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Newsies: Flop to Hit
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – March 2025 Sometimes it’s all about timing. In 2002, the movie musical Chicago was released, winning six Academy Awards including Best Picture. The success of Chicago paved the way for a new generation of successful live-action musicals, most recently the critically acclaimed and popular movie Wicked. However there exists a vast wasteland between…
Why would anyone, especially Steven Spielberg, choose to remake West Side Story?
Get to know your Tech
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – February 2024 Dancers live in light as fish live in water. The stage space in which they move is their aquarium, their portion of the sea. Within translucent walls and above the stage floor, the lighting supports their flashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies. The dance is…
Who Was Cyrano?
LPintDid you know that there really was a Cyrano de Bergerac?
Grease was the brainchild of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. It was originally a smutty look at high school in the 50s.
Grand Rapids Players’ production of “Fiddler on the Roof“. Editor’s note: This article is from the Grand Rapids Players’ newsletter and is reprinted here with permission. Grand Rapids players will be our hosts for MACT*Fest 2027 at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids in February of 2027. What an audience might not realize about the…
Digital Scenery
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – March 2024 King Triton’s court, Ursula’s Lair, and a storm-tossed Galleon; are just a few of the many scenes set under and over the sea in the Reif Theater Arts production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid JR. How do we go about designing these scenes without breaking our…
I Hate Sound!
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – February 2025 It’s been said that “Everyone knows how to do two jobs, their own and sound.” OK, it was me, I said that! But it’s true! I’ve never had anyone come back to me at the light board and complain that they can’t see the actors, but…
Hairball: By the Numbers
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – June 2025 No, it’s not the next winning Powerball numbers, but if they are, I want a cut! It’s Hairball by the numbers! ㉕ We got lucky! Hairball was originally scheduled for September 2024. But the September date conflicted with a radius clause for another of their concerts,…
Winter Dance Party
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – January 2024 n January of 1959, a twenty-four day musical tour of the Midwest began in Milwaukee. Twelve days later the “Winter Dance Party” would end in tragedy on Feb 3, 1959. 2026 will mark the 67th anniversary of “The Day The Music Died.” The number one and…
The late 1960s brought a lot of expensive musicals to the screen
Lion King Jr.
John MillerBehind the Scenes by John Miller – November 2025 No one sets out to make a bad movie. No one sets out to make a classic movie. Somewhere during development, filming, editing and marketing a film can go either way. In theater there are dozens of people behind the scenes, in film it’s thousands. Sometimes,…
Here are a few more of the responses Howard got on his website from the article I printed two weeks ago.
Here are a few of the responses Howard got on his website from the article I printed last week.
Theatre The Theatre Community Disdains
Guest AuthorI would like everyone to stop using “community theatre” as a punch line or punching bag.
Sir Carol Reed and “Oliver!”
Steven LaVigneBy Steven LaVigne There are over 500 film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ writing. At least 20 of these are based on his 1838 novel, Oliver Twist. Among them is a 1922 version starring Jackie Coogan as the title character opposite Lon Chaney, “the man of a thousand faces” as Fagin. Taking a look at this…
Sidney Lumet and “The Wiz”
Steven LaVigneBy Steven LaVigne Films based on the work of L. Frank Baum have been made for over a century. The first Wizard of Oz film was made in 1910. The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) was a film before it became a novel, The first feature length version was released in 1925 starring Dorothy Dwan…
George Cukor and “My Fair Lady”
Steven LaVigneMy Fair Lady is one of the theater’s most phenomenal musicals.
John Huston and “Annie”
Steven LaVigneby Steven LaVigne It was Martin Charnin’s idea to transform Harold Gray’s comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, into a musical. However, when he first suggested it to playwright Thomas Meehan and composer Charles Strouse their response was negative. They gradually came around to the project. At the time, the United States had survived the Nixon/Watergate…
James Whale and the 1936 “Show Boat”
Steven LaVigneby Steven LaVigne Although it didn’t happen often enough, several movie musicals managed to capture the brilliance of their stage beginnings. This production of Show Boat, brought to the stage in 1927 by Florenz Ziegfeld and considered the first great musical of the Twentieth Century is a perfect example. Released by Universal, the 1936 version…