#stephen schwartz

[quasiimodo]

so here is a riddle,

to guess if you can,

sing the bells of notre dame

HOND 30TH ANNIVERSARY WEEK day seven: one quote

[themitchiemitch]

The Prince of Egypt (1998) dir. Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, Simon Wells

There can be miracles when you believe…

[fdelopera]

Your reminder that Prince of Egypt in Hebrew GOES HARD. You're welcome.

Chag kasher v'sameach!

[just-your-average-shiz-student]

💚 ♾️ 🩷

[iusedtobethemoon]

oh im sure

[notearsnora]

Ariana, Cynthia, Idina, Kristen and Stephen performing For Good at the Gershwin Theatre.

[lostsometime]

I didn’t manage to watch last week’s CR until now and I am just so fascinated by the portrayal of Sylandri as actually, literally the elves’ mother.

like, Vaelus is having trouble remembering her prayers, and her brother is deeply devout, and it comes across like any other sort of Wildmother-esque fantasy nature goddess religion- and then she revokes his powers because he said “bitch.” Like, she IS listening to you at all times, and she WILL punish you for being naughty and saying naughty words. She is not just their goddess, but their actual MOM, and she’s a particularly overbearing mom at that.

and I am reminded of what is probably my favorite musical, Children of Eden, which I don’t really talk about a lot about on here. To paraphrase Jane Austen, maybe if I loved it less I would be able to talk about it more. But the overarching metaphor is about parenting, as portrayed through the lens of the stories of Genesis.

there’s this one song in Act I called “Father’s Day,” where the character of Father (which is what we are calling G-d in this show) is watching Adam and Eve sleep for the first time, after the first day of their lives, and thinking about parenthood, with a refrain that gets many many reprises throughout the show. And it really feels like if you swapped the word “father” for “mother,” you’d have a song that could have been sung by Sylandri. The lyrics there include lines like

“In my own image  From my likeness are they sprung They will keep me company  They will keep me young”

and

“I will be their teacher and I will be their guide And anything they'll ever need I'll be there to provide And in return, they'll love me Stay forever at my side That's what it means to be a [Father]"

and the character arc, for the character of Father (who, let’s remember, is both LITERALLY G-D and also a metaphor for fatherhood and parenting generally) is to realize that this was a very selfish position, and that it’s not, actually, what fatherhood is all about. That wanting to keep his children protected and ensconced in an eternal, unchanging childhood, in a perfect perpetual Eden was wrong of him, because the point of children is to grow up and the point of parents is to help them do that. And that being a father isn’t really about HIM at all, and that by focusing on how HE feels, he was failing to give them the things they needed to grow into independent beings. Making this realization takes him the whole show, and it is the real conflict of the entire thing - and it takes him MANY human generations to get there. And it seems like maybe Sylandri needed to learn the same thing - and like she didn’t manage it, in fact. Maybe she could have, eventually, given a long enough timeframe, but she never actually pulled it off.

And so part of Vaelus’ pain is that she has been left to try and figure out how to be an adult when she was never actually made to grow up- because Sylandri wanted children, and she wanted them forever.

[jbaileyfansite]

As Wicked fans head to movie theatres to see Wicked: For Good, Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey performing "As Long As You're Mine" is being singled out by some as a highlight. From the acting and vocal skills of the stars, to the attention the "sex cardigan" is receiving, it's certainly a conversation point in the movie. And even Wicked composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz was taken by the moment.

"It's like one of the sexiest things ever filmed," Schwartz told reporters. "Part of it is [Jonathan] Bailey and Cynthia Erivo, but I mean, they're fully clothed for the whole thing. I think Johnny drops a suspender or something, and people are hooting at the screen, because it's so sexy. So that certainly changed my perspective about that song."

Bailey told reporters that it's a moment that he's really proud of in Wicked: For Good, while also praising Erivo as a collaborator for the scene, highlighting that they were both "locked in."

"Cynthia didn't just hold me up throughout that performance, but the whole audience as well," Bailey said. "That was a really brilliant example of, we came in and we had a couple of hours of rehearsal a week ahead of shooting it."

"And the biggest challenge there, yet again, is when exploring in close-up and in the extraordinary world that's now been built, how do you really make sense of what's happening between the two of them? They have to discover each other in a way that they've not ever been given the permission to. And it's the perfect chemistry or equation for a real sensual communication between two people who are kind of animal-like with each other. And I'm really proud of it. ... It's a great privilege just to sit and kneel in front of her while she sings in your face."

Bailey added that Wicked: For Good allowed the actor to discover just how "serious" Fiyero is and "completely changed" how he is from his reunion with Elphaba.

"I think his embodiment and his change and his transformation is about that thing that, as humans, we experience. You have to move through eras in your life, and in order to really become someone who stands by a moral code and a value system, you do have to let go of the ability to be frivolous, because suddenly things come into focus and they do mean a lot," Bailey said. "And I think I feel that, that's something that I really relate to, and I think I've given myself more permission to really care and to communicate how much I care."

Reflecting on his experience in Wicked and Wicked: For Good, Bailey highlighted that he's seen the "impact" of the performances from Erivo and Grande, particularly on younger audiences, while Bailey adds that he has also reconnected with his younger self and found his own sense of inspiration.

"I'm directly communicating to little me somehow, especially in going back to my roots, which was ballet," he said. "I trained as a ballet dancer, and singing is a great passion of mine, and I think I'm going into a singing era now, which is one that I never knew I would really fully embrace."

"Limiting narratives about what I thought was possible have all started to peel away, and what a time to be alive for me anyway, as an actor, to be able to play these roles that maybe wouldn't have been available to me five or 10 years ago."

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