentley's translation of Bertolt Brecht, as a setting of "Song of Defenselessness" from Good Woman of Szechuan, which Steinman promptly recycled as simply "Gods" into Neverland and related variants, used as an instrumental opening to Meat Loaf's original Bat Out of Hell tour entitled "Great Boleros of Fire," and which was recorded as "Godz" by Meat Loaf for the Braver Than We Are album.

Die unstillbare Gier is essentially "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" from Bat Out of Hell II (and, later, Bat Out of Hell: The Musical), with light adaptation.

Finale 2 (Der Tanz der Vampire) is a shameless rewrite of "Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young" from Streets of Fire, a song which also appeared on a Bat Out of Hell 2100 tape simply labeled "Closing Credits." I mean, let's face it: if anything was written to be a closing number, it's this guy.

If more pops up, I'll update the list. Until then... sei bereit!

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

re: the idiot of the week

At this point, most of us in the POTO corner of Tumblr have dealt with @/ouat90, a rando who posts mostly AI slop of women being bridal carried by men, targeted harrassment of a community theatre in Brooklyn, NY and his own former high school in the Midwest, and complaining about how he thinks Black women can't play Christine Daaè in Phantom of the Opera (despite the fact that at this point at least six of them have professionally, to say nothing of how they always could and just weren't given the opportunity for way too long).

I've learned, almost by accident, over the last few days that this guy isn't some new rando out of nowhere when it comes to pulling this stuff. He's been a malignant presence in various theatre fan communities for over a decade, pulling mostly the same stuff. This post, and the identifying information therein, contains nothing this guy hasn't put out there himself. My point in sharing this isn't to start a counter-harassment campaign. It's that this guy will not go away but is very easily identifiable when you know what to look for, and I feel that people in the spaces he digs into should be prepared so he can be blocked/kicked out as necessary.

Meet Joey Velazquez. He's an aspiring actor who takes basically anybody getting cast above him extremely personally and makes up inflated claims about his own successes. When called on this, he begins years-long harassment campaigns against anyone who corrected him/denied him/whatever. This is part of where his whole vendetta against Narrows Community Theatre in Brooklyn comes from; he was in a production of It's a Wonderful Life a few years ago, and when the company tried to accommodate his lack of experience without kicking him out of the show, he accused them of discriminating against him for being autistic. It should go without saying that a lot of people who work in theatre are autistic or otherwise neurodivergent and don't have his issues.

In fact, he's just as vicious toward other autistic people. A personal friend of mine who is also on the spectrum shared this account with me:

This was over a decade ago. Joe continued harassing him for over ten years for calling him on an obvious lie. He might still be trying to do so, but my friend blocked him a while ago after one of the emails crossed the spam filter. My friend continues:

Regarding the first marriage in question, my friend mentioned that Joe attempted to force the woman into a "relationship contract" by which he claimed she couldn't leave him, and that he would grow verbally abusive whenever she simply walked into the home she shared with Joe and her ill mother rather than letting Joe carry her over the threshold. While this came up in a phone call, so I don't have screenshots, Joe's own Tumblr features multiple posts where he complains that his "wicked ex-wife" didn't let him carry her. His kink for men carrying women wouldn't have even been mentioned in this post if he didn't leverage it as an excuse to abuse his ex-wife, but here we are.

After his marriage ended, Joe had a long-distance relationship with a Norwegian YouTuber named Martine, who ended things after a few months. Joe has since had several Reddit accounts banned for begging others to try to force Martine back to him and to contact her on his behalf (which, to be clear, the Redditors refused to do). Martine is also on the spectrum, and Joe has used that as an excuse for why they "belong together". He's also posted alarming intent to defy a restraining order Martine might have placed against him:

@littleeliza-lotte has also spoken to Joe's former castmates at Narrows Community Theatre, who mentioned that his harassment of Amelie Jacobs began while she was still underage and that he's been banned from the theatre. I have also had to ban him from my bookstore in Brooklyn before I even knew who he was (it was recognizing his photo that tipped me off that it was the same guy as this incident) for following and harassing the staff of a local theatre in the same complex. I ended up having to get him escorted away by complex security, and he might very well be banned from the whole thing.

His tumblr right now as far as I know it is ouat90; he is on Instagram (and presumably Threads?) as joevelazquez2.0, joe.velazquez.7, and biggestpassionsfan. I'm not sure if he has any other accounts, but I've tried to provide a comprehensive breakdown of his behavior so he can be recognized and avoided accordingly.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

IMPORTANT UPDATE Here are all of his Instagram accounts that we know of (thanks to the person who sent me this list):

Miguellopezfitzgerald Edwardtreason Biggestpassionsfan Christiangraylovesana nicaglenandglendanumber1fan daysofourlivesforlife36 jetlee9687 loveconqueors35 janderson27982 joevelazquez2.0 jasperanderson360 joe.velazquez.7 His YouTube accounts: Blairbart2794 Joevelazquez6242

I'm inserting a read-more at this point because there are discussions of CSAM under the cut.

The "her" in the first sentence is Gypsy Rose Blanchard; he was apparently stalking her/sending letters while she was in prison for killing her abusive mother (thankfully, she was released a few years ago), and after everything else she's been through. The last thing she needs is This Guy writing to her. I knew he was kind of fixated on her; I did not know he had contacted her enough to concern her family. As for the rest of this... good lord.

I am not sharing any of this for the sake of starting drama. This guy is legitimately dangerous and needs to be treated as such.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

one last round of clarifications from my friend:

He also provided me with a log of Joe's posts on FilmBoard ("same behavior and just as unsettling there"). From another user, here are public records of his letters to Gypsy Rose Blanchard. And to circle back to what brought this goon into our consciousness in the first place, it turns out that while he complains about Black women playing Christine, he has no problem doing the most minstrel show-style blackface I've ever seen irl.

Don't engage with this guy. Block, report, spread the word, do whatever you need to do.

[copperbadge]

On Saturday I said to my partner, as I have said for months, "A ten thousand dollar a year raise would solve so many of my problems."

As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don't want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.

As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I'm going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can't even.

May all of you get the $10K raise your soul has yearned for. And whatever level of sex you can be satisfied with for $200.

[vergess]

hey bestie i think ur post might be charmed 'cause you aren't gonna fuckin believe what happened today